My Exploding Cat

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Chapter One–And You Thought Ditching School Was Fun–Edit #3

CHAPTER ONE—AMANDA

The only person I can trust right now is myself. That was my motto for a few years. There was one exception to the rule, and her name is Mel.

I’ve been through a lot to tell this story, so please don’t interrupt. I can’t start from the beginning of my life, since that’s too complicated and I still haven’t managed to piece all of it together. I’m not even sure of my birthplace, but that doesn’t matter. Instead, I’ll start at the most influential, nerve-racking, magical, amazing, insane, suicidal, awesomely kick-butt experience I’ve ever, ever had.

Running away.

To understand this story, you need to know that Anoki could be compared to faeries, the difference being that Anoki have powers relating to specific elements, some natural and some not. You also need to know that I am one. I happen to be one of the few Anoki with Earth talent, which makes me a healer and almost indestructible in any battle, unless you manage to kill me before I can heal myself, like a neck attack. Unfortunately, a few too many people seemed to know that lately. I could just imagine a bunch of bored Kliid soldiers saying, “Hey! I know! Let’s go freak Amanda out by trying to split her skull down the middle!”

Earth talent is pretty rare, and I was the Zepha tribe’s only healer at the time. I was expecting pretty much everyone in the village to come after me now, trying to either kill me or persuade me to rejoin the village. The Zephans relied so much on me that people could get killed without my magic, but if they were worried about that, then they should have paid attention to the first aid lessons I gave, or taken advantage of the potion stock. I saw it like this: either I’d run away successfully and get what I wanted, or the Zephan dictators would change the laws, and I’d return. Death was not an option. If neither happened, I wasn’t sure if I planned to come back at all. I’m really bad at predicting stuff like that, and I didn’t see that there were a lot more than two options open.

Why was I leaving? A perfectly reasonable question. But it was set in an unreasonable world and an unreasonable place and time.

If I was a normal, obedient little girl who was impressionable enough to believe that dictator-knows-best, I would be at school, getting magic done on myself—specifically, the Commitment Spell—which limits the recipient (read: victim) to a certain element, but supposedly allows them to do the best magic of that element. I don’t believe it, because I’ve never met an Earth spell I couldn’t do relatively well. Since I obviously couldn’t call in sick, I had to leave the village to avoid school. Otherwise, the teachers would trot over to my house and demand to know why I wasn’t there. Stalkers. Since I was pretty sure that they wouldn’t buy a (fourth?) lame-o excuse about the Fever I Can’t Cure And Keep Getting This Time Of Year Which Just Happens To Be Sort Of The Exact Date Of The Commitment Spell—Oops.

The Commitment Spell is one of the most questionable pieces of magic ever discovered. Fittingly, it’s Darkness magic, and is one of the few spells to require specific items to be present. A loop of elemental objects is made. They can be nearly anything, as long as they can, in some form, represent the element, and as long as they are in the right order. A parasol can represent Darkness, since it blocks the sun, and you can use a pile of twigs for Earth magic, a lit candle for Fire, a psychology book for Dreams, et cetera. Specifically, the order goes like this: the four natural elements, which can be in any order, then Light, then Darkness, Time, Storm, and Dreams. The loop’s purpose is to bind the spell to a specific area. The recipient of the spell must be in the loop when the spell is cast for this to take effect.

The recipient then morphs, slowly, into the perfect vessel for the magic they have,  and more of that element of magic is absorbed. The person doesn’t even look the same afterwards; Light Anoki transform into short, perfect angels with narrowly pointed ears, Darkness Anoki end up as silent, antisocial people who move smoothly and sneakily, Fire Anoki turn out to be temperamental, flighty creatures with a red or blue tint to their eyes and hair, Water Anoki are tall, slender and gentle, and I have no clue what happens to Earth Anoki. Little kids transform into six-foot-tall creatures which no longer seem to be Anoki. Their appearances and personality are toned down enough to be accepted afterwards as relatively normal, but that doesn’t mean they end up looking or acting at all like the true, uninfluenced Anoki they had been.

This scares people, for good reason, so when the school brings out a classroom’s worth of kids, the entire process is done, one by one, in a huge cage. If you’re forced into this, you want to be the first person. Everyone else is almost literally scared to death (or wishes they were) after the first person goes, and some have even been known to wet their pants.

Plus, if someone takes the Commitment Spell, they can get possessed by the magic they used to control. The magic takes them over, takes away what makes them Anoki and not balls of raw power. The caster of the spell has basically shoved a bunch of magic, a force that’s never supposed to walk the earth by itself, into a body. It can have a lot of different effects, but you don’t want to meet a possessed Darkness Anoki—ever.

The school does this every three years, normally with eight-, nine-, and ten-year-olds, but Mel invented the aforementioned fever excuse so I could stay home when it was my class’s turn. What makes me really sick is that when these kids come home, Light Anoki with pretty blond hair, Water Anoki with sparkly blue eyes, none of them overweight anymore and the memory of the deathly fear nearly wiped from their minds, the parents coo over them and ask, “Oh, was it Commitment Day today? …And you look so cute!” and they don’t have a clue happened, because the memory of what the Commitment Spell does has been wiped from their minds, too.

The only reason I know so much about the spell is because in third grade, I’d managed to break both arms at once by tripping over a log I’d meant to jump over, out on the battlefield, and I wasn’t able to heal myself since I couldn’t set my arms in the right position. I’d taken about a month off school, and I wandered all over the village during that period, enduring the two slings Mel (who was the closest thing I’d had to a mom) had given me. Anyway, one of my usual haunts had been the school, and I’d been hanging around the huge cage for about a week, wondering why it was there, and had hidden in the background at just the right time. I saw the whole thing and cried for hours afterward. I ran home to Mel and told her the entire story, and she agreed with me adamantly and assured me that she herself had never taken the spell; the Commitment Law was passed after she was the right age, and she hadn’t chosen to take it.

Nobody even told those kids why they were going outside before shoving them helplessly in a cage and shutting the door to force them to receive magic that was totally unnecessary and would change them forever. Nobody told them about the risk of being possessed. Nobody told them not to go in the cage. They didn’t even know what the Commitment Spell was. It was worse than death.

That was what I was running away from.

And if it didn’t scare you very much, then maybe you need to reread it.

Let’s hope the rest of this book will be a little lighter than that was. My mom had been good at all kinds of magic. I’d never thought much of it until I learned that few other people could do more than three kinds. She’d tried hard to teach me magic from each Anoki element, which were Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Light, Darkness, Time, Storm and Dreams. Earth had been the only one that had stuck with me at the time. I couldn’t even light a candle by magic or make air move, but I could heal anything from cat scratch to brain tumor, and talk to plants. Only my mom ever knew about that last talent. Dad never caught on, and I never did it in front of my friends because Mom said that they couldn’t hear the plants. I was already deemed crazy for various reasons I won’t explain, and I didn’t need to confirm it to everyone else by talking to mostly-inanimate objects.

All of my friends had a talent in a stronger element, like Fire or Water. Some of the Darkness and Time Anoki bullied me until I started using Earth magic for anything that hurt me, not just the big stuff. They gave up after I repeatedly returned from recess bearing no battle scars. I did this for other kids, too. If a little kid fell off a swing at school, I would heal the sidewalk scuffs. Kids paid me in quarters if I did a little healing magic for them. It eventually got out of control, and I had people following me constantly. I loved little kids and didn’t mind healing them, but teenagers should have been able to suffer through needle pricks.

The teachers never trained me in anything other than Earth magic. I picked up some simple Light and Water spells, taught by my sort-of friends. (Since I was a different element from everyone else and had never been Committed, my friendships were always kind of awkward.) Light is picky and complicated, though, and getting it to do what you want is hard. I liked Water, but it’s heavy, and you have to struggle not to drop it, like trying to keep a dozen balloons up in the air at once.

None of the Zephans had Air as their element, even though the Zepha “village” is huge. “Village” and “tribe” are the collective nouns for a group of Anoki; it doesn’t refer to the size of the actual area. Flock of geese, pack of dogs, village of Anoki, that type of thing. The Zepha tribe is actually more like a city, littered with all kinds of crazy people, haughty idiots, guilty bystanders, bad cooks, and actor wannabes.

Back to the story. Since Air Anoki are even rarer than Earth Anoki, I figured the dictators wouldn’t want to give up either talent by making me commit when I come back. Save the marriage jokes for someone else, please.

Who am I? You ask. Or, more likely: Who the heck is this person and how many psychiatrists has she driven nuts?

You’re looking at a mint-condition Amanda, capable of archery and with six or seven years of mercenary-style fighting experience. (No, I’m not on eBay.) Why would I have that at thirteen years? To put it short… Kliid tribe no likey Zepha tribe. As in, a decades-long war, the conflicts which started it long forgotten. I started out healing a few soldiers every day, then learned to manipulate plants enough to make simple potions. My crazy godmother, Mel, who had sort of kind of unofficially adopted me, taught me how to fight, how to shoot and make bows, how to get the most plant growth out of a plot of land. For a Water Anoki, she did seem to know a lot about growing stuff. Also, I grew up in adoration of her because she dressed and fought like a ninja.

You’d think that somebody would tell a seven-year-old girl to get off the battlefield, and most people did, at first. But after I snuck in repeatedly and saved a bunch of people’s lives while avoiding all strikes myself, other people started telling anyone who scolded me to shut up. It was kinda funny. After a while, I got really good at fighting in defense, whatever, but the really awesome thing was that I was totally undefeatable in dodgeball.

My biggest regret: I hadn’t saved the two lives that counted to me personally: my parents. Mel took me in after they disappeared so that I would have some sort of a parent. Maybe she’d been a friend of my mother, or maybe she could see the benefit of raising a healer. She didn’t earn much, and I wasn’t paid for my fighting since I didn’t want to join the army and be put under that much control, so I had to heal people for money, or go hungry. I could grow vegetables easily enough—that’s probably how Mel could afford to support me—but that wasn’t meat, and I’m not into thievery or—ick—cannibalism, even though dead Kliid were in abundance.

I had hoped for a long time that disappeared didn’t mean dead, but then I overheard my teacher talking with Mel and found out that the soldiers had found bodies, collapsed in the forest.

Of all the species of fey, animals, and humans in the world, I’d always choose Anoki to live with. They seem… I don’t know, independent. Sort of. But at the same time, they do rely on each other for certain jobs. Fairies, pixies, Shapees, dragons… they tend to try and be weirdly nonconformist, but everyone does it at once, kind of like when two people are trying to get out of each other’s way and keep leaning away simultaneously to try and dodge the other but lean in the same direction and fall over. But Anoki are already nonconformist, being separated by the elements, and conformity within element groups is normal because each type of magic has its own personality and the Anoki has taken some of it. If they’re different, it usually means they’re weak spellcasters.

Magic wielders are the only humans worth talking to, seeing as most have a brain, though they’re still humans and have relatively boring magic. But they’re similar to Anoki in certain ways. They always have some sort of implement, usually a staff or a wand or something. Anoki have yarn rings like the kind you tie around your finger as not to forget something, except that ours don’t have knots. But ours are created by magic, and always stay on unless we’re about to die. (Human magic wielders have considerable problems in that last area with their own implements, since theirs don’t stick to their hands.) Usually, Anoki rings are the color that tends to represent the Anoki’s element. Mine, strangely, isn’t a deep green like normal Earth Anoki’s rings. It’s kind of a misty, mint green, and is speckled with dark blue where it hits my hand. I’ve been mistaken for a Water Anoki before.

I needed to find a village that would accept me and that had an Air Anoki who was willing to teach me Air magic. This was kind of a bad task to get stuck with. Since I, uh, couldn’t fly, I had to find villages like a human. I couldn’t locate an Air Anoki using magic, since finding people was probably something more like Dream magic. I had to go on foot, and I had to find a village with an Air Anoki by hand. And even when I reached a village that I was sure wasn’t the Zepha tribe, it wasn’t guaranteed that I would find an Air Anoki. Kind of the opposite, actually. The talent was so rare…

I calmed down, just a little. I was maybe a mile from the village. In that short little trek, I had gained a jittery jump-up-and-down rush of adrenaline. Then I realized why: there was this whirring little noise behind me, getting louder. It sounded really familiar—I’d heard it at school. It was… it was…

Two Fire Anoki and a Darkness Anoki crashed between the trees. They were only about twenty yards away. I turned tail and ran at a speed I rarely have to run at. This was an emergency: those guys could kill me in an instant, before I could heal myself. I admit it: I panicked. If I’d stayed calm, I probably would have been faster, but I didn’t.

I thought fast as I ran, then came to a decision. I yanked an arrow from my quiver and nocked it on my bow. Guess it was a good idea to keep it strung after all.

But maybe not. The dictators  had sent my own friends after me, because they were so afraid I might kill their warriors. I guess I’m too predictable. But I’d wasted time by getting ready to fight, and needed to run faster.

I was forced to keep the arrow in hand for sake of time, but took a few seconds to call out in rapid Tree to some tall bushes, which uprooted themselves and went to surround the others. I put an automatic-heal spell on them so the Anoki couldn’t blast through and immediately felt my energy drain from magic use. The trees would eventually let them go anyway, but not until the end of the day.

They were caged in seconds, but before the circle of trees was stable, one of the Fire Anoki shot a flame and burned my foot. Needless to say, my friends aren’t very loyal.

I yanked off my burning shoe, biting my lip. “Physician, heal thyself,” I said, and the burn faded slightly, but at the cost of more energy. I chucked the shoe into a puddle and ran with one foot bare.

I asked the bushes to let Mel know I was leaving so she wouldn’t go looking for me. Mel couldn’t talk to plants, but plants can write.

I saw, at the edge of the forest, a flash of purple. Then it was as close as the others had been. I ran faster. One of the Time Anoki had fast-forwarded his pursuit and was almost on top of me. Well, I was a fast runner. I sped up.

He sped up as well, but after that I could tell from his gait that he’d be too magically tired to do anything else without collapsing. But the second store of energy reserved for magic had no effect on the first store of physical energy, and he was running like water anyway. If I could collapse him either magically, physically or mentally, he’d be a heap in a few minutes. Especially if I outran him, which I could do if my energy held out, or… I decided quickly.

I widened the gap between us to give me some time. Then, panting hard, I stuck a maple seed in the ground and convinced it to grow fast. I jumped into the tree when it was big enough to hold my weight and climbed to the top. Then I grew it to full size, supplementing it with energy. More magic, more energy; I couldn’t possibly do more after this trick. Hopefully I wouldn’t have to.

The Anoki saw me. Kind of hard to miss a huge honkin’ tree growing that fast. As he started to climb the tree, I shifted branches and hopped to an oak. The Anoki was stuck wandering around in the foliage of the first tree while I was crossing branches of several of the other trees, thanking the universe in general that I’d run far enough into the forest for it to be dense enough for me to pull this off. I was starting to get physically tired as well as magical, and if I had to avoid anyone else, I was going to end up back at school, facing a nightmare. When I was several trees away, I discreetly dropped to the ground and got my butt out of there. And the rest of me, too.

Welcome to Rabbit-Eating Girl, the brand new hit reality TV show!

Okay, no. One, I’m much too practical for reality TV. Two, I hate soap operas. Three, I don’t have a camera, and if I’m not mistaken, most reality TV is not shot in some stupid forest. Four, if I was only eating rabbit, I’d probably be dead by now. Rabbit’s lean meat.

I hear you tree huggers, all yelling protests and forming a mob. Nothing’s going extinct around here. Anyway, I’m an endangered species; there’s only one of me. Why aren’t you rioting and storming the Zephan dictators to protect me? Spoiled animals.

I’d actually been eating pretty well on the forest critters which were, surprisingly, in large quantities and low intelligence. Maybe it was just my magic that gave me an edge surviving, or maybe it’s just because I was pretty much used to scavenging. If the dictators had ever paid me, I probably wouldn’t have been able to survive their attacks.

I had been attacked several times since that first day, including three Fire Anoki, a Dream Anoki, and a Darkness Anoki with an odd invisibility spell. When I was actively traveling, I needed to be quiet and find sneaky ways to disguise myself. I couldn’t use magic all the time to hide, especially since Earth magic doesn’t really have a spell for direct invisibility. I could only sleep for about four hours at a time out of fear I’d be stabbed in my sleep.

Thankfully, I spotted a human camping site and jacked all their Pepsi. So I still had the whole will-to-live thing.

Besides the mud, mosquitoes, snake danger, poison ivy (which I’d healed seven times already), poison oak (five times), heatstroke danger, bear danger, poison BewareBerries danger, and every other stinking danger, I was doing pretty well. I would be doing better if I could find a place to wash my clothes.

It occurred to me, about three days into the endeavor that Jaken was probably tracking me with Dream magic, and the only reason that his warriors hadn’t caught me yet was that I walked fast or something. I thought for a while until I remembered a spell that I was pretty sure would make it harder for Jaken to pull a trick. The spell made it so that if someone tried to locate me with Dream magic, they’d see the mind of a plant. The spell had to be set in a living plant and kept close, which meant that I was wearing ivy in my hair constantly (yes, it did turn out to be poison ivy, and after the fourth day of enduring the “uncurable” itch, I figured out what was happening and replaced it promptly), which actually did live because I hardly stopped to take a bath and, lying in the mud, there was enough dirt already threaded through my hair that it stuck and wasn’t noticed. Scary.

I kept hoping that I’d somehow learn Air magic on my own, but that was extremely far-fetched and I knew it wouldn’t happen. I’d been trying to fly every day, and it wasn’t working. I wished I could fly to wherever I needed to learn Air magic, just so I could learn some of the spells if I did end up with the talent. Mel would have been my only reason for going back to the Zepha tribe in the first place. (Now, as I write this, I have several other reasons to go to the Zepha tribe, but that’s another story.)

Hopefully, the dictators won’t try to commit me to Air magic, either. But they probably know by now what it’s like without me and can gauge the loss. Which may or may not be big.

I was thinking this, sitting by a shrimpy fire I’d coaxed into existence. I was in a mood, and any wood I touched was trying to grow, including the matches I’d stolen from the campers. It was, annoyingly, kind of funny. Advice: Green wood doesn’t want to burn. It just smokes, and hacking up a lung while you’re already covered in grease, dirt, assorted bits of grass and swamp plants, and other stuff that smells so good is not fun.

Then I heard the twang of some kind of magic—what, I didn’t know, but the temperature was getting suspiciously hotter and all my senses went on alert. I stuck the meat I was cooking on the sharpened stick, which was also not burning, and shoved the other end of the stick into the ground. That way, I should be able to know if any animals messed with it. If I didn’t have to tree-climb for dinner, it was a good plan.

I traced the noise to a clump of near-dead pine trees and a scrawny-looking bramble. They were so close together I could barely see what was behind them, but I did see a fire. A pretty large one.

I set an automatic healing spell up as a shield. I wasn’t too fond of barging in on a possible Fire Anoki enemy with no protection. I strung my bow and pulled an arrow for ready use.

I shoved my way between the pine trees, adrenaline preparing me for a fight.

And I saw, sitting around the fire, twelve Fire Anoki, staring straight at me.

… not?

“Eep!” the little girl said, jumping. She backed away from her fire, a magnifying glass in her hand, and only stopped when it was necessary to prevent the bramble from perforating her. Her shoulder was practically nonexistent, looking like it had been ripped off by a rabid wildebeest, and she was skinny enough to shove through a medieval arrow slit.

“Who are you?” I asked, staring at her. In front of me was a girl, maybe eleven, looking too innocent.

“Please don’t kill me,” she said.

“Hello, Please don’t kill me. I’m Amanda,” I said. “What were your parents thinking?”

“Are you going to kill me?” she asked.

“That’s an odd thing for parents to worry about. I mean, not many people look at a newborn and say, ‘I really hope you don’t take an AK-47 to my brain in three years.’”

She obviously wasn’t sure what to make of this, since she just stared at me like I had suggested that she could drive a car across the ocean, so I relinquished the jokes and said, “No, I’m not going to kill you.”

I think both of us relaxed. I fanned out my big green wings and grinned in relief, showing off major freckles.

“How’d you get the fire started?” I asked. She held up the magnifying glass in response. “Oh, I see. You’re a Light Anoki, then.” Which meant that her blonde hair may or may not be what she was born with. “What village are you from?”

“The Zepha one,” she said without any menace of sign of threat. Nevertheless, I froze in place. She was wearing Zephan trends.

But I knew all two-hundred-something of the Zephan kids. I could recognize them and call them by name if I saw them on the moon. She wasn’t one of them.

“What’s your name?” I asked. “Don’t tell me it’s pleasedon’tkillme.”

“It’s not,” she said, sounding annoyed.

“Hello, Not…” I started, until she glared at me.

“My name is Akana,” she said firmly. “Don’t play games with me. I am nine, you know.”

“Yeah,” I said, “because everyone knows I get a three-by-five index card about a little girl called Akana when I crash through a bunch of spiky bushes. It tells me her name, age, element, and what color Popsicle she likes.”

She smiled. “Orange.”

“Why are you out here?” I queried. “If you’re Zephan, shouldn’t you be about twenty miles back?”

“I… should,” she said, tiptoeing around something.

“But you’re not,” I said. “Why?”

She looked like she’d been caught stealing wedding cake. “I ran away. Three days ago.”

“Are you kidding me?” I asked in shock, almost yelling. I think she thought I was going to scold her for leaving, but I continued, saying, “How fast did you run? We’re miles away from the village!”

“Run?” she said in disgust. “I flew, silly. What do you think you have wings for?”

Thirty minutes later, I was in a state of utter confusion. We were sitting around my campfire and talking. Well, I was talking, and Akana was trying to shove as much food in her face as humanly—or magically—possible. Most of it got in her mouth.

I made her stop with the venison for a second to let me look at her shoulder. I had no clue how her arm was still attached. It was covered in patchy scabs. I told her to look away while I healed her. She shivered and took a glance at her shoulder, incredulous, then went straight back to eating.

I left her alone for a while. After about fifteen minutes, she’d polished off the venison. I had suggested that she start with some lettuce or something light, but she’d headed straight for the meat anyway. I didn’t make a big deal of it—her malnutrition couldn’t be that bad after only three days, as long as she’d found water. I had enough meat available. Now that she had maybe fourteen ounces of deer sitting in her stomach, I started to question her further. But she was falling asleep in front of my face, so I rolled her into the blanket and let her fall asleep.

I went out to replenish my food store. When I came back with a few small furry animals I couldn’t identify and set them up in a series of actions I choose not to identify here, I banked the fire and collapsed myself, pulling my big, muddy cloak around me. (You can buy Earthen Mage Cloaks for Only a Dollar at the same place human magic wielders get their wands and staffs. Really, they could use sticks if they wanted to, but those don’t look as cool, which was the same reason I wasn’t wearing a normal coat.)

I woke up that morning to myself, unwilling to wrench open my eyes. In that minute, the swampy ground was as comfortable to me as my bed at home, maybe more so, and I could feel bruises healing and my energy draining again. I remembered that I’d never removed the auto-heal spell from myself, and I could either take the spell off while it was still healing me and risk it becoming permanent, or let it heal the rest and risk collapsing again out of self-preservation and worrying Akana when I don’t wake up again for a few hours.

As an Anoki, who rely heavily on their magic to survive, (unlike humans, who rely only a little on magic, and only require the universe to contain magic to survive), I always collapse when I get too magically tired. This is because, like all others of my kind, if I get too magically tired, I have the potential to kill myself with another spell, or be killed by an event that saps magic, like a large spell that absorbs surrounding energy as well as its caster’s.

I decided to let the spell run its course. I didn’t collapse, even though I apparently had so many bruises, scrapes, and thorn-sticks that I probably would have fallen over anyway from them upon standing if the spell wasn’t there to heal me. That should have taken a lot of magic. I wondered, hoped, that I was getting stronger—strong enough to keep myself alive, and maybe this kid, too.

I released the spell, and the one on the trees near the Zepha village as well. The last thing I wanted was to faint in the middle of battle because of someone with a chainsaw.

Akana was already up, sitting with her magnifying glass by the rocky circle where last night’s fire had been. She was passing light through the glass, starting the fire.

“So you can really fly,” I said, the remark not quite a question, but definitely a statement that demanded an answer.

“No, it’s a scam designed to waste your time. Yes, I can fly.” She rolled her eyes.

“And you got that from hanging around me for a day?” I said incredulously.

“No,” she said matter-of-factly. “I knew you were going to ask that the second you got up, so I came up with a witty response. And you can’t fly?”

“I surpass rocks,” I said.

“I could probably teach you,” she said. “Come on.”

She took flight, and motioned for me to follow. Hard as I beat my wings, I couldn’t get off the ground.

“It’s not brain surgery,” she said.

“Not helping,” I said, putting my hands on my hips.

She landed with a sigh and muttered something, making a little motion with her hands that might have been part of the spell, or it might have been nine-year-old-girl impatience.

“Now you can,” she said hastily. “Get up here. You need to see this.” She took a running start and disappeared quickly above the trees. I had no choice but to try and follow. Amazingly, it worked. That is, it worked after four hours of beating up tree stumps with a stick, and breaking about five sticks as thick as my wrist. Akana gave me some very strange looks. But we were finally up in the air together, looking out over the span of several villages.

“There’s the Zepha tribe,” she pointed out. “And there’s the Frether tribe…”

“That’s the Skiea tribe,” I said.

“Come on, then.” She zipped away toward another area.

“Why there?” I asked, matching her speed.

“Because!”

She flew in random circles for a few hours, then both of us landed back where we’d started.

“You never did answer my question,” I said to her when we stopped for lunch. “Why did you leave the Zephans?”

“Oh, they wanted to use me in some war.”

I wasn’t surprised. The Zephans probably thought she could fly away from anything. But they didn’t think about arrows.

“Why did you leave, Amanda? You’re out here, too.”

“It’s really complicated. I’ll tell you sometime, but not out in broad daylight. In short, I need to find a village with an Air Anoki. We obviously both have the talent for Air magic, so what we need to do is learn more so that we can defend ourselves better. The fact is, we’re both refugees, and refugees are hunted.”

“I visited a village that had an Air Anoki recently. They make really good cinnamon rolls.”

In return for gaining the ability to fly, for which I restrained my elation in case Akana would think I’d gone crazy, I tried to teach Akana healing magic. It didn’t work too well. Everything distracted her, especially the big honkin’ butterfly that decided to repeatedly land in her face.

Akana took me back above the trees to look at the village she’d mentioned. It was somewhere near the Zepha tribe, so I had to be wary while staying there, and it seemed to be in an oddly familiar direction. Neither of us knew what the tribe’s name was.

We hunkered down for one more night. We weren’t too far from Akana’s cinnamon-roll paradise, so I figured we’d be able to cover it in a day. I didn’t know what I was looking forward to more–the Air lessons or the aforementioned bakery products.

The next thing I knew, I was forcing my eyes open again and staring up, trying to think when my bedroom ceiling had been painted that way. You can laugh.

Once again, Akana had woken up before I had. It was early morning, and the sun hadn’t risen. The grass was wet with dew. My clothes were caked with mud. Scratch that. I was caked with mud. And believe me when I say everywhere. I didn’t exactly feel like hopping in a river when it was forty degrees out, though.

I didn’t need to worry. It was a dull rain all day anyway. There wasn’t wind, though, so we needed to keep moving. This is one of those instances where I wish I didn’t thrash so much in my sleep. Rolling stones do gather mud.

I was flying all day, Akana by my side. It was hard to see where we were going, but the trees and my sense of direction kept us straight. Then I saw the village, and I bolted there at seventy miles an hour or something, leaving Akana so far back that I had to retrace my nonexistent steps.

At what should have been 6:00 but was hard to tell without a visible sun, we both landed in the village.

“Raaaah,” I said. “I’m the mud monster!”

Several people stopped in their tracks to stare at me.

That was how the rest of the day went.

Prologue

PROLOGUE

“It’s not going to work!” Mel argued. “You know Amanda. She’s too stubborn. There’s absolutely no way she’s going to conform to your demands.

“And what say does she have in it?” spat Jaken, one of the five tribe leaders, with whom Mel was negotiating. Jaken hated trying to argue with Mel. He usually lost. But this time, he had the other village leaders on his side—five against one—and he had a feeling he was going to win very quickly.

“Really,” Katyen said, tossing her hair, which was dyed neon pink. She had tried for years to perfect a fake British accent, and it had worked about as well as the hair (not very well). Even though she’d stopped trying to forge her voice, she still kept doing so out of habit. “It’s not as if we don’t have respect for you as a warrior, Mel. But you simply don’t have enough influence to change a law.”

“Why, exactly?” Mel inquired with a polite voice and a less polite expression.

“Authority,” Henrei spoke up, taking his nose out of his files. They were files on Amanda, including a record of seven times she’d punched kids at school for one reason or another, eighteen times she’d wandered straight into combat to heal fallen soldiers, and twenty-seven records of very ticked hospital administrators complaining that she was stealing all of their business. “If we let one person slip because you advocated her refusal to follow our code…”

“Speak in English, bookworm,” Mel snapped. She knew it was dangerous to speak sharply to a dictator, but Henrei would take the phrase “bookworm” as a compliment. If his ego was a person, it would be so big that it wouldn’t be able to see its toes.

“If we let Amanda get by with this, everyone else is going to think we’re loosening up,” Butan said through a mouthful of food. Technically, jelly doughnuts weren’t allowed in court, but Butan had insisted. He looked, Mel thought, exactly like Henrei’s ego-person. Which was pretty accurate, since Butan couldn’t see his toes either.

“So even if you let your best healer get possessed, at least you still look authoritative?” Mel’s fury was barely under control. Was she picking up Amanda’s temper?

“She can handle it,” Raystar said confidently, fluttering her pretty yellow wings. Even though she was still arguing with Mel, she was complimenting Amanda herself in a sort-of compromise. She was, after all, a Light Anoki. Raystar was the nicest one of the bunch, but she did have a few secrets that most people didn’t see. “Amanda’s headstrong. Odds are that she’ll be fine, and we’ll avoid anarchy.”

“And it’s totally impossible to keep this quiet?” Mel said in desperation, though she knew the answer. There were no secrets from Anoki press.

“You answered that question yourself,” Jaken said. It made sense that the Dream Anoki of the bunch had been reading her mind throughout the discussion. Mel wondered why she didn’t catch him doing magic; maybe he’d gotten sneakier. Usually, she would catch the concentration in his face, but this time, she must have passed it off as concentration on the argument. Of course, that could have been another of Jaken’s tricks.

Mel looked around the room, her face now in a full scowl. “All right, but you’re planning your own demise. Think about it. This isn’t a normal teenager. This is Amanda we’re talking about. The one Earth Anoki of the village. The kid’s a fighter as well as a healer; you can’t change that. Take into account how much experience you’ve had with Earth Anoki! There aren’t many around, not in our part of the world. And think about the war, too! She works her tail off. If she ends up possessed, she’ll be more dangerous to you than the entire Kliid army combined. Do you want her power against you?”

“Don’t you think we’ve thought this through already?” demanded Henrei.

“It’s a risk we have to take,” Katyen said. “The village depends on us.”

“The village? Or just you?” Mel said, eyes narrowing.

“I’m sorry, Mel,” Raystar said regretfully. “Sometimes you have very good ideas, but I don’t think this is one of them.”

“Well, then I’m leaving. There is no purpose to stay if you insist on denying a logical voice in the picture.” Mel shot one of her patented not-quite-insults and walked briskly out the door, wishing she could fly away on her dark blue Water Anoki wings like the Air Anoki did with theirs.

“Okay, then,” Butan said. “That’s that solved. Anyone want a doughnut?”

The answer was a unanimous “no.”

Chapter Three– Escape… again… (Edited)

We took to the skies, and my wings changed back to their speckled blue/green thing. It was night before I was satisfied with our distance from the village. We set up camp as fast as possible. The fire flickered as we all gathered around it for warmth, a contrast from the windy chill that loomed above us.

I didn’t like what was happening. I had a feeling that we shared similarities other than being able to fly. I didn’t know Li well enough to judge her on this, but Kaye, Akana and I definitely had something in common that I couldn’t quite place.

In the morning, we took to the skies again, never sure where we planned to go. I wasn’t sure what I was thinking. The day passed slowly. I wasn’t worried, exactly, except that I knew that wherever we went, we would have to run away. I wanted to land, to be closer to the forest. Even in the sky, I dropped a little to be a few feet closer. I felt better, sort of more concealed, even though the lower I went, the more visible I was to people below.

I didn’t want to be here. I was tired, and I wanted to lie down on the ground and sleep there. I didn’t want to be in the sky any more. And I really didn’t want to hear another stupid verse of Old McDonald Had a Farm.

“…and on his farm he had a llama, E-I-E-I-O! With a spit-spit here, and a spit-spit there…”

“We should land,” Kaye interrupted. “There’s a storm coming.”

“How do you know that?” Li said.

“I just know,” Kaye said. “We really ought to land.”

“Yeah, guys,” I said. “We should go.”

We landed. Li needed some help to avoid ending up on her face, since it had started to rain already, and she was the last one down. The rain didn’t work well with her magic, and she was getting rather cranky. Through sopping wet black hair, she muttered a few words.

Kaye found, under a tree that gave good shelter, dry wood. She set it up with a bunch of rocks around it, and Li lit it. She looked like she felt a little better. I mean, wouldn’t setting stuff on fire make anyone feel better?

Everyone huddled up around the fire. It really was warm, though that wasn’t saying I absolutely loved it. I wouldn’t be happy until I had the tent up and was out of the rain. I sent a spell to make the temperature warmer, at least.

Kaye sat on her legs, making herself look taller. Her normally wispy blonde hair sat limp over her face. She wasn’t too happy.

It looked like a recipe for poetry, but I was kind of too tired to care. Fire-flicker, pouring sky, snoring Anoki… uh.

I wanted to set up the tent and sleep there. But I didn’t want to do it in the rain. I thought I might have to, but I got a better idea.

“Let’s go above the storm,” I said. “It’ll be clear skies there.”

“Good idea,” Kaye said. “I would never have thought of that.”

I hoped that the storm was low. I wasn’t sure how high we could go. But we all went, even though we were buffeted constantly by the wind.

“Fly as fast as you can,” I yelled, dripping. The rain felt like hail. Far below us, the fire went out.

And I did; I was flying maybe eighty miles an hour, straight up. There was mist around, and my wings automatically blended with it. Before I knew it, I was in the cloud. It was wet, and freezing, and I wanted to get out of it as soon as possible. It took a while, even for me, but the sky was clear as glass above the clouds. I waited for Kaye, but she took a while. I went higher still, not knowing how much further I could go before I got short of breath. I went for a long time before hearing this serene music played by an instrument I couldn’t quite recognize. Maybe several instruments.

I know this sounds odd now, but I was whisked into the music without knowing it. I danced as if I weren’t even in the air, as if the sky was as familiar to me as the ground always had been. There was a lot of magic here, but it wasn’t mine. And then – it was. The magic here was mine, and it made me feel different, less tense, happier. A voice joined the music, and I knew the words. I caught myself singing it as well, the way you catch yourself singing the sour cream commercial jingle. Even when the other voice grew fainter, mine didn’t. I’d never realized I was that good at singing, simply because I’d never tried. I wondered who the other voice was. I knew that I could stop singing anytime, but I didn’t want to. For that hour or so, I wasn’t the practical, down to earth (pardon the pun) Amanda, or a sweet healer, or a mysterious Star Anoki. For that hour, I was an Air Anoki. For that hour, I belonged.

I was thousands of feet in the air, singing a song I didn’t know I knew, feeling like I belonged there. I wasn’t short of breath. I must have been fifteen thousand feet in the air. And even such a simple reality check seemed sort of fictional, as if those rules applied only to other people.

There were no nagging doubts about the others. I knew they wouldn’t be here for a while. Kaye couldn’t fly quite as fast as I could, and I had left her miles behind. I still can’t quite see her as a Star Anoki. She seemed a lot more like an Air Anoki. I wasn’t even sure I was more Star than Earth. But I couldn’t see myself being limited to Earth magic. Ever. I needed to be able to fly, needed to be in the air. That was part of the Star magic. It was the only thing that worked for me, that clicked, other than my herbs and healing magic.

I wasn’t flying; I was suspended. I didn’t need to work at it. I was just there. I never got tired while flying. It was like… it was as if it were a magical exercise and I could do it so well that it didn’t wear me out, like walking was a physical exercise. For Kaye, Akana and Li, flying was physical. But not for me. And I was so good at magic in general that this seemed small in comparison to the other magic I was able to do.

I realized that Li’s orange wings weren’t far below now, but she wasn’t coming any higher. She was shouting at me, so I flew down and met her. It didn’t take me too long, because she was about a mile below me. The air was so thin that I could see her and hear her.

“Why didn’t you just come up to meet me?” I asked.

“Uh,” Kaye said, joining her, “because we don’t want to suffocate?”

“You’ve tried?”

“Yes,” Kaye said. “Silly. Don’t you think we’d try if we didn’t know?”

“We’re above everything now,” Akana said, and it took me a while to realize she was talking about the storm.

“It seems so much prettier from above,” Li said. She still looked, literally, out of her element up here. And let’s just say sky blue was not her color, especially for an Oriental-bred girl with dark hair and olive skin.

It was pretty. The clouds were so much fuller, it seemed, from up here. It was gray, but you could see it clearly because you didn’t have the raindrops in the way, hopping and bouncing off the ground like crickets.

Kaye didn’t know what I’d been doing, and neither did Li or Akana. I’d been too high, and too transparent. How did I know? Kaye’s expression. But I’d known what I’d been doing, and it had been real. Realer than most things I did. I mean, walking was real. I was on the ground. But stuff like knitting, or typing (we hacked into the fairies’ Internet, too)… that wasn’t quite as real to me, not quite as close to my nature. Getting dressed in the morning wasn’t as real, though that wasn’t to say I was going to forgo it.

“What are we going to do?” Akana asked, brushing hair out of her face. The wind was amazing up here. It was fast, and strong. I think Kaye was enjoying it thoroughly.

“Well,” Kaye said, “first, I think we ought to have a leader. Someone in charge who halfway knows what she’s doing.”

“Maybe you should,” I said.

“I was thinking more of you,” Kaye said. “You’re the best at magic, and you even have your own weapon.”

“You’re the oldest,” I said.

“Does it matter?” she said. “You’re a lot stronger than I am, physically and magically.”

“You’ve never had to be strong. I had to chase off invaders in the war. They found my house. I attacked them with Mom’s chef’s cleaver. But it got wedged in someone, so I had to use the bread knife.” Mel taught me how to make bows with an inherited knife from the kitchen – one without blood on it. For the record, I washed those knives multiple times very carefully.

Kaye stared at me for a little bit. “I flew away. But that’s kind of why you should be leader.”

Okay, so my past has been a little odd, but it wasn’t that bad. I mean, I had a reason. The tribes were warring constantly. And even a six-year-old kid, when backed into a corner by a bunch of killing “meanies,” as I later called them, will attack with a chef’s cleaver or, possibly, a bread knife if the cleaver gets stuck in someone’s skull. I hadn’t really cared what had just happened, but I was hoping I’d get candy for it. The fact that there had been three people invading the house was an irrelevant detail. The person who’d come to take the dead bodies away found me in the living room, playing video games and looking much too innocent.

“Which is the chef’s cleaver?” Kaye said, bringing me back to reality.

“That’s the big, heavy, square one with a hole in the top since it can’t be stored any other way than hung up.” Let’s just say that I wasn’t the kind of kid who had trouble with kidnappers, or got beat up (kind of hard, since I had Earth magic), or got squashed trying to lift something too heavy. Ever. I wasn’t mean–just defensive–and lots of other kids found it beneficial to be friends with me. Not because I’d beat them up if they weren’t, but simply because nobody else would.

“I vote for Amanda,” Akana said. “She did save me.”

“You’re a nine-year-old,” I said. “I couldn’t just leave you, and that wound might have bled you to death if I hadn’t healed you. Besides, you never get in trouble.”

“Cough,” Li said, and I realized what I’d just said. That was a rather counterproductive argument on my part. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be leader, it was that I didn’t know how to. I wasn’t sure what I was doing, though Kaye did. I thought I was more the protector, more the bodyguard, not really the one in charge. I wouldn’t know what to do, anyway.

“I wouldn’t know what to do, anyway,” Kaye said.

“Do any of us?” Akana said. There went my excuse.

“All right,” I gave in. I was losing the argument. “But don’t expect brilliance.”

“What do we do now?” Kaye asked.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“We can’t just stay here forever,” she said.

“Right,” I muttered under my breath. I sure felt like I could stay here for a while. Louder, I said, “Well, I have a crazy idea. It’s dangerous, stupid, and will save a bunch of people from barbaric death.”

“Sounds like my kind of idea,” Li said.

“What is it?” Kaye asked. “Will it stop the wars?”

“Yes,” I said. “Basically, we kill all the elders of the Zepha tribe and take it over. Us. And since we’re Kliid allies, the Kliid tribe won’t attack us like they do to the Zephans. And we won’t kill anyone but the dictator and his advisors. The villagers won’t attack us. We’ll set up a democracy like the Kliid have, minus the plotting leaders. With our power, that’ll be easy. I hope.”

“Bring the cleaver,” Kaye muttered.

Now it was my responsibility to keep everyone safe and happy. Safe, I could manage, but apart from Akana and the Zephan kids, I’d never taken care of anyone, and “happy” sounded foreign. I’d never had a little brother or sister; Kaye was the only living relative I knew of. I was generally a loner in school, someone dependable but never cool, and I never had very many friends, exactly, but I did have a lot of people who depended on me to protect them and heal them. The whole village depended on me. I’d protected village kids in wars several times, hiding them on roofs of buildings and shooting anyone who came near with my homemade bow. I figured out quickly that arrows were exceedingly hard to make, and if they didn’t corkscrew right, exceedingly ineffective. So I made them with Earth magic, finding that they became easy to mass produce, and my quiver was never really empty.

That reminded me: I had to get a better quiver. Mine was in pitiful shape and fell apart routinely, being made from three buckets, two of which had the bottoms hack-sawed off and were Super-Glued to the other buckets, making a tube-like canister that held the arrows just enough that I was able to pull them out without dislocating my shoulder. Ask me how I know.

I felt a surge of adrenaline. I had power now, and I would use it. But that didn’t mean I wanted all of it.

“Kaye, I appoint you official mom.”

“What?!”

“I will protect us, but while I’m fighting, you have to stay out of the way, and you need a bodyguard with good magic to lead you while I’m not there. Kaye is a Star Anoki too.”

“Do we have to do anything?” Li asked. Akana nodded.

“If two ride on a horse, one must ride behind,” I quoted primly, though I wasn’t sure where the saying came from. “Oh, if I ever wanted to hit something…”

Chapter Two–Magician Girl (Edited)

CHAPTER TWO—MAGICIAN GIRL

Eventually, I was able to find an inn that would take in two “weary travelers” with no cash at all. I find that being poetic (i.e.: cliché) often gets you what you want. If not, start flirting with the male employees and they’ll readily rescue a damsel in distress.

After we got cleaned up and the guy I hit on found us some coats from the Lost and Found, I wheedled my way out of the date he’d asked me on and managed to get away from the creep, who was probably five years older than me.

We ran out into the rain, stopping at a local restaurant.

“What village is this?” I asked a guy sitting at a table, an older one this time.

“The Kliid, of course! Why? Don’t you know this already?”

“Oh, we got lost in the woods for a few days,” I said airily, ignoring his expression.

“Then let me buy you food! You shouldn’t be here without a drink and a meal!”

I followed him to the counter, wondering if he was practicing being all poetic. Maybe he thought I didn’t know how to use the bow that I was carrying around and making no attempt to hide. Maybe he was trying to impress us. I don’t understand people who do that, but it did mean free food.

The same person was able to give us directions to the Air Anoki’s house. Her name was Kaye, and from his description, she acted like an Air Anoki. So she was probably pretty strong.

By the time we left, it was 7:30 and the rain was letting up. We made our way to Kaye’s house, where we asked her to teach us some magic, and she said she’d meet us in the field by the school the next morning.

Ugh, I remember thinking. They have a school.

The Zephan school had nothing to teach me, seeing as there wasn’t another Earth Anoki there, yet I still had to go when I could have been doing something productive out on the battlefield.

I didn’t have very good experiences with magical schools.

But Kaye sounded promising.

I stayed with her, learning Air magic, for several months. Akana dropped out after she found that she couldn’t do Air magic at all, and went to a Light magic class. I healed a few sick people here and there to keep myself funded, and I did have to hunt since I had no desire to work in the military, for obvious reasons.

I was sitting in enemy territory. Nobody recognized me, which was a surprise. And the Kliid village was very neat and clean compared to the Zepha tribe. It was… sweet-looking. Like New York City versus… um… some mythical clean place. Er.

Kaye taught me some Water magic, too, which I picked up a little better than before. But my Earth magic kept intruding on the spells. Instead of just purifying water, I’d end up making a bronchitis potion with a simple spell.

I learned that I could fly faster than anyone else, whenever I wanted. I got faster and faster, going a million miles an hour and enjoying every minute of it. I didn’t do it too often, though, being more wrapped up in reading books from the library.

Akana liked her Light magic teacher. Moonray was about twenty-one years old and very pretty. Her appearances were like Akana’s, although much sweeter and much more naïve-looking. She always had that expression that makes you think she’d be inclined to eat vanilla cupcakes, but you know that would interfere with her diet.

Akana started showing me some really crazy spells that Moonray had taught her. Impractical crazy. Like imitating the Northern Lights and creating harmless fireworks. Spells with no purpose. Borderline dumb crazy.

One day, she came up to me and said that she’d shown Moonray the spell she’d done on me in the forest, and Moonray said that Akana must have heard it somewhere and done it wrong, because she’d never heard of the spell and there’s a very similar one. Because obviously Moonray knows everything.

Akana wanted to try the new version of the spell on me, and I let her. I told her I didn’t feel any different, and she looked kind of disappointed. I suggested that the effects might be postponed since she’d already done the spell on me, but then she looked alarmed at the thought of not knowing what the effect will be or when it would come. I told her to chill, because it’s a Light spell and the worst thing that could happen is sunburn. Which wasn’t true, but she bought it anyway.

Then, in the middle of the night, I woke up. I felt kind of odd. I was groggily half-awake and not really controlling myself consciously, not thinking about where I was going. I stepped out of my bed with grace as if I were sleepwalking, though I knew that I was doing it.

Something prompted me out into the fields. I didn’t resist. I wasn’t tired now, but the most energetic being in the universe. I took off into the night, pouring on my magical speed. It felt so natural, blending with every tree, my bow safely in the tent, and I out in the night. Alone. Without any other Anoki, no fairies or dragons or humans or upset nine-year-old girls. I spun as I shot through the sky, shot through the clouds, rolled completely over. And kept going.

I knew that, from then on, walking would never feel the same, and neither would flying. I would never feel satisfied while walking. In the air, I would want to cut across the heavens like some super-aerodynamic comet or meteor or something. I didn’t want to go back to bed now. Maybe I never would.

I whizzed across the sky with no idea how much ground I was covering. I felt a major pang of magic, but not the dangerous, pyrotechnical Fire magic, or the cold twist of Storm magic. It was something not really warm, but incredibly comforting. I blended with the trees and the ground and the air and… and the sky…

The pang came again. I felt it hard. It was dangerous, but not an adversary.

The sky seemed to be the center of it all. I felt as if my home was here. I would never really belong anywhere else. By “sky” I don’t mean the air. The air was nothing to me right now, nothing important. Even the trees faded into the background as the sky took over my vision, my thoughts, and the dream that I was still halfway in, while still being alertly awake. I floated in the air, resting on my back without beating my wings. And I stayed there.

I woke up still in the sky, my only proof that this whole thing hadn’t been a dream. I went home. I was energetic in that way where you want to rip off into the night in bare feet at mach speed, which you feel like you could do if other people weren’t around or if it were actually night. But with the wet, dewy grasses and the sky’s yellow tint, I knew dawn was leaking slowly above the horizon. Giving into temptation, I shot straight up into the air and did so until about a mile off the ground, then dove into the village, running off adrenaline. I felt better, but was still not entirely satisfied. I went home.

I sat around in a cozy armchair in my new apartment. After five minutes of trying to calm down, I felt like I was gonna barf. I called in sick and stayed home reading. I wasn’t able to concentrate on the story, because all I could think about was last night, feeling the amazing rush of adrenaline, shooting into the night sky, never stopping, never feeling tired. I loved it, and I wanted to do it again. Now I felt like a fish out of water on the ground. Almost literally.

I don’t know what kind of magic that was. It definitely wasn’t Air magic, and Earth seemed more fitting but not quite right, because I was too far in the air. It wasn’t Water magic, of course, and definitely not Fire. It wasn’t Time or Storm. It might have been Dream magic, but I’d felt too awake then. And since I could already do Air magic, which was one rare talent, I wasn’t likely to get another rare magic ability like Dream magic. This was different magic. And it felt… right. Almost too right. I don’t know how that works.

I couldn’t get to sleep that night. I rolled, tossed, turned, thrashed. You’d have thought I was having a seizure. It crossed my mind that I might get some sleep if I slept outside again, but I didn’t want to do it two days in a row and since I was sick (airsick, maybe?), I really shouldn’t be out running around.

I ended up without a minute of sleep. By the time I was ready to give in to the urge to fly away, the “young Dawn with fingertips of rose” or whatever was, like, smacking me in the face and blinding me when I tried to go outside. If you ask me, the reason Dawn’s fingertips are red is because while she was ditching her job, it got so dang cold. Her frostbite, her problem.

As a night owl, it really felt strange to out that early. I felt weirdly like I should be milking goats.

Why didn’t I just heal myself? You ask. I wasn’t hurt. I’m a healer, not a psychiatrist. I knew one trick in acupressure that helps me fall asleep–rubbing the back of my neck above my hairline–but it wasn’t working tonight. Today. Whatever.

I was too exhausted to go anywhere, so I just called in sick again and stayed home. I claimed I had a cold, and nobody seemed to notice that I could have just healed myself. Except Akana.

“You don’t have a cold,” she said, pushing my door wide open and letting it shut hard behind her. “What’s up? Why are you home?”

“Just tired. I didn’t get any sleep last night.” It was the truth, but not all of it.

Akana didn’t look like she believed me, but she sent a few spells toward me as she left.

I stayed in my room again the next night as well, but forced myself to magic practice even with the minimal sleep I got. The Time magic teacher was busy with something else, so Kaye was teaching me more Water magic. Halfway through the lesson, Kaye noticed that a) I was falling asleep and b) I was doing the most advanced Water magic anyway. She pulled over a Fire Anoki called Li and asked her to try and teach me a Fire spell. I picked it up on the first try. Li taught me another, and I did that one with easily as well. Then she tried a really advanced spell, and I did that one too.

Kaye shut her gaping mouth and ended the lesson. Unaware of what I just did in my groggy state, I nodded lethargically and went home to go be comatose.

I only stayed in bed for five minutes that night. Then I declared surrender to the universe at large and went outside. With a running start, I beat my wings until I got into the air. It didn’t take much.

I had what I’d always wanted, and it confused me. How did I cope with nothing to strive for, nothing to really want? I realized I was bored.

But at least I was being bored at night. I like night.

I tried for only five minutes to get some sleep that night. Then I went outside and leapt into the air, gliding across the sky like I’d never been able to do until that day with Akana. Like I’d wanted all my life. Like I could do, now that I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get any sleep anyway and that I was feeling slightly better with nightfall.

My wings seemed more supportive. Flying wasn’t hard now. I was stretching the muscles that hadn’t been used for so long. I was missing the fight, feeling the need to defend the Zephans again. The pangs of magic came again, and I let them, not fighting the new… thing. There was no way to describe this, except that I loved it.

I was wondering whether the magic was with me or if it stayed right here all the time. Or maybe it was waiting. That sounded right. It crossed my mind that I was making up a story that I would believe, but the place seemed to agree with me. Yes, waiting… for who? What kind of person? Did I fit or something, since I’d found it?

Yes.

That one word.

I felt amazing the next morning. I was back to my, well, not exactly bouncy, but at least not lethargic, self. I felt like I’d had fourteen hours’ sleep. Kaye had set me up with Fire and Time teachers (she couldn’t come because she had a dentist appointment), and I entertained their requests and copied their spells, giving them only half my attention. I was thinking about the Zephans and about last night.

I’d always thought that magic in general was a force that had a mind of its own. I’d always known that it had motives for doing stuff–it wasn’t like a person or an animal, just a force with sort of an instinct and kind of… raw emotions. I knew I would be going back again tonight. This magic was mine.

Akana looked surprised when she saw me again, out by a hot dog stand.

“What?” I asked.

“Have you looked in a mirror recently?”

I thought. “Not really.”

“Well, you should.”

I thought Akana was making fun of my unbrushed, windblown hair, but when I looked in the mirror, I saw what she was talking about.

My wings were a misty green, like my ring, with dark blue flecks around the edges. I realized that my clothes didn’t go with them at all anymore and went out to buy new ones. I found some turquoise shirts and blue jeans that worked, and I went home to put them on.

I ran into Kaye, who gave me a questioning look and then walked a little faster. I went home and changed.

Akana was waiting at my house. She said she liked the new clothes. She also gave me an update on her classes: She could do Light magic, some of the simplest Earth spells, some simple Fire magic, and a good deal of Water magic. She couldn’t do anything outside the natural elements except for the Light magic. And she couldn’t do Air magic at all, something that I was still puzzled over. She could fly, but didn’t have Air talent. Maybe other Anoki can fly. I asked Li over to have Akana do her spell.

Akana did the newer version of the spell that she learned in magic lessons first. Li tried to fly, but it didn’t work.  I asked Akana to try the spell she’d used in the forest. She did so halfheartedly, but Li was airborne before long.

“It’s not the same spell,” I said. “It’s a flying spell.”

Akana was happily surprised. She’d discovered her own spell, which was extremely rare. I don’t think she realized the full extent of its power, though; she could make anyone fly. Including our enemies. I immediately realized both the potential and the danger here. I made both of them agree not to tell anyone about the spell before I left.

I decided to replace my finished book at the library. I ran into Kaye, who was sitting in the nonfiction section, surrounded by open encyclopedias.

“What are you looking up?” I asked.

“You.”

I frowned. “I wouldn’t be in an encyclopedia. I didn’t do anything spectacular in the past or anything.” Well, I had, but nothing I was going to let her know.

“No,” Kaye said. “You’re still doing it.”

“What?” I asked. “Beating the record for Most Tacos Eaten in a Week?”

“I didn’t think you knew. Some Anoki have blends of magic talent, but all of them have one thing that they’re the best at, and everything else is kind of minor. But you–you’re good at everything. And, um… the other Anoki don’t change appearance. I mean, your wings are bigger and a different color. And it looks like you sandblasted them with glitter when you do magic. Frankly, that’s just weird.

“So now,” Kaye said, “I’m trying to figure out who you are. You might be just an Earth Anoki, but I really don’t think so, not after what I’ve seen.”

I’d known Kaye for months now, months of magic lessons. I knew what magic she could do, of course, and that her favorite color was blue and she liked to read romance novels, especially Jane Austen ones. And more importantly, I knew that she was trustworthy. I started a fake mattress advertisement in a sarcastic code that only teenagers really get, just to be sure that nobody else would really understand us. It was enough to tell her where I was at night.

Kaye looked sort of like a deer in the headlights. I wondered if I had been right to mention anything, or if my reluctant side should have won out.

“That’ll help,” she said, and I left, wondering why the heck I’d just done that.

I returned to the library later, realizing that I had yet to find another book. On a whim, I went back to the encyclopedias to see if Kaye was still there. Her page was still open, and she’d left a bookmark, but Kaye had gone home. I saw one word and something made me check out the book I’d selected and run for my life.

I went home and tried to read. I could only think of the one word I’d seen, though I had forgotten what word it was. I both wanted to go back and read more of the encyclopedia and to stay home, huddle up, and forget I had even walked into that area of the library. I decided to go visit Kaye, which was kind of a compromise with myself.

I was hesitant to visit Kaye, almost as much as I would be to go back to the library. But curiosity won out, and I went ahead and dropped by to ask her what she’d found.

Apprehensively, Kaye started an explanation. “I don’t want to disappoint you with your result unless I’m sure that my theory is true. I want you to take several different types of magic lessons tomorrow. If you can do them, I’ll tell you.”

Typical. Why can’t anyone give me this stuff straight?

That night I went higher than I normally did, maybe five thousand feet in the air. Way above the trees, I felt oddly separated from anything below. I slept soundly and came down when I felt like it.

I read my book for a while. Kaye’s teachers hadn’t come to the practice grounds yet. I finished a couple chapters of the novel, which wasn’t very well written, but not like I cared that much, and went out again to check if anyone was there. The place was bare, but that was to be expected at 4:30 in the morning. So I flew up again, trying to see how high I could go. I bolted much farther past where I had slept and up into ten thousand feet. The air was thinner, but I didn’t mind and I didn’t have breathing problems. It was a little easier to fly in, even. I went faster.

The village looked tiny from here. I wondered what it would be like to sleep here. I dove straight down, and gave my wings a huge beat. I was blind and watery-eyed from wind, but I was flying and I didn’t care. All of a sudden, I was in the village, braking fast, wings catching me like a parachute. Several weirded out faces watched as I almost bent double upon attempting to stand and, gasp, walk. I realized that the first teacher was just arriving. I hurried to the grounds and tried to smooth down my super-windblown hair.

The first teacher was one who had mastered the four natural elements. I was to learn the most complicated spell for each. I did every one of them the first time, except the Fire spell, which I had to do twice. I was starting to weird myself out.

The next teacher was a Dream Anoki. I did every spell that she showed me. I could put her to sleep, wake her up, make her hallucinate, and read her mind. I wondered how I could do all that to her but couldn’t cure my own insomnia last week.

The Time teacher was easy. I even sent her off looking ten years younger.

I did all the Storm magic. I could create hurricanes, tornadoes, thunderstorms, lightning storms, straight-line winds, and probably a bunch more. But the teacher gave up trying to find something I couldn’t do as well. I considered helping her appearance as well to make up for it, but decided against it.

The Darkness spells were saved for last. I had major trouble with these. I had to do the simplest ones three to four times to get them right, and the strongest one took me ten times to finish. It was still half the time of the more advanced students, but doing the Darkness spells made me not only uncomfortable like anyone else who could do Light magic, but also kind of queasy. I didn’t like this much, and I was glad when the lesson ended. Kaye, who was sitting around watching all this, shook her head in the dust that my last spell had created.

“I advise,” she said, “that we go somewhere less public before I tell you more.”

“I think so too,” I said.

Half an hour later, I was bewildered, shocked, weirded out, and inanely happy.

“You are a Star Anoki. You have the rarest talent known to any of us. You can do all the kinds of magic, except a weakness in Dark magic. But I expected that.” Kaye gathered the notes she’d taken. “The only other small weakness is in Fire magic. But then, that kid trying to roast marshmallows might have been a small distraction.”

“There was a kid trying to roast marshmallows?”

Kaye sighed. “The point is that you’re not really an Earth Anoki. You’re a Star Anoki whose strongest power is in Earth magic. I think your wings changed color that night you went out and claimed the magic as yours. Or it claimed you. Magic works that way. I’ve never been able to explain it. It’s just, Amanda…”

I gave Kaye a “go on” look.

“…that Star magic tends to take over anyone who accepts it and can’t handle it. I don’t know. I think you’re good enough to handle it. Star magic is usually pretty good at Dark magic, but I could see your reluctance to do it. And you controlled yourself enough to not do it except to get on with the test. You didn’t want to. It had nothing to do with your inability. But there’s one thing that confuses me.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“I’m one too.”

“I thought,” I huffed as I tried to keep up with Kaye, “that you couldn’t do Time or Dream magic. You told me once.”

“I can do any element!” Kaye hissed. “I just keep it secret. I’ll explain why later.”

We were shopping for magic stuff. I was looking for a decent cloak when Kaye popped her head around the corner and dragged me over.

“Wands,” she said. I was puzzled.

“But we’re Anoki. Why would we need wands?”

“Because we’ll be doing a lot of traveling, and if we’re seen, then all we have to do is shove our wings under a jacket and wave it around, and people will think we’re human wielders. Besides, they sometimes help amplify a spell, especially healing spells. The wood just seems to make Earth magic a lot more effective.” She leaned over and whispered, “And they look totally awesome!”

“Can’t argue with that,” I said. I bought one for myself, but Kaye skipped it after all that. I went back and picked up the thick green cloak I’d been eyeing. I might not be an Earth Anoki, but I was still an Amanda.

I was wondering what Kaye thought she was doing. I mean, pulling me to the shops to get all this stuff. Was she planning something? The fact that I didn’t know Kaye as well as I thought I did screamed “YES” even louder.

I bought a backpack that held much more than it implied from the outside. Useful. We stocked up on seeds and lots and lots of candy and other junk food. Most of it was Kaye’s idea. She bought a huge tent that she stuck in the backpack and said that we’d be gone a while, so we might as well make it comfortable. We bought tons of blankets, a teensy heater (which could be powered with Storm magic or batteries) and other stuff that somehow all fit in the pack without being heavy.

We went Kaye’s house. As she packed, she questioned my past, and I relinquished it to the first non-Zephan. Then it was my turn.

“Why did you hide your talent from the rest of the village?”

Kaye was silent for a minute. Then she said, “The village elders have been planning another attack in the war with the Zepha tribe for almost a year. And if they realize that they have a Star Anoki, they will attack as soon as possible because that Anoki will win the war for them. I mean, Star Anoki can fly, and Darkness cloaks make it incredibly easy to spy. Flying makes stealing plans and stuff easier–a lot easier. And of course, the ability to do any kind of magic allows certain advantages. Plus, if they had a Star Anoki, they’d have a healer as well. The Zepha tribe’s healer disappeared a while ago.” Kaye shot a pointed glance at me. “And, of course, you’re FROM the Zepha tribe and would know everything about it.

“So anyway, Elder Fienne was watching at the edge of the training grounds while you were taking your test, and you can bet your life that she saw that you could do every single kind of magic. Now she knows that she has a Star Anoki and that it’s incredibly likely that the Zepha tribe doesn’t. They searched your apartment last night. I heard there was a whole crowd of them snooping around.”

I frowned and said, “Wouldn’t it benefit the Zephans to merge with the Kliid and end the war anyway? This whole thing is kind of counterproductive. The Kliid have a more stable government and everything.”

“There’s no good outcome if they kill everyone there,” Kaye hissed. “And the people in the war get killed also. My mother was an amazing healer, and my father was a talented Storm Anoki. Both were killed in a war we had with the Zephans.”

“Weird,” I said. “My parents were killed in the same war. But they were traitors to the Zepha tribe. I used to be angry about it, but now…”

“Maybe I knew them. What were their names?”

“Alicia Errea was my mother’s maiden name…”

“…and Jared Unger was your father… right?”

I frowned. “Yeah. How’d you know?”

“Because they’re my parents.”

I stared. I frowned. “But you’re older than me.”

Kaye shrugged. “So? Our parents weren’t traitors to the Zepha tribe; they were spies for the Kliid tribe that came back with secrets about the Zephans. They weren’t traitors, not really. They were on a secret mission to get inside information about the Zephans. They pretended to be traitors while they were in the Zepha area, and tried to look like they were here to stay. They set up a house and fed the war leaders chicken feed–that’s useless information that made them look good–and ended up with a second daughter. When they had to escape with the secrets, they got out in the nick of time and had to leave you here. I guess you saw Mom doing Earth magic a lot while she was there and picked it up yourself.”

“She taught me,” I said. “She tried to teach me a lot of kinds of magic, but back then, Earth was the one that stuck. That was the only one I was able to do then, and that was all the school trained me in, even though I could do Light and Water magic when my friends taught me later. I can remember my mother doing every kind of magic except Darkness. She told me that she could, but said that she didn’t want to. I never did see her do it. From the time she disappeared, I decided that I didn’t want to do that kind of magic either.”

“She was a Star Anoki too? Maybe magical talent is hereditary.”

“It’s a mystery. But it deserves to be our mystery. It’s nobody else’s business. And we need to leave before the elders discover us further. If they so much as see either of us again, it’ll be easier for them to track us down. Unfortunately, anyone in the village who can fly will be the ones tracking us.”

“Then we need to bring Akana too,” Kaye said. “Nobody else in the village can fly.”

“Wait,” I said. “Li.”

“Oh, yeah,” Kaye said, sighing. “I really don’t want to take another person along with us, but we can’t afford to let anyone who can fly stay in the village.” Kaye finished packing up. “I’ll get Li. You find Akana. She’ll believe you better than she’ll believe me. We need to get out of here. Make sure you’re not seen.” She examined me critically. “Bring your old green clothes too. You stick out like an sparkly green thumb.”

I left to find Akana. Kaye disappeared down an alley. One of the elders almost spotted me, but I darted behind a building. Kaye was right; my turquoise clothes would blend better with the sky than the trees.

Wait a sec.

I slipped into the forest and shot up far enough that nobody could see me. Nobody who could fly was looking for me, so I figured I was pretty safe up here.

And apparently Akana was thinking the same thing. Because she was up here also.

“Akana,” I said. She jumped in midair, then realized it was me and flew over.

“Yeah?”

“We’re running away for the second time before the elders can use us in the war. I’m a Star Anoki and they’re going to use Kaye and me to attack the Zepha tribe, so we’re getting our butts out of here before they can attack.” My explanation was admittedly shorter than Kaye’s, and also minus the emo weep-fest about our parents.

“Sounds good,” Akana said. “Why do you need me?”

“Because they’ll use you to track us. Kaye’s bringing Li. Oh, by the way, Kaye and I found out we’re sisters.”

“Really?”Akana asked. “She doesn’t look anything like you. Oh well. Let’s get going.”

Akana was right. Kaye looked more like Akana than she did me. “Your parents didn’t die in a war, did they?”

“No,” Akana said. “Why?”

“Never mind. Let’s get going.” Akana only kept a backpack anyway, and she conveniently had it with her. Minus Kaye’s contagious wordiness, we were out of the sky and out of the village in no time flat. But Kaye and Li weren’t.

“What do you say we go back and get them?” Akana asked. “I say if we don’t, then they’re never going to show up.”

I was about to agree when Kaye and Li crashed through the trees above us. “Li was spotted!” Kaye said.

“Somehow I’m not surprised,” I said, eyeing Li’s orange countenance. I dropped back into the village and got her normal, non-fiery clothes in dark green and sky blue, to blend in. I fireproofed them and Li put them on, but her wings still blazed bright red. She looked sort of like a trigger-happy Christmas ornament.

“If we fly high enough, none of us will be seen. Including Li’s pyrotechnic persona,” I said.

“Oooh… I hate alliteration!” Kaye giggled. “It reminds me of the guy on the candy show!”

All of us started giggling. Sure, the fairies tapped into the humans’ satellite signals, but we tapped into the fairies’.

When the giggling subsided, we had could only hope that we hadn’t been heard. I glanced from Li’s bright orange wings to Akana’s vibrant yellow to my own, which were the color of my ring and very pale. There was no way any of us would blend with the forest–

As soon as I thought this, my wings turned the very same green as the forest around us. With my green clothes and auburn hair, I blended pretty well. Kaye saw me and tried the same thing, but it didn’t work for her. I wondered why. Maybe she was just weaker at Star magic than I was, for some reason. Weird.

Chapter One–Amanda (Edited)

CHAPTER ONE—AMANDA

I’m not scared, I thought as I left. I was running away from home. Not scared. Just angry. I can deal. I am Amanda the healer. Amanda the Earth Anoki. I’m Amanda the Really, Really Teed Off, too, so I’m dangerous. I don’t care who they send now, because now nobody can hurt me. Nobody can do anything to me. Yes…

Yeah, I see your clueless expression. Don’t freak out, because I’ll explain. This whole book is an explanation.

First off, Anoki are sort of like faeries that have powers relating to specific elements, some natural and some not. I happen to be one of the few Anoki with Earth talent, which makes me a healer and almost indestructible in any battle, unless you manage to kill me before I can heal myself, like a neck attack. For instance. But if I dodge it, you’re pretty much dead. That’s what you get when you wander onto a battlefield at seven years old and start healing people who get hurt. You pick stuff up.

Earth talent is pretty rare, and I happen to be the Zepha tribe’s only healer. I was expecting pretty much everyone in the village to come after me, trying to either kill me or persuade me to come back. The Zephans rely so much on me that people could get killed, but if the Zephans were worried about that, then they should have paid more attention to the first aid lessons I gave them. Either I’d run away successfully and get what I wanted, or the Zephan dictators would change the laws, and I’d return. If neither happened, I wasn’t sure if I planned to come back at all.

If I was a normal, obedient little girl who was impressionable enough to believe that dictator-knows-best, I would be at school, getting magic done on me—specifically, the Commitment Spell—which limits the recipient (read: victim) to a certain element but supposedly allows them to do the best magic of that element. Note: I’ve never met an Earth spell I couldn’t do well. Since I obviously couldn’t call in sick or anything, I had to leave the village to avoid it.

Why do I care? As much as I like Earth magic, I want to be able to do Air magic and to fly. Every Anoki has a pair of wings, but without Air talent, we can fly like an anvil. The closest I’ve ever gotten to actually being airborne had been a Truth or Dare game involving lots of cayenne pepper.

My mom had been amazing at all kinds of magic, and I’d never thought much of it. She’d tried hard to teach me each kind: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Light, Darkness, Time, Storm and Dreams. Earth had been the only one that had stuck with me at the time. I could heal anything from cat scratch to brain tumor, but I couldn’t even light a candle by magic or make air move. I couldn’t use magic to turn lights on or off in a room, but I could talk to trees and plants. Only my mom ever knew about that talent; Dad never caught on, and I never did it in front of my friends because Mom said that they couldn’t hear the plants. They would have thought I was nuts.

All of my friends had a talent in a stronger element, like Fire or Water. Some of the Darkness and Time Anoki bullied me until I started using Earth magic for anything that hurt me, not just the big stuff. If a little kid fell off a swing at school, I would heal the sidewalk scuffs. Kids paid me in quarters if I did a little healing magic for them. It eventually got out of control, and I had people following me constantly. I loved little kids and didn’t mind healing them, but the teenagers should have been able to suffer through needle pricks. Sheesh.

The school never trained me in anything other than Earth magic. I picked up some simple Light and Water spells, taught to me by friends. Light is picky and complicated, though, and getting it to do what you want is hard. I liked Water, but it’s heavy, and you have to struggle not to drop it, like trying to keep a dozen balloons up in the air at once. Water balloons.

None of the Zephans had Air as their element, even though the Zepha “village” is huge. Village or tribe are the collective nouns for a group of Anoki; it doesn’t refer to the size of the actual neighborhood. The Zepha tribe is actually more like a city, littered with all kinds of crazy people, pompous idiots, guilty bystanders, bad cooks, and actor wannabes.

Back to the story. I ran, and I only planned to come back after I learned to fly. Since Air Anoki are even rarer than Earth Anoki, the dictators won’t want to give up either talent by making me commit. Save the marriage jokes for someone else, please.

Who am I? You ask. Or, more likely: Who the heck is this person and how many psychiatrists has she driven nuts?

You’re looking at a mint-condition Amanda, capable of archery and with six or seven years of mercenary-style fighting experience. Why would I have that at thirteen years? To put it short… Kliid tribe no likey Zepha tribe. As in, a decades-long war, the conflicts which started it long forgotten. I started out healing a few soldiers every day, then learned to manipulate plants enough to make simple potions. When I had a good stock, I started to spend time with Mel, a soldier and my sort-of godmother, whose life I’d saved repeatedly. Mel was teaching me to use the bow and to fight. I thought she looked like a ninja. She definitely fought like one.

You’d think that somebody would tell the kid (me) to get off the battlefield, and most people did… at first. But after I snuck in repeatedly and saved a bunch of people’s lives while successfully avoiding all strikes myself, other people started telling anyone who scolded me to shut up.

Problem was, I hadn’t saved the two lives that counted to me personally: my parents. I’d been too young—maybe four years old. After that, Mel took me in. Maybe she’d been a friend of my mother, or maybe she could see the benefit of raising a healer. She didn’t earn much, and I wasn’t paid for my fighting since I didn’t want to join the army and be put under that much control, so I had to heal people for money, or go hungry. I could grow vegetables easily enough—that’s probably how Mel could afford to support me—but that wasn’t meat, and I’m not into cannibalism, even though dead Kliid were in abundance. Ick.

I hoped my parents would come back someday, but there wasn’t really a bunch of hope for that. The soldiers had found bodies.

Of all the species of fey, animals, and humans in the world, I’d always choose Anoki to live with. They seem… I don’t know, independent. Sort of. But at the same time, they do rely on each other for certain jobs. Fairies, pixies, Shapees, dragons… they tend to try and be weirdly nonconformist, but everyone does it at once, kind of like when two people are trying to get out of each other’s way and keep leaning in different directions simultaneously to dodge the other, and always lean in the same direction at once. But Anoki are already nonconformist, being separated by the elements, and conformity within element groups is normal because each type of magic has its own personality and the Anoki has taken some of it. If they’re different, it usually means they’re weak spellcasters.

Magic wielders are the only humans worth talking to, seeing as most have a brain, though they’re still humans and have relatively boring magic. But they’re similar to Anoki in certain ways. They always have some sort of implement, usually a staff or a wand or something. Anoki have yarn rings like the kind you tie around your finger as not to forget something. But ours are created by magic, and never have knots. Usually, they’re the color that tends to represent the person’s element. Mine, strangely, isn’t a deep green like normal Earth Anoki’s rings. It’s kind of a misty, mint green, and is speckled with dark blue where it hits my hand.

Human wielders rely on the implement to do magic. Anoki rings are just kind of a way to tell about someone, about their element and personality, whether they’re trustworthy, and all with a glance. Simple.

Now that I’d run away, I needed to find a village that would accept me and that had an Air Anoki who was willing to teach me Air magic. This was kind of a bad task to get stuck with. Since I, uh, couldn’t fly (or I wouldn’t be doing this), I had to find villages like a human. I couldn’t locate an Air Anoki using magic, since finding people was probably something more like Dream magic. I had to go on foot. And even when I reached a village that I was sure wasn’t the Zepha tribe, it wasn’t guaranteed that I would find an Air Anoki. Kind of the opposite, actually. The talent was so rare…

I calmed down, just a little. I was maybe a mile from the village. In that short little trek, I had gained a jittery jump-up-and-down rush of adrenaline. Then I realized why: there was this whirring little noise behind me, getting louder. It sounded really familiar—I’d heard it at school. It was… it was…

Two Fire Anoki and a Darkness Anoki crashed between the trees. They were only about twenty yards away! I turned tail and ran at a speed I rarely have to run at. This was an emergency: those guys could kill me in an instant, before I could heal myself. My blatantly obvious weakness.

I thought fast as I ran, then came to a decision. I yanked an arrow from my quiver and nocked it on my bow. Guess it was a good idea to keep it strung after all.

But maybe not. The dictators  had sent my own friends after me, because they were so afraid I might kill their warriors. I guess I’m too predictable.

I put the arrow back, but called to several trees, which uprooted themselves and went to surround the others. I put an automatic-heal spell on them so the Anoki couldn’t blast through. The trees would eventually let them go, but not until the end of the day.

They were caged in seconds, but before the circle of trees was stable, one of the Fire Anoki shot a flame and burned my foot. Needless to say, my friends aren’t very loyal.

I asked the trees to let Mel know I was leaving so she wouldn’t go looking for me. Mel couldn’t talk to plants, but trees can write. Weird, isn’t it?

I yanked off my burning shoe, biting my lip. “Physician, heal thyself,” I said, and the burn faded slightly. I chucked the shoe into a pond and ran with one foot bare.

I saw, at the edge of the forest, a flash of purple. Then it was as close as the others had been. I ran faster. One of the Time Anoki had fast-forwarded his pursuit and was almost on top of me. Well, I was a fast runner. I sped up.

He sped up as well, but after that I could tell from his gait that he’d be too magically tired to do anything else without collapsing. But the second store of energy reserved for magic had no effect on the first store of physical energy, and he was running like water anyway. If I could collapse him either magically, physically or mentally, he’d be a heap in a few minutes. Especially if I outran him, which I could do if my energy held out, or…

I ran like my life depended on it, widening the gap between us to give me some time. Then, panting hard, I stuck a maple seed in the ground and convinced it to grow fast. I jumped into the tree when it was big enough to hold my weight and climbed to the top. Then I grew it to full size, supplementing it with energy.

The Anoki saw me. Kind of hard to miss a huge honkin’ tree growing that fast. As he started to climb the tree, I shifted branches and hopped to an oak. The Anoki was stuck wandering around in the foliage of the first tree while I was crossing branches of several of the trees, thanking the universe that I’d run far enough into the forest for it to be dense enough for me to pull this off. When I was several trees away, I discreetly dropped to the ground and got my butt out of there. And the rest of me, too.

Welcome to Rabbit-Eating Girl, the brand new hit reality TV show!

Okay, no. One, I’m much too practical for reality TV. Two, I hate soap operas. Three, I don’t have a camera, and if I’m not mistaken, most reality TV is not shot in some stupid forest. Four, if I was only eating rabbit, I’d probably be dead by now. Rabbit’s lean meat.

Yeah, I hear you tree hugs all yelling protests and forming a mob. Nothing’s going extinct around here. Anyway, I’m an endangered species. Why aren’t you rioting and storming the Zephan dictators to protect me? Spoiled animals.

I’ve actually been eating pretty well on the forest critters which are, surprisingly, in large quantities and low intelligence. Maybe it’s just my magic that gives me an edge surviving, or maybe it’s just because I was pretty much used to it. Ironically, if the dictators ever paid me, I wouldn’t be able to survive their attacks. Works for me.

Thankfully, I spotted a human camping site and jacked all their Pepsi. So I still have the whole will-to-live thing.

Not bad use of my extensive supply list of a bow, a bottle, a blanket and a rabbit-cleaning knife, eh? Hmm.

I keep hoping that I’ll somehow learn Air magic on my own, but that’s extremely far-fetched and I know it won’t happen. I’ve been trying to fly every day, and it’s not working. I wish I could fly to wherever I need to learn Air magic. I’ve decided that I’m not going to do this halfway: I’m going to learn at least half the Air magic there is to learn before I go back, or die trying. Mel would be my only reason for going back to the Zepha tribe in the first place.

Hopefully, the dictators won’t try to commit me to Air magic, either. But they probably know by now what it’s like without me and can gauge the loss.

I was thinking this, sitting by a shrimpy fire I’d coaxed into existence. I was in a mood, and any wood I touched was trying to grow. It was, annoyingly, kind of funny. Advice: Green wood doesn’t want to burn.

Then I heard the twang of some kind of magic—what, I didn’t know, but the temperature was getting suspiciously hotter and all my healer senses went on alert. I stuck the meat I was cooking on the sharpened stick, which was also not burning, and shoved the other end of the stick into the ground. That way, I should be able to know if any animals messed with it. Just as long as I didn’t have to tree-climb for dinner.

I traced the noise to a clump of near-dead pine trees and a scrawny-looking bramble. They were so close together I could barely see what was behind them, but I did see a fire. A pretty large one.

I set an automatic healing spell up as a shield. I wasn’t too fond of barging in on a possible Fire Anoki enemy with no protection. I strung my bow and pulled an arrow for ready use.

I shoved my way between the pine trees, adrenaline preparing me for a fight.

And I saw, sitting around the fire, twelve Fire Anoki, staring straight at me.

… not?

“Eep!” the little girl said, jumping. She backed away from her fire, magnifying glass in her hand, and only stopped when it was necessary to prevent the bramble from perforating her. Her shoulder was practically nonexistent, looking like it had been ripped off by a rabid wildebeest, and she was skinny enough to shove through a medieval arrow slit.

“Who are you?” I asked, staring at her. In front of me was a girl, maybe eleven, looking too innocent.

“Please don’t kill me,” she said.

“Hello, Please don’t kill me. I’m Amanda,” I said. “What were your parents thinking?”

“Are you going to kill me?” she asked.

“That’s an odd thing for parents to worry about. I mean, not many people look at a newborn and say, ‘I really hope you don’t take an AK-47 to my brain in three years.’”

She obviously wasn’t sure what to make of this since she just stared at me like I had suggested that she could drive a car across the ocean, so I relinquished the jokes and said, “No, I’m not going to kill you.”

I think both of us relaxed. I fanned out my big green wings and grinned in relief, showing off major freckles.

“How’d you get the fire started?” I asked. She held up the magnifying glass in response. “Oh, I see,” I said. “You’re a Light Anoki, then. What village are you from?”

“The Zepha one,” she said without any menace of sign of threat. Nevertheless, I froze in place. She was wearing Zephan trends.

But I knew all 200 of the Zephan kids. I could recognize them and call them by name if I saw them on the moon. She wasn’t one of them. And she didn’t fit village genetics; back at home, everyone had brown or red hair, and she was blonde and blue-eyed.

“What’s your name?” I asked. “Don’t tell me it’s pleasedon’tkillme.”

“It’s not,” she said with an I’m-getting-annoyed undertone.

“Hello, Not…” I started with a grin, until she glared at me.

“My name is Akana,” she said firmly. “Don’t play games with me. I am nine, you know.”

“Yeah,” I said, “because everyone knows I get a baseball card about a little girl called Akana when I crash through a bunch of spiky bushes. It tells me her name, age, element, and what color Popsicle she likes.”

She smiled. “Orange.”

“Why are you out here?” I queried. “If you’re Zephan, shouldn’t you be about twenty miles back?”

“I… should,” she said, tiptoeing around something.

“But you’re not,” I said. “Why?”

She looked like she’d been caught stealing wedding cake. “I ran away. Three days ago.”

“Are you kidding me?” I asked, almost yelling. I think she thought I was going to scold her for leaving, but I continued, saying, “How fast did you run?! We’re miles away from the village!”

“Run?” she said in disgust. “I flew, silly. What do you think you have wings for?”

Thirty minutes later, I was in a state of utter confusion. We were sitting around my campfire and talking. Well, I was talking, and Akana was trying to shove as much food in her face as humanly—or magically—possible.

I made her stop with the venison for a second to let me look at her shoulder. I had no clue how her arm was still attached. It was covered in patchy scabs. I told her to look away while I healed her. She shivered and took a glance at her shoulder, incredulous, then went straight back to eating.

I let her for a while. After about fifteen minutes, she’d polished off the venison. I had suggested that she start with some lettuce or something light, but she’d headed straight for the meat anyway. I didn’t make a big deal of it—her malnutrition couldn’t be that bad after only three days, as long as she’d found water. I had enough meat available. Now that she had maybe fourteen ounces of deer sitting in her stomach, I started to question her further. But she was falling asleep in front of my face, so I rolled her into the blanket and let her fall asleep.

I went out to replenish my food store. When I came back with a few small furry animals I couldn’t identify and… erm… set them up, I banked the fire and collapsed myself, pulling my big cloak around me. (You can buy Earthen Mage cloaks for Only a Dollar at the same place human magic wielders get their wands and staffs. Really, they could use sticks if they wanted to, but those don’t look as cool, which was the same reason I wasn’t wearing a normal coat.)

I woke up that morning to myself, unwilling to wrench open my eyes. In that minute, the muddy ground was as comfortable to me as my bed at home, maybe more so, and I could feel bruises healing and my energy draining again. I remembered that I’d never removed the auto-heal spell from myself, and I could either take the spell off while it was still healing me and risk it becoming permanent, or let it heal the rest and risk collapsing again out of self-preservation and worrying Akana when I don’t wake up again for a few hours.

As an Anoki, who rely heavily on their magic to survive, (unlike humans, who rely only a little on magic, and only require the universe to contain magic to survive), I always collapse when I get too magically tired. This is because, like all others of my kind, if I get too magically tired, I have the potential to kill myself with another spell, or be killed by an event that saps magic, like a large spell that absorbs surrounding energy as well as its caster’s.

I decided to let the spell run its course. I didn’t collapse, even though I apparently had so many bruises, scrapes, and thorn-sticks that I probably would have fallen over anyway from them upon standing if the spell wasn’t there to heal me. That should have taken a lot of magic. Maybe I’m getting stronger… something to hope for.

I released the spell, and the one on the trees near the Zepha village as well. The last thing I wanted was to land in a crumpled heap in the middle of battle because of someone with a chainsaw.

Akana was already up, sitting with her magnifying glass by the rocky circle where last night’s fire had been. She was passing light through the glass, starting the fire.

“So you can really fly,” I said, the remark not quite a question, but definitely a statement that demanded an answer.

“No, it’s a scam designed to waste your time. Yes, I can fly.” She rolled her eyes.

“And you got that from hanging around me for a day?” I said incredulously.

“No,” she said matter-of-factly. “I knew you were going to ask that the second you got up, so I came up with a witty response. And you can’t fly?”

“Well, I surpass rocks,” I said. “But only with cayenne pepper.”

“I could probably teach you,” she said. “Come on.”

She took flight, and motioned for me to follow. Hard as I beat my wings, I couldn’t get off the ground.

“It’s not brain surgery,” she said. “Chill out.”

“Not helping,” I said, putting my hands on my hips.

She landed with a sigh and muttered something, making a little motion with her hands that might have been part of the spell, or it might have been nine-year-old-girl impatience.

“Now you can,” she said hastily. “Get up here. You need to see this.” She took a running start and disappeared quickly above the trees. I had no choice but to try and follow. Amazingly, it worked.

“There’s the Zepha tribe,” she pointed out. “And there’s the Frether tribe…”

“That’s the Skiea tribe,” I said.

“Come on, then.” She zipped away toward another area.

“Why there?” I asked, matching her speed.

“Because!”

She flew in random circles for a few hours, then both of us landed back where we’d started.

“You never did answer my question,” I said to her when we stopped for lunch. “Why did you leave the Zephans?”

“Oh, they wanted to use me in some war.”

I wasn’t surprised. The Zephans probably thought she could fly away from anything. But they didn’t think about arrows.

“Why did you leave, Amanda? You’re out here, too.”

“It’s really complicated. I’ll tell you sometime, but not out in broad daylight. We don’t know who’s out here, and I have enemies. In short, I need to find a village with an Air Anoki. We obviously both have the talent for Air magic, so what we need to do is learn more so that we can defend ourselves better. The fact is, we’re both refugees, and refugees are hunted.”

“I visited a village that had an Air Anoki recently. They make really good cinnamon rolls.”

In return for gaining the ability to fly, something for which I restrained my elation in case Akana would think I’d gone crazy, I tried to teach Akana healing magic. It didn’t work too well. Everything distracted her, especially the big honkin’ butterfly that decided to repeatedly land in her face.

Akana took me back above the trees to look at the village she’d mentioned. It was somewhere near the Zepha tribe, so I had to be wary while staying there, and it seemed to be in an oddly familiar direction.

We hunkered down for one more night. We weren’t too far from Akana’s cinnamon-roll paradise, so I figured we’d be able to cover it in a day. I didn’t know what I was looking forward to more, the Air lessons or the aforementioned bakery products.

The next thing I knew, I was forcing my eyes open again and staring up, wondering when my bedroom ceiling had been painted that way. You can laugh.

Once again, Akana had woken up before I had. It was early morning, and the sun hadn’t risen. The grass was wet with dew. My clothes were caked with mud. Scratch that. I was caked with mud. And believe me when I say everywhere. I still didn’t exactly feel like hopping in a river when it was forty degrees out, though.

I didn’t need to worry. It was a dull rain all day anyway. There wasn’t wind, though, so we needed to keep moving. This is one of those instances where I wish I didn’t thrash so much in my sleep. Rolling stones do gather mud.

I was flying all day, Akana by my side. It was hard to see where we were going, but the trees and my sense of direction kept us straight. Then I saw the village, and I bolted there at seventy miles an hour or something, leaving Akana so far back that I had to retrace my nonexistent steps.

At what should have been 6:00 but was hard to tell without a visible sun, we both landed in the village.

“Raaaah,” I said. “I’m the mud monster!”

Several people stopped in their tracks to stare at me.

That was how the rest of the day went.

Chapter Eleven–Home

CHAPTER ELEVEN—HOME

We found Mom waiting patiently right outside the cottage. Turns out she had been tracking me from my cell phone, which had a GPS thing in it. I found this weirdly funny. She has the most rare magic known to Anoki, but she tracks me with a cell phone. We all have our quirks.

“Oh, you found Akana,” Mom said. “She’s your sister as well, but she wandered away when she was a toddler and landed in the Zepha tribe. You took care of her as you took care of all the children, and she eventually ended up with you, although you didn’t seem to recognize her then. I let her stay. She learned things from you.”

Akana smiled brightly. I guess she never really knew Mom either.

“Where do you live, exactly?” I asked Mom. She took us there.

Her house was nothing super fancy or weird like Katyen’s, but one of the bedrooms looked exactly like mine. It looked like the inside of a tree, with hardwood floors and a mossy green rug that came close to the color of the walls. But a lot more light came into this room than my room in the Zepha tribe. I wondered who would live in that house now. I had an idea.

I could definitely live here. It was becoming real.

I met my father. He had an odd personality, and would listen to a conversation for a while, then pipe up with a witty comment. He sounded a lot like me, but less chatty and less bold. And a heck of a lot calmer. But I knew where Kaye and Akana got their blonde hair.

I wanted to stay. Kaye had had a semi-normal life, but I wanted a break from fighting. I was happy. I wanted to stay.

I had to go back to the Zepha tribe for a little. I had unfinished business.

“Tony!” I called. He dropped out of a tree. What a surprise.

“Yeah?”

“Have I got a deal for you.”

“Yeah?”

I took him behind the house. “The plants like you, and I’m moving in with my mom, who I just discovered isn’t dead. I can’t fit all these plants in my room, so I want you to have the greenhouse and keep it. And if you ever want more magic lessons, it’s a short flight to the Skiea tribe.”

I took the mint plant in a basket and some of my seeds, but I left the rest for Tony. Which was a lot. I taught him to use the sprinkler system (dump water in tub. Watch planty things get water. You done now) and left him. I wasn’t sure what to do with the house, but I figured Tony might live there when he got older.

I was glad I didn’t bring many plants home, because I had a tree house full of them now. My parents had been ready, and my mom had obviously been up on my status.

I was overjoyed. This made the whole mission thing worth it. It was perfect. I didn’t have a reason to stay with the Zephans and definitely not with the Kliid, but I had every reason to stay with my own parents and sort of catch up. I decided I wanted to be a magic/weapons teacher right here in the Skiea tribe. I could live here.

I saw someone in the sky. Someone with hunter-green wings…

“Tony!”

“My parents said that if I wanted to do Earth magic, then I was going to have to go to you for schooling, if you said yeah. It only took me a few minutes to fly.” He landed, looking windblown and cute (though I’d never say that to his face).

“Heck, yeah!” I said automatically, grinning wide. “I was just thinking of starting a school somewhere around here.”

“You’re acting normal,” he said, astonished.

“Which still counts as acting weird because I never do it,” I pointed out.

“Okay, that makes sense. I think,” he said. “Sort of. Maybe weird, perverted sense. I learned that word from you.” He grinned at me. I got this weird impulse to back away slowly, turn, and run the other direction at mach speed. He was creeping me out.

I was becoming normal, yes, but I felt after my life, I deserved it. Most people work the other way around, but I was so weird that, even when weird is normal for an adventure, I was on a whole different level of weird so that I was weirdly weird, and now I’m weirdly normal. Weird.

I still had some questions, though.

“What did I do?” I asked Mom. “You said you saw me make up spells, but I don’t know what I was doing.”

Kaye was sitting in the living room, talking excitedly with Dad. Akana was petting the humongous lump of fur that was vaguely feline (my mom called it a cat). His name was Cat-Flat, and it had nothing to do with lack of roundness, a trait Cat-Flat seemed to have in abundance. No, Cat-Flat was named for his… anomalies. Need I say more? Didn’t think so.

“Star magic enables you to do the elements Air, Water, Fire, Earth, Light, Darkness, Time, Storm, Dreams, and Star. You simply didn’t know that Star magic has an element of its own that no one else can do. It has very little to actually relate to the stars, and more to relate to whatever you use it for. Wardrobe catastrophes. House décor. Problems with child discipline. I once made up a spell that glued children to whatever they touched until they listened. The floor. Their toys. Each other. I did it once when the high school boys were slapping the doorframe to go into school. You should have seen their faces when their hands stuck there. Then I dropped them just before they dislocated their shoulders and watched them land in a heap. But I’m mean that way.” She grinned.

“You sound creepily like me.” I grinned.

“Kaye can do nine of the ten elements. She can’t do Star magic. She’s a Storm Anoki, like her father. Air and Storm magic for her. And Light. Anything in the sky. She couldn’t do Earth, though. That brings me to my other point. Do you know why that man got possessed by Star magic even though he did not undergo the Commitment Spell?”

“No dang clue.” I liked how she always asked whether I knew something before explaining it. I hate it when people start telling me stuff I know already because they assume I don’t and I can’t tell them to shut up already like I want.

“Simply because this is the nature of Star magic. You have to be a certain kind of person to wield it properly. You have to be good, yes, morally and in magic, but there’s a little more than that. You were grounded in Earth magic. You’re an Earth Anoki before you are a Star Anoki, and you didn’t let it go to your head. You’re strong enough in yourself, and you don’t pretend to be someone you’re not or wish you were something else. You wanted to fly, yes, but you got that already from Akana. Since you were occupying every part of yourself evenly, it didn’t have a place to take over that didn’t have you and your Earth magic leashing it. Magic is weird.

“Your Earth magic was dominant, and it was also the reason you couldn’t take the village through mutiny or brute force.  People notice hurricanes, tornadoes, and people notice forest fires and volcano eruptions and floods and winds that blow things over. But people can sleep through earthquakes that may cover a certain poisonous plant that would normally kill someone, or a certain rock falls on a certain head. Someone up there makes sure that the right people get killed and the right people stay alive.”

I was thinking. “If there is someone ‘up there’ who supervises, then why do bad people tend to live so long?”

“Just because we’re watched doesn’t mean that the world is perfect. It’s a cursed place. All we can do is make it as good as possible, but people will always be slightly evil. No matter what. But it does mean that 99% of human worries are needless. They think the earth is going to dissolve into nothingness if cows are around.”

“What?!”

“Cows. I heard. Something about farting.”

I shook my head. “You’re nuts.”

“Don’t blame me! The humans came up with it!”

“Do you know how Anoki get magical talents, anyway?” I asked, changing the subject. “It seems like they just show up sometimes.”

“Usually it’s because they run into a loose patch of magic, or someone puts too much power into a spell and that extra power becomes ambient magic. Then when someone finds it, it’s like walking into a cloud of gnats, and if the magic acknowledges the person because they’re the right personality, the right type to carry that magic, then it’s theirs. You ran into the Star magic that I used from the sky to disguise the bodies. I did it there so that it would be unlikely for people to run into it and use it badly. But you could fly, and you were the first to find it. I’m surprised Kaye didn’t, but I’m glad. She would have been possessed. Magic is dangerous. And the Kliid leader you dealt with had run into either your Star magic, or had found Akana’s spell and run into mine while flying.”

“Did Akana make that spell up?” I asked.

“I don’t know. It feels like Light magic, but she seemed to make it up. Her talents are strangely limited, though, to the natural elements and Light. She can’t do other Star magic or make up other spells. I call it Moon magic, just in case she’s discovered a new element. When you did it, it felt to me like Star magic, but Light Anoki can do it—I asked one. And it feels like Light magic when she does it.”

“I don’t know what to make of that kid,” I said. I didn’t.

“And if you don’t accept the magic when you run into it, it doesn’t take. You couldn’t do Darkness magic well, even though it came with the Star magic, because you’d only half accepted it, just enough to get the Star magic. I have to agree with you—I like night, because night is natural, but darkness is created. Night isn’t really dark. There are stars, each the same as the sun, across the sky with you. The moon reminds you that the sun is only on the other side of the world and still exists. Night is real. Darkness is when you are shut inside a building and someone doesn’t want light there. You can’t see a thing, and sometimes there’s a reason for that.”

“Uh, bad.” I crossed my eyes.

Mom grinned impishly. I don’t know how many moms are as naughty as mine, or if they’re just mainly mischievous. “I remember hearing that one time, on an airline that had older people running it, the pilot said to the passengers, ‘The lights are dimmed to improve your experience if you get tired and to enhance the appearance of the wait staff.’”

“Are you sure?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

If she’d approached us with lemon cookies and a huge white smile, I’d have run away fast in the other direction and nicknamed her CreepyGirl. But she hadn’t. She approached us with biscotti and a snigger at our expressions when we’d learned the too-obvious way why her cat was named Cat-Flat. I hadn’t flinched.

I went outside. What was I going to do now? Mel had the Zephans, and Kaye had the Kliid now. And I would be the Unconventional Schoolteacher. But I needed a building… or did I? I took flight and looked at the forest below until I found a clearing. I landed, went home, and mapped it out on paper. Then I used the photocopier, stolen from humans by a Water Anoki with an invisibility spell (and a camera—he took a picture of their faces), to copy it like a million times. I folded them up and stuck them in a bag. I wrote out:

Magic School—All Elements, 9:00-6:00

Schedule: Stay as long as you like throughout the long school day and come as you like. Hiring and registering! Taught by Star Anoki Amanda Unger.

All ages, all elements. 5$ per student per day. Outside, rain or shine, in mapped clearing. Contact me at amandarocks@amail.com for more info.

I decided that I might have to make a new email for the school. I erased Amandarocks@amail.com and went to the email site. Yes, Anoki have their own email site. We could have used the humans’, but that would have prevented us from building a website housing a reputation as superstition geeks by making email themes with blurry pictures of Anoki. I know why they’re blurry, too; it’s because the person holding the camera is laughing so hard when they take the picture.

I replaced amandarocks@amail.com with magicschool@amail.com. I figured that would be enough. Scrabbling around for something to shove the maps in, I found an empty Ziploc bag and stapled it to the poster I’d written out. I shoved the maps in the bag and flew (literally) to the grocery store bulletin board. The Skiea tribe was much smaller than the Zepha tribe and lacked the huge money-making megamall, but it did have a pretty big population anyway, and a lot of kids. In case you haven’t caught on, I have a thing for kids. Yeah, I was definitely here.

I went home. I read my book for about an hour, then, on a whim, went to check my email. There were three new messages:

Do you teach Water magic? –mycrazypuffycat@amail.com

count me in 🙂 –leafyjaniegirl@amail.com

hey Mrs. Unger im gonna join ur school  –imnotschizo@amail.com

I responded to each of them.

I teach all elements, mycrazypuffycat. –Amanda Unger

Okay, leafyjaniegirl, just show up with a five at the clearing and you’re in. –Amanda Unger

Imnotschizo, when I email teachers, I don’t usually use chat speak. And, um… I’m not married. Otherwise, good! No papers, just show up with a five every day and stay however long you want.

I left for the clearing. I didn’t know if they’d be there already or not—I hadn’t specified a time—but if they were over there, I didn’t want to miss them.

Good thing I did, because five kids had already showed up. Word had traveled of what I’d done in the Zepha and Kliid tribes. Kind of creepy, really. People watched.

But anyway, it was twenty-five bucks. I spent the day dodging fireballs and saying shield spells so fast that the words became a blur. Probably the reason humans thought that all spells had to be some gibberish in a secret language. Sheesh.

I was exhausted when I went home. Completely and utterly exhausted. I was also sick of seeing wet sneakers from failed Water spells, sick of seeing people stomping out embers and patting scorched clothes from Fire spells, sick of those little green-and-purple spots blinding me periodically from Light spells, sick of watching someone crack the same stupid joke again and again from Time spells that went wrong (or just because the kid keeps doing it, which is worse because I can reverse Time spells), and sick of having kids get caught up in their own Air tornadoes, getting dizzy, sick, and throwing up, and then having to pull leaves over it and making ginger extract. And I wanted to do it for weeks on end.

The next day I had fifteen kids. Apparently the Skiea tribe was more magically diverse, or maybe just a hideout for the more weirdly talented Anoki. Or they’d all got caught up in my mom’s magic and were doing the magical equivalent of sitting in radioactive waste. Yeah, that sounded more like my life.

“Kiera! You cannot set your brother on fire! Now sit down, or I’ll really teach you how to fly.”

Kiera sat down quickly, grinning broadly. I turned to another kid, who was intentionally making someone throw up. Sheesh. I grabbed his shirt and pretended to Super-Glue him to the forest floor. I wasn’t mean enough yet to try my mom’s spell, but I was getting close.

“Hey guys, how about a talent show?” I called. “Everybody sit down.”

Everybody… ignored me.

“EVERYBODY SIT DOWN,” I said, and everybody sat down. Immediately.

“Show me what you can do. Up here. Let’s see, who to pick on first?” I scanned the squirming kids, most of them around Tony’s age. “Lina, how about you?”

Lina got up. “I can make a level four hurricane,” she offered.

“Maybe something a little less dangerous that won’t cause us to drown?” I suggested. Lina was an adorable blonde girl, yes, but she was also the Water version of a pyromaniac.

“I’ll make tea from poison, then. Safe tea.” She pulled out a jug from her backpack. “This is the most dangerous stuff a kid can find anywhere. Assassins use it all the time. It’s tasteless, fast, and deadly.”

I was really questioning this kid’s parental supervision.

She poured some into a Dixie cup. We’d used them for juice. The poison was a nondescript brown color. Lena flexed her fingers, muttered some spells I couldn’t hear (uh oh), and the poison turned clear. Not that that meant squat. Lena set some branches on the ground, lit them by magic (YIKES), and set the Dixie cup in the flames without burning herself or the glass. Its contents bubbled. Lena grew some plants, picked some leaves, and dropped them in the (water?).  She was really starting to scare me. A minute later, she had some tea, which she fed to a rabbit that did not fall over, dead. We’d waited five minutes in horror.

“It would have died by now, guys!”

None of us questioned how she knew this. Then she fed the actual poison to the rabbit, and it fell over after thirty seconds.

“Okay, guys! Let’s give her a hand and everyone remind me to make my own tea!” I made a mental note never to do Star magic around Lena. She’s creepy without making up spells—as is.

“Make your own tea!” several voices chorused.

I laughed at them. This was definitely not normal school. It was much more controlled… and better air conditioned. Not that I was using cooling spells. I smiled. I could definitely do this for a while. Maybe a long while. And if not… I can find my own entertainment. Insert evil grin here.

I don’t know what else to tell you, but if you want to know more about magic…

…meet me in the clearing.

The End

Chapter Ten–Mother

CHAPTER TEN–MOTHER

My jaw dropped. I blinked. I should have known! Her voice was familiar, she was protective, she spied on me just to know who I was. It made sense.

“Why?”

“Like you, your father and I didn’t want to be used as weapons. But we were required to be warriors because of our powers. Your father can do rare and powerful magic as well—his specialties are Air and Storm, but he is not a Star Anoki. We left fake bodies the second we got the chance, but they didn’t look real. I had to use Star magic to make them look right, like we’d been shot. I couldn’t go get you or Kaye, or we’d all be hunted, and I didn’t want to actually die in the war and leave you parentless forever. But I watched you and made sure that you weren’t hurt. You don’t know how hard it was not to just go up to you and snatch you away, although you probably would have killed me if I tried that.

“I was never worried about you. You had strong magic, and Mel took care of you. You’re strong, and brave, and beautiful. You taught yourself Star magic. I saw you make up spells, though you didn’t know what you were doing at the time. You used Star magic to decorate the house for your plans. You were clever.”

That was why she looked like me. Under the dark hair dye, I could see traces of auburn, like mine. Her eyes, so near my deep blue-green, could look threatening but didn’t now. I was nervous. I felt vulnerable.

I didn’t know what to do. I sat down on the pine-needle floor of the forest and broke down into tears. I rarely cry. But I was doing it now.

“It’s all right.” She sat down right by me and hugged me like I was some little girl. “It’s all right.”

*          *          *

I don’t know how long I sat in the stupid pine needles sobbing like some idiot. But when I cry, I cry. The trees’ sympathy was wonderful, but actually having my mom there was better. I definitely took after her. I wondered what my father was like—maybe like Kaye? Now there’s a weird thought.

“What am I going to do?” I sobbed. “I have two villages that need me, I’m an emotional wreck, and—big surprise—thirteen years old. And I’m not sure whether to break down crying or do a dorky King Tut dance.”

My mom pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. But she did grin at me, and I grinned back.

“I don’t want this power. I don’t know what to do with it.”

“You’ve done your part,” my mom said.

“That’s just it. I’m stuck with an extra job.”

“Do what you want. But you have to do it fast or someone else will take over. Get yourself together and go to them. It’s okay if you choose to stay and govern the villages. I live in a village nearby. Go now.”

I did. I ran and took off, and raggedly flew to the Kliid.

“I am your new leader,” I shouted. “I have more power than the previous ruler, whom I have dealt with separately. First thing: stop all warring with the Zephans!”

I went to the area of the battlefield right where the two armies mixed in combat. “Stop and retreat! Both armies!”

There was a pause. Both went straight back to the camps, muttering. I was expecting trouble, but it didn’t come. I guess killing like a ton of people off and fighting vigorously for hours on end kind of shows that you’re really serious. Even if you’re a teenage girl with weird taste in hair color.

I landed and found the Fire Anoki who had stuck up for me against Jaken. “What’s your name?”

“Aaron?” He looked undecided—freak out or not?

“I’m putting you in charge of the first army group I had. Sector seven. They’re powerful. I trained them myself. You’re trustworthy; you’ve proven that to me through several things.” I grinned coyly and left him standing there, confused.

I flew to Mel’s friend’s place. He answered the door, and I went in. “I have both villages,” I said sadly.

“Good for you!” Mel said. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t want to sit around barking orders all my life. Mel, you can take the Zepha tribe. You’re smart. I’ll find someone to take the Kliid.”

“Why?” Mel said. “Where will you go?”

“I found Mom… well, she found me.”

Everyone but Mel looked surprised.

“You found Mom!?!” Kaye shrieked, bouncing up and down. And there’s the difference between Kaye and me. I break down in tears from stress and emotion, she dances around. Wahoo.

“Mel, you knew she was alive, didn’t you?”

“Yes. But if you went after her, the dictators would have sent troops to go kill you and your mom for lying to them. I was protecting you, like she was.”

“And I don’t want to sit around settling disputes and giving commands and whatever when I can have a normal life for a while after having, well, this. I’d give Kaye the Kliid village, but I think she’d want to be with Mom, too.”

Kaye’s mouth twitched. I could tell she didn’t know what to do.

“Mom said she lives nearby,” I added.

Kaye nodded. “I’d like to stay near the Kliid, since all my friends are there. But I want to see Mom.”

“No duh,” I said. We all started giggling.

“I’m definitely staying with the Kliid,” Li said. “Seeing as my mom’s there. Maybe Kaye can help convince my mom to stop calling me by my full name, Lisanti. She saw that name on a sugar packet from a Chinese restaurant and thought it sounded pretty.”

“But what do I do?” Akana said.

“You can come with me,” I said. “I’ve taken care of you this far. I’m not going to stop.”

“Dang,” Mel’s friend said. “One minute she’s my girlfriend, the next minute she’s Zephan leader. Dang.”

We all cracked up. I didn’t know what to say.

“I want to see Mom,” Kaye said.

Chapter Nine–Resolution?

CHAPTER NINE—RESOLUTION?

I decided to do what I’d planned: stop the wars. To do this, I had to negotiate. I dragged Kaye and Li along.

I picked out a leader, a “permanent president,” standing at the very edge of the battlefield on the Kliid side and supervising.

“Call off the war,” I shouted over the thwap of arrows and clang of swords.

I was rewarded by chortling laughter. “Go home, little girl.”

“I happen to be the new leader of this tribe,” I shouted. “I govern the entire village. Face it, buddy, I’m at your status. Call off the war or I destroy your people. I AM A STAR ANOKI!”

The warriors stopped. We were rushed by arrows, swords, even just thrown rocks. I shielded my tiny group.

“Nice to hear that. So am I.”

My turn to giggle. “As if! Star magic is too rare.”

“I learned your little flight trick and found the magic months ago.”

“Then you don’t know how to use it. Call off the war or I’ll destroy you now!” I was starting to feel queasy from panic and looking down in flight. I wasn’t scared of heights, but I was getting really disoriented.

“No.”

I threw a fireball at him. He shielded. “Overused!” he taunted. I flooded his immediate area, but he used Air magic to keep breathing. I had the trees nearby uproot themselves and choke him, passing him from branch to branch until he was at eye level. I kicked his nose, hard, and blood squirted out. He started cutting through the branches, but I just told the tree to drop him anyway, maybe 100 feet to the floor. I sent another fireball just as he was snapping his wings out, and he couldn’t shield well.

“Your toupee’s on fire.”

I saw that his eyes were dark; I couldn’t tell where the pupils ended and the irises began. Which told me something: he’d been taken over. I shot him; he healed himself and yanked the arrow out. Wrong order! He kept bleeding.

“I’ll kill you the same way my father killed your parents!”

“You’re lying. I can see it in your face. You don’t know how my parents were killed.”

I realized something more, and grinned. When he’d reached the bottom, I twisted his arm, shin-kicked you know where, and applied a fist to his temples hard enough to make him black out on the ground.

“Are you going to kill him?” Li asked.

“No. I don’t want two villages. I’m taking him prisoner.” I picked up the scrawny person, who looked like he was in his early twenties, and flew him off to the Zepha tribe dungeon. He deserved to be there. I waited until he’d woken up, but had all shields on. I let Kaye and Li leave.

“You have three options,” I said casually. “You can sit here the rest of your life. You can ally with the Zephans, call off the war, and I’ll let you go. Or I can destroy your guts. Pick.”

He fired spell after spell at me, but I made up a spell to prevent him doing magic for the next hundred years. I was hoping that the spell would outlive him.

“Release me. I’ll fight you, if you aren’t too chicken.”

“I’m supposed to be the immature one, remember? Now I gave you options. You can sit here the rest of your life. I won’t hesitate.”

His eyes narrowed.

“And if you think that’s too good for you, I can cut off all food supply. Put you in a cell made entirely of metal. Maybe a sealed cell. And I’ll put Fire magic on it so you can’t melt the bars. I’m sure you’d love that. You can go crazy in there. I’ll even supply Sharpies for you to doodle Kill-Amanda pictures on the walls. Unless you want to go for the cliché and use your own blood. I’ll give you a few canvases if you want to do that.” I smiled.

“You do realize that the more you threaten me, the less I want to negotiate.”

“Hey, me too. I’m getting some good ideas, and they’d be a heck of a lot easier than dealing with you. Destroying your guts has its appeal, too.”

I don’t think he minded the threats, but my being young, pretty and female was definitely taking its toll. I could tell.

“Do you want an Etch-A-Sketch?” I said, smiling more.

“Shut up!”

I grinned. “You are the immature one.”

“I’m eighteen.” He sulked angrily.

“Maybe I should just keep you by my side. You make me look older.” Okay, yes, I’m mean.

“I bumped off the elders of this village to free it. Why don’t I free yours now?” I said, pacing back and forth in front of his cell. I was feeding the flames.

“Yes, why don’t you? You haven’t killed me yet. You’re too soft.”

“Do you really want my response to that?”

“I won’t negotiate. You’ve killed all my generals, and I’ve had to replace my best fighters.”

“Uh, that’s because you killed my generals and my best fighters?” I said in a “duh” tone.

“This anti-magic curse is taking your energy. I feel it. You can’t kill me.”

“I have a forty-five pound bow right here. Do you want to test that?”

“I want to kill you.”

“There’s a surprise.” I grinned wider.

“You don’t want to kill me. You don’t want the village. That’s why you’re not hurting me.”

“Amazing, genius! He can read minds.” I clapped slowly in that “bored” way.

The kid fumed. I wasn’t sure why he wasn’t acting like the Darkness Anoki did when they got possessed by bad magic. Maybe the Light area was affecting him. When someone takes too much magic all in one go, a part of them that normally takes backstage comes forth and houses the extra magic. That part of them becomes full of magic, and since it wasn’t full of the person, it has the most magic in it. The person is locked into their normal personality, which now takes backstage to the other part, and the magic becomes sort of the dominant force. It kind of depends what the person was like and what kind of magic took over to know how they’ll start acting over being possessed. It’s complicated. If I had my say, nobody would get possessed by any type of magic. It’s bad, it takes over a helpless person, and that person can’t control themselves afterwards. Maybe there’s a way to un-possess someone.

I made up a spell to do so, hoping not to remove all the magic. The kid ruler slunk to the floor. I picked him up, skinny thing, and carted him out to somewhere else in the forest, a long way away. Using some Dream magic, I convinced him that he was a Chiki (Chikik are forest elves with wings. They can scream so loudly and so high that if you don’t want to be deaf,  you should be several miles away. With earplugs.

I set him on the forest floor, and did some basic healing magic. I removed the anti-magic curse. He smiled, and I immediately protected myself against the same spell.

“Now it’s time for me to destroy your guts,” he said. I guess my magic didn’t work.

“Yeah. Whatever. Unfortunately, I can’t just fast-forward through this stupid fight with Time magic to the point where I’m standing over your cold, dead body.”

“That’s because it won’t happen.”

“Ooh!” I said. “I love witty banter! Can I put the poison in both cups and heal myself?”

He growled and lunged at me with a fireball.

“Overused!” I chirped. The trees sniggered. I socked his nose again (which just stopped bleeding) and it broke this time. I went in with ice shards to the neck, but it only cut away flesh.

I tried invisibility, and when he copied me, I simply did a spell to undo his. He didn’t know what I’d done, though, because I was invisible. Duh. I pulled out the bottle the spy had given me, hoping it was still water because I was really thirsty, remembering that it would be anyway because I needed it, and having it snatched away by the leader, who gulped all of its contents. Unfortunately, the bottle hadn’t been invisible as I was, because I hadn’t been directly touching it.

“No water for you, girl!”

I decided, right then and there, that what I needed was poison. I smiled.

The Kliid leader gaped and bent double, then got caught up in a nasty localized tornado. It seemed to last just long enough to dislocate his shoulder. But he’d traced the magic and knew where I was now. I ducked to avoid a badly-aimed spell and fired like seventeen of my own. His face had gone blank–very blank. He was actively possessed now. The magic was taking over. I knew, because he’d gotten a lot better. But that meant that his melee defenses were down. I took the rabbit knife out. Grimly, I neared him fast. Better to die than be possessed.

The spy lady appeared suddenly and held a magical shield over me. I would be fine.

Moving fast before the actual person came back, I stabbed him in places that were generally bad to be stabbed in: the chest, the head, the neck. I left him to die alone and with dignity (well, as much dignity as one can when one is defeated “by a girl”). But the truth was, I didn’t want the Zepha tribe, let alone the Kliid. I just wanted them safe.

I turned to the spy lady. “Who are you?”

“Amanda… I’m your mother.”

Chapter Eight: Henrei and Raystar

CHAPTER EIGHT—HENREI AND RAYSTAR

I woke up staring at a pink ceiling. That was how the whole day went. It was one of those I-wanna-scream-now days. Those why-did-I-invite-a-smart-kid-over days. Those seriously-need-to-go-back-to-bed days.

One of those days where you habitually get up and wander into the kitchen, pouring some water into a mug and stuffing it in the microwave with a bamboo stick, staring so mindlessly at the microwave door as it heats that you don’t notice when it bubbles over and makes a mess, nor do you notice the nine-year-old kid sitting at the kitchen table pointing to the hot water tap that got fixed a month ago. You clean up the mess, still only 1% awake, and burn yourself.

You proceed to scrabble around for your tea bags, only to find the charcoal aquarium filter and dump it in while the nine-year-old quietly makes you tea and tries to gently drag you back to bed as you stare at the filter, waiting for it to steep.

All of a sudden, you realize that you’re in your room again and can’t quite figure out why. You reason that it must be to get dressed. So you grab for your jeans and T-shirt, only to find that the nine-year-old did your laundry when he woke up at 7:00 and you’re actually wearing chartreuse Flower Power shorts and a muddy orange plaid shirt, neither of which you actually know the origins of.

You wander into the bathroom, still in costume, only to realize too late that the toothpaste is not the hairspray. So you walk/fall/leap into the shower, turn on the water, learn the difference between blue and red and wonder, all of a sudden, why you’re wearing rather damp clothing.

You smell French toast, and realize that it seems out of place because it happens to be 11:00… and not nighttime. Although you’re more awake from the freezing shower, you still have no clue what’s happening, and try the whole shower thing again with your clothes off, finding out quickly that the soap isn’t the shampoo, mostly because your shampoo isn’t blue. You sort yourself out and get the shower done, stepping out onto the slippery floor into a full split on the second step. You’re automatically grateful that a) your bathroom’s big, b) you’re flexible, and c) you’re not a guy.

Wrapping yourself in a towel, you watch the mirror de-fog and realize that maybe it wasn’t blue soap, vaguely remembering the leftover hair dye from your Halloween costume. Oops.

Slapping yourself until you regain consciousness, doubting that you’d ever really not been asleep, and then trying to unravel your own sentence can really confuse a girl in the morning. Even more so when she sees blue hair and remembers that she’s got to play host to a pompous intellectual who hates teenagers, then sees pajamas on the floor that don’t match, and wondering how long she’s been sleepwalking and what she’s been doing all that time.

Going through all that sort of made me panicky, though I wasn’t sure why. I got dressed, and not in the weird shorts and stuff I found on the floor. I had to admit that my new electric blue hair went quite well with the turquoise shirt. Though I did stop to properly dye the rest of my hair blue, because it didn’t go that well with my Irish origins. I just hoped that Henrei would buy that it was so our troops could spot help better. I did my makeup, to preserve what little sanity I had left, and tried to brush my hair. I undid the magic on my room and felt a lot better. Its dryad-habitat appearance was much more welcoming to me, more familiar. The maple sapling outside my window chirped, “Don’t worry, guys! She’s still sane!”

Somehow I was kind of doubting that.

“Are you all right?” Tony asked as I walked into the kitchen with electric-blue hair.

“Just dandy,” I muttered.

“You didn’t die overnight and come back as some kind of zombie?”

“It’s daytime.” I started making some tea the normal way.

“Uh, yeah,” Tony said. “Very much so. That’s kind of why I asked.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Seriously, though, blue?!”

“It’s so the soldiers can see the healer running around. It’s blue so that it blends enough with the sky that the Kliid can’t.”

Pause. “You’re a really good liar, you know that?”

“I think that’s a compliment,” I said, adding coffee grounds to my tea in an effort to try and wake myself up. As if.

I outfitted the living room to look like a library—in fact, I put four bookshelves along one wall. Tall ones. I returned the rest of the magic I’d done for Katyen to normal. I didn’t do much to the rest of the house, but I dusted off a few existing bookshelves and dragged the encyclopedias out of the basement.

I went out with Tony and bought about a million different books. I shoved them on the shelves, and we went out to fight the Kliid some more. The regenerating healing spell that I’d left was wearing off, but Tony was getting better. All of a sudden, he’d seemed to have a burst of progress that had started after I’d bumped off Katyen. I kind of doubted that the two facts had anything to do with each other. I just noticed.

I’ll spare you the graphic details, but I must have disposed of about fifty more warriors, at least. It wasn’t a crucial battle, so I wasn’t getting very serious. But I was starting to get paid a lot. I was missed when I was with the Kliid. A lot.

Although Tony could shoot his bow well, he wasn’t much of a fighter. He was a healer. He didn’t kill very many people and only did a few revenge attacks, but he was starting to get good with magic. He had an invisibility spell on at all times, but I knew where he was, anyway, because a neon-green shoelace dangling from the Water force field/protection spell is kind of misplaced in the sky unless it belongs to a flying kid trying not to be seen. It’s kind of a tipoff.

I fought for a while, but my heart wasn’t in it. I was getting tired, and less angry at everything and everyone. Fight for what’s right. I had forgotten what was wrong. I had been here too long. I… was sensing mind control magic from below. Swooping, I got ready to attack. Of all the counterproductive attempts, this was the worst. I was angry as anything now. Whoever had gotten a peek in my twisted brain had probably gotten a few mindfuls. My overwhelming logic as well as my burning anger and protective emotion for innocent Zephans, especially children, must have been horribly bright.

As it turned out, I traced the magic to the city prison, an unguarded place which was called a prison but was actually a dungeon, a sadistic house of horrors designed by–you guessed it.

Most of the prisoners were sulking in their cells, plotting escape plans, or singing as if they were drunk because there was nothing else to do. Those people counted as one of the horrors.

But in the most distant cell, in the area of the people who had been there for eons, someone writhed and screamed as if he had just arrived. Now that I was near the source, I could tell that the magic branched across the whole village. Here was the reason that there hadn’t already been a mutiny. Everyone here had been blinded with one big Dream spell. I was the only one who had ever been immune to it. That was why I was truly different.

“That’s why!” I said in surprise, aloud. “I just don’t believe in Santa! It’s all a lie!”

Then I realized how crazy that sounded. My metaphors came at the weirdest times.

If this poor crazy person was being used to control the minds of the village… why was he sobbing on the floor? I looked deeper into the spell.

The person’s name was Rendarr, and he was a Dream Anoki who had been “employed” by the dictators right after the founding of the city to create a permanent spell that would blind people. As expected. But he also got the combined thoughts of every person he controlled.

I am HERE, I thought hard. He would hear me best because I was the closest.

“Why?”

I will KILL the dictators. You will be free. It was a statement.

“No… I am never free…”

Can’t you end the spell?

“No…”

Yes, you can, you whimpering fool. I killed Jaken. Whatever mind control he had over you is gone. You  can end this.

“No. I can only end the spell by ending.”

This poor, poor soul. “Do you want me to kill you?” I asked, seriously.

No response. He couldn’t hear me. I dug into my backpack and handed him some granola bars.

Do you want me to kill you? I repeated. The man sat up.

“Why would you do this?”

You are in pain. Do you want me to kill you?

“The magic will stay for at least a week, if that’s why.”

I need the magic for a little while. But you are in pain. I will ask again: Do you want me to kill you?

“Yes…”

I didn’t kill him with the bow, but by magic. It wouldn’t hurt. Wherever he was going, it had to be better than here. Sometimes protection has nothing to do with sustaining life.

Humming Andrew Bird’s Heretics under my breath, I left quickly. Of all the deaths I’d seen, this had to be the saddest. Sometimes deaths were sad because people always got the most out of life and were enjoying it, only to die. But this death was sad because the person did want to die… and had a reason to.

*          *          *

I went home. I cooked dinner. There wasn’t much to do. I wasn’t happy, but I was incredibly and utterly furious with the elders. I wanted to kill them all… well, kill them both. There aren’t enough left to have an “all.”

Raystar the werewolf, and Henrei the bookworm. Henrei would have to be first. I felt magic from Raystar; she was forcing people into believing her innocence with strong Light magic. These freakazoids relied too heavily on brainwashing. That was going to change. This place would be run right or destroyed. And that would be the final word.

I went out and asked around (from different people, of course) where Henrei lived. I was going to ask him to come over and talk about battle strategies, and I’d dressed the part: I looked like a newscaster. Khaki jacket, green shirt, black jeans. Fancy jewelry. I felt like I was acting in a play, being anyone but myself. It didn’t feel natural. I didn’t like it. I was sad again, but remembered why I was angry.

I wondered how long it would be before the more strong-minded Anoki broke free of the brainwash spell. But I wasn’t wondering long, because I saw Tony’s shoelace stop in midair and the invisibility spell faltered. He blinked and frowned, then really frowned. Then he looked downright furious, like I was. He started firing shot after shot at the Kliid. My, how short weeks are.

I couldn’t see anyone else stopping and realizing stuff, but that didn’t mean that there wasn’t anyone. I knew Tony was pretty strong-willed, but hoped he was stronger than I thought. I wanted to do this secretly, for reasons I couldn’t explain except that I wanted to make sure the city fell in my hands, or Mel’s, and not the hands of some wacko who plans to do the same thing.

I was directed to a normal house. I was expecting, I don’t know, some evil, looming stone castle. Whatever.

I’m sorry, but when Henrei answered the door, I had one thought: Dang, he looks like a chipmunk! His head shape, with no neck, combined with his too-conservative hair, just made him look like he should be annoying Daffy Duck on some golf course or something. I tried hard not to giggle.

“From what I hear, you seem like the type of person who would be intelligent enough to plot battle strategies. You could show me how to improve my approach.” Please, please let this guy’s ego call off his guard, I silently prayed.

“Indeed,” he said, and I was suppressing giggles as the stocky man tried to “draw himself up to full height” and looked like some kind of pompous, chubby dwarf preparing to give a speech on how great he was. I smiled, letting Henrei think it was because he had agreed to “teach” me. I had seen generations of generals’ approaches and had seen the life and death of each. I knew what worked, and I knew why. I knew how soldiers survive. I don’t think Henrei had anywhere near the seven years of experience I had, and if he did, it had been spent sitting on his 70-pound butt looking out a window and barking orders. The only thing he had to teach me was how to gain weight faster than the speed of light. And Mel had said that Butan was the fat one. He must have been spherical.

Henrei ushered me in and dragged me awkwardly down the stairs, to a basement that would have freaked a mole out. I bet that moles couldn’t navigate it. Henrei couldn’t.

It was all a library, a maze of bookshelves. Actually, it served as a public library and had a back entrance for normal people. It wasn’t all Henrei’s; he just happened to live in the house above.  I had to fly to the ceiling a few times, work out the maze, and direct Henrei to the door at the back, which he unlocked once we were finally there.

I was exhausted from craning my neck in that weird way that some people (and apparently Henrei) think looks intelligent. I was going the whole ten yards because I wanted to maintain an innocent appearance until the last mission, in which I would “slay the evil werewolf that was in Raystar’s kitchen.” I needed to get rid of Henrei fast so that I could make the full moon on Thursday. Since it was still Sunday-ish, I had plenty of time.

I listened to Henrei babble for a while.

“Why don’t we discuss this formally at my house? Say, tomorrow? I have a rather impressive collection of books, and we won’t be interrupted by the local bookworms. Plus, my plans are all there.” And nonexistent, I thought. I knew what I was doing tomorrow.

“Of course,” Henrei said haughtily, propping himself up against a bookshelf and trying to look taller. I was still on the verge of a giggle fit.

“I can see my own way out,” I said. Henrei left, sauntering between shelves and inevitably getting lost. I didn’t care. The librarian would find him eventually.

I left through the back door that was right there and grinned at the world at large. Then I started laughing my head off.

I went home. Tony, predictably, dropped down from a tree (but without crash-landing this time, since he could fly).

“Where you going tonight?” he asked, grinning.

“Home now. You keep missing the pompous excitement.”

“Hmm.”

I was in the mood to fly again, and going home didn’t have much appeal. I was in the mood to be by water.

“I think I’m going home too,” Tony said. “My parents have a heck of a lot of questions.”

I noticed that he still had his bow on his back. He saw me looking and said, “I want to know how to make these. This one’s getting too easy to shoot.”

It was a twenty-pound bow. Though Anoki are slightly stronger than humans, it’s kind of odd for a nine-year-old kid to pick shooting up that fast. Or maybe Tony was just strong. Being angry helped the workout of fighting.

“I can teach you more after tomorrow. But you need to get home now. You’ve become valuable in the war, so I advise that you use an invisibility spell and make sure you cover your shoelaces.”

Tony grinned. “It’s so the warriors can see help and small enough that the Kliid can’t!”

“Oh, shut up!”

Then I realized that Henrei hadn’t asked me about my hair at all. Must be colorblind.

I waited until Tony had gone home, then ducked into the forest and flew above it. I didn’t go high. I stayed near the top leaves and watched the battle from their cover. I was angry again. The Kliid seemed so superior compared to the Zephans now. Zephan rulers relying on magic at someone else’s expense… I wondered how many cockroaches were in the Kliid’s basement. Their government was free—sort of—and even the most strong-minded people didn’t seem to be blatantly ticked with anyone. But that didn’t mean something wasn’t going on.

I fell asleep to the sound of battle coming from the field, and woke up several times that night. I wanted someone desperately. Someone to talk to. Not Mel. Mel was just a good friend, and though I trust her, it’s kind of hard to talk to her sometimes because she can seem like a teacher or even a babysitter sometimes. Kaye might have been my sister, but I didn’t know or trust her very much. My trust was too hard to earn. Akana was too young, and I barely knew Li.

I felt more Dream magic, and traced it to a person right below the foliage of the trees. I ducked back into the forest canopy. It was that spy lady again!

“Look. If you’re here because you’re spying on me and letting me know it because you think I’m going to blurt out my feelings to you, then you obviously missed the part about how my trust is hard to earn. Ring a bell?”

“Yes. I don’t expect you to say anything.”

I realized that she wasn’t talking like Yoda anymore, and for some reason, her voice sounded oddly familiar. She still wore a ton of perfume and enough clothing and jewelry that, if she wore the same every day, her own friends wouldn’t recognize her with it off.

“Then why are you here? Don’t give me any guardian angel garbage.”

“You seem to dislike me. Is there a reason?”

“One, you’re spying me in the middle of an ongoing covert mission,” I said, frowning, “and two, I rarely trust anyone without knowing them for a long time. In my life, everyone is under suspicion. That’s why I survive. People have lied to me for as long as I remember. My paranoia is justified.”

“I never said it wasn’t. But I am not Kliid or Zephan, and I have not hurt you.”

“And I don’t know who you’re reporting to. You might not be Zephan, but that doesn’t mean that someone else is sitting and listening to my everyday life. I have a reason not to trust people, and I’ve only known you since I caught you spying on me.”

“No, Amanda. You have known me all your life. I am surprised that you do not know who I am.”

“Then perhaps you should tell me if you want my trust. Why do you want my trust, anyway? I wanted the elders’ trust right before I killed them. What’s your reason? I don’t know.”

“I want to know you, Amanda. That’s it. I haven’t known you, not really.”

“You said I knew you all my life!” I said angrily. “Why are you contradicting yourself?”

“As for simply telling you who I am, Amanda,” Alicia said coolly, “I will tell you after your mission. Both of them. Do not let your guard down after killing Raystar. I will not attack you, but someone will.”

“Who?” I asked. “Their families?”

The spy scoffed. “As if! You could take a few angry villagers. No. But you will see eventually. Go to bed. You’ll need it.”

She left. I went to bed—in the house, this time.

I woke up, looked in the mirror across the room from my bed, and screamed. Then I remembered yesterday. I don’t think you know what bed head looks like with blue hair. Especially if you sleep in the sky half the night.

I brushed it out and got dressed. Who did Alicia think she was and why did she think I bought that junk she told me. I was used to being lied to, but from someone who wants my trust…

I wasn’t sure what to make of it. But I decided to put that off for a while. I wasn’t in the mood to think. I’m not what you’d call an early bird (but I think you got that from how yesterday started out) and I’m not a Monday person, either. But I decided that I could still plot out battle sketches to annoy Henrei with. Hopefully he would get bored fast, because my plan involved that.

I spent the day forging meticulous plans that I came up with on the spur of the moment, then giving orders to the troops to do them. I previously hadn’t planned much for defeating the Kliid beyond telling the troops to just blow them the heck up. It had worked. But I was sitting here and giggling, writing “defensive maneuvers” and “weak points” of each type of Anoki. All I cared about as far as weak points was simple: As long as they keel over when I shin kick them in the crotch, I’m good.

I couldn’t wait for today to be over. Then I’d only have Raystar to deal with. I was ready.

Before I knew it, the plans were as done as plans would get. I made dinner and brought out a bottle of wine for Henrei. The more drunk he is, the better for my plot.

It was 5:00. The troops were doing a defensive plan I’d seen once (which hadn’t worked, but Henrei would like it and I wouldn’t have to do it long). The plan involved lacing the edges of the battlefield, including the edge going back to the Kliid, with humans’ gasoline, then having the Fire Anoki light it, sealing the Kliid off from help by a wall of fire. It only lit for a day, though, and the Kliid had just gone back for help when it had burned out. But I didn’t need it for long, and it was perfect for this mission.

Henrei came over soon. I hoped he didn’t notice when I widened the narrow doorway so that there wouldn’t be a scene. I blabbered on for a while about the plans, then took him out “to see it in action.”

“Of course, I bet you’ve seen this plan before, seeing as you’re the village elder!” I let my voice go a little louder. That did it—he was too much of a target for the Kliid to resist, and though I walked on, he didn’t, being surrounded immediately.

I started pulling the rabbit knife on the attackers, but acted like they were pushing me away and went slow enough that I allowed them to kill him before dispatching them. I slapped Henrei’s cheeks for signs of life, but he’d been stabbed. I ducked my head, smiled, and dragged him off of the battlefield.

*          *          *

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday training Tony with the bow and in healing magic. He was strong, stronger than he’d been at Water magic. Making potions wasn’t a problem, either. I taught him some of the more advanced Water magic, too. He picked it all up fast.

I met his schoolteacher once. She’d seriously underestimated him, and had only kept to the basics. He could probably beat her in magical combat now. I could tell that the real reason she hadn’t taught him anything was because she didn’t know anything other than the basic Water magic. She should have been a babysitter, not a teacher. I offered to put her with Jane and Ivory to help with the little kids. She accepted and left to find them.

When I wasn’t helping Tony with… um… extracurricular activities, I fought the Kliid and healed people. I dropped by the hospital and saved people from the price monster. I restored the potion stock. I grew food, made bows and arrows, tutored people with less archery experience and taught them the fast way to make arrows, and listened to people.

What the people talked about was magic. Normally there would be gossip about Katyen’s stupid-looking pink hair (which there still was—she would be a legend for generations), but this time it was mostly about Auntie Em’s new ________ magic.

I ignored this. I had better things to do than question this new burst of power.

Finally, Thursday came. It was a full moon as predicted. I knew where Raystar’s house was. Everyone knew where Raystar’s house was. We’d all been invited to some tea party or something at some point.

I had a bag of goodies with me.

“Raystar!” I knocked on the door. “I heard you weren’t feeling well! I brought you dinner!”

No response. I expected.

“Raystar?” I injected innocence into my voice. My bow was on my back, of course. I wasn’t going to let on that I had a sword, let alone one I could lift.

I opened the door into Raystar’s kitchen and screamed. Following lines, of course. I shot the wolf and went “looking for Raystar.” Not finding her (duh), I dragged the wolf into the back yard. I left the basket on the counter, feeling like a perverted Red Riding Hood, and left. I couldn’t believe it. My mission was done. I couldn’t even sleep that night.

I passed the night by looking for Alicia, the spy lady. I couldn’t find her. I was disappointed, though I didn’t know why. I didn’t trust her, right? Right?

But for some reason, I was liking her a little more. I would like her a lot more if I knew who she really was and where she lived, or even who she was reporting to. I had a few theories, including the crazy one: she wasn’t reporting to anyone, but actually did want to know me. Unlikely as that was, it had felt like she was telling the truth. And my instincts are usually pretty accurate.

I left for Mel’s friend’s place. It was dawn by then, and he was the only one up. I returned the sword.

“Keep it,” he said. “You may need it again.”

“Unfortunately, that’s a plausible possibility in my life.”

“I am glad that I am not you.”

“Then you got me right.” I sighed. He made tea in a French press.

It was a long time before anyone else woke up, or at least it seemed like it to me.

“You killed Raystar in werewolf form last night?” Kaye asked.

“Yep. I dragged her into the back yard.”

“I’ve never seen a werewolf,” Akana said, intrigued.

“She’s probably changed back, but I don’t know. We could see.”

We went to Raystar’s back yard. She had changed back, and she looked oddly familiar.

“That’s my Light teacher!” Akana shrieked.

My mouth dropped open. Moonray? Raystar? I can’t believe I didn’t catch that!

“So that was how the people who attacked us could fly!” I said. “She’s been giving out secrets!”

We bought a newspaper. “Without a leader, the Zepha tribe is falling into chaos. Many candidates have offered to take the elders’ place, but were all quickly vetoed by the general populace.”

“Take it, Amanda.” Mel was firm. “You left the tribe without a leader. You freed the people, but they have to be led. Anarchy is bad.”

“Yeah, think of all the bad stuff that could happen if you don’t. Communism. Another dictatorship.” Kaye was looking straight at me, not sure what I’d do with the power.

“I’ll take it,” I said, “but I don’t want it. I’ll take it because I still haven’t resolved issues with the Kliid. I need power. But I need you, too, Kaye, because you’re what will bend the Kliid to our will. And Li, too.”

Li had been silent, as if she wasn’t sure what to make of this. “You guys are on happy pills, aren’t you?”

“Huh?” I said.

“You think the Kliid will stop a war that’s been going on for generations because of a few girls.”

“I think the Kliid will stop a war that’s been going on for generations because I’ll kick their naïve butts if they don’t.”

“Amanda, you’re thirteen.” Li said.

“Thank you, Ms. State The Obvious! Are the warriors thirteen? No. I’ll have a big honking army at my disposal. You’ve convinced me to take the power; now don’t go running the other way.” I left. I wondered where I should apply for such a position.

I went around and got people’s signatures, et cetera. When I’d gotten about 500, I went and shoved it at the newspaper editors and stuff. Anoki are kind of informal, so if the newspaper declares something like this, it’s true. And I was now leader.

There was one more question. “Well, what the heck do I do now?”

It went unanswered.

Chapter Seven: Katyen and Butan

CHAPTER SEVEN—KATYEN AND BUTAN

The next day, I got out of the house and asked Jane where Elder Katyen lived. She pointed me to a brown two-story house with hot-pink accents in so many places that there might have even been less brown than there was pink. I thanked her and left her with twenty bucks. My income had gotten surprisingly higher lately. Wonder why.

From the house, I got what Katyen’s taste was. I went out and bought a slim black dress and a handbag that was very pink. I went out and bought the makeup store out of eye shadow and found some leopard-print heels, really glad that it was Thursday and not, say, a Saturday. I explored the extents of the Zepha tribe, which happened to be one of the biggest and oldest Anoki tribes still in existence, more like a city than a village, if you ask me. Let’s just say that nobody really knows what goes on in the very middle of a forest. No matter how many bombs go off around here, the invisibility/silence spell that was kept strong by the mere existence of Star Anoki prevented humans from ever hearing or seeing us. Gee, another responsibility I had now. Great.

I sat at my dining-room table and made a checklist:

1. Invite Katyen to dinner, spruce up the house and buy an evening gown. Cook something fancy. Build her trust while getting her drunk. Kill her fast and get it over with.

2. Find where Butan lives and buy enough wine to drown a horse. Cook a lot of food, get him drunk and kill him off.

3. Get Henrei over to pore over some book. Kill him from behind.

4. Invite Raystar over to talk about Tony or something. Kill her from behind too.

5. Worry about that spy lady.

6. Win the war and make peace with the Kliid.

7. Do something.

I wasn’t too sure about number six. It sounded out of place. I could just see the difficulties that would cause. My Time magic said so.

Then I realized that the list could be used against me, as it held all of my plans. I chucked it in the fireplace. So much for that.

As for Katyen, I wanted to wait until evening to ask her. I couldn’t see doing it in daylight. I would do the house by magic, I decided, but I wasn’t sure what kind would be suitable. I drew a picture of what I thought the inside of Katyen’s house would be like, but decided to leave the magic for until after I’d gotten a glimpse of her own house.

When the sky darkened, I put on the black dress and the heels. Can we say torture? This thing felt like a corset. I felt vulnerable without my bow, and this skirt prevented me from kicking noses. And though I’d love to be able to fight in heels, I don’t think I’ll risk it with these. I did find comfort in the fact that I could rip them off and smack someone across the jaw with the back end. I didn’t find comfort in the fact that I could barely walk.

I went up to Katyen’s house, looking as prissy as possible. I rang her doorbell, regretting that I didn’t paint my nails. I was dying to yank at various parts of the dress and straighten them out, but Katyen could answer the door at any moment.

When Katyen opened the door, I could see that her obviously-not-natural honey-blonde hair was twisted up into a curly bun with hair cascading down in random places, as if it were intentionally messy. Her rainbow of eye shadow put mine to shame—not that I gave a rip. I could only stand this getup for about ten more minutes.

“Oh, please, come in,” Katyen said in that slight British accent that you get after years of badly trying to fake a British accent and then giving up. Ironically, hers sounded more accurate than most people’s.

Oddly, her entry room looked fairly normal, and the kitchen, from what I could see, looked like a Starbucks with gold and tan accents and stylishly uncomfortable chairs. But her room door down the hall was painted hot pink and chocolate brown, and I dreaded to think of what might be inside.

“I was thinking,” I said in a fake British accent myself, “that you might enjoy a dinner at my humble residence. I redecorated recently; perhaps you might like to see it.” Watch me lie on the spot.

“Of course! Do come in for tea.”

I sat through a session of tea in cups I was afraid I’d break combined with paranoia that she might be watching my every word with a little terror that I’d drop the fake accent any minute, or fall in these stupid shoes while she gave me a tour of the house, or bust a seam on this all-too-tight dress. In case you haven’t guessed, this isn’t really my normal nature. And for the record, her room was painted entirely hot pink. No brown. Not even chocolate whatever. It was pink.

“I always thought you were a warrior,” Katyen started in with approval.

“By day, yes,” I said, feeling like Princess Mia trying to keep her balance with her ankles crossed. “By night…” I flipped my hair for effect. Katyen smiled at me.

“Of course,” she said agreeably. I still couldn’t get over the fact that I would have to kill her later. But then I remembered that she hadn’t protected the kids, either, and that made me angry.

Great. One more thing to worry about.

Finally, Katyen concluded the visit and said she’d come on Saturday. Smiling (well, clenching my teeth, but Katyen saw a smile), I let her close the door before ripping off the stupid heels, dumping them in the nearest trash can, and running barefoot back home. Fast.

*          *          *

It was 7:02 when I got home. I tried to get the stupid dress off. It didn’t work. My stress had made me sweaty, and it wouldn’t slide. I tried again, and realized that if I didn’t get this thing off, I would suffocate. I tried to cut the dress free with scissors and found out that it had some sort of wood or something in it.

I reached for my rosebush pruners. They weren’t by the door. By now I was wandering the house, halfway undressed, locking doors. I bent down to look for them more and gagged. I couldn’t get them, and I didn’t know any magic that gets rid of ugly corset dresses. This was ridiculous. I wondered how many times Katyen had done it, or if maybe it was this personality thing, like trying to fake her style was usually about as unsuccessful as trying to fake a British accent.

So I decided to make up a spell. I didn’t care what it was; I just needed something to save me, now. I told the spell to unweave all the threads of the dress.

How could that possibly work? I wondered as the dress literally fell to threads, leaving me in my underwear, standing in the middle of my living room. I’d never heard of magic outside the Anoki elements. That was weird—and not just normal weird. I mean weird for me, which meant something.

I realized that my foot really hurt from the thin board wedged into the dress falling on it, so I had nothing to do but go and get some pajamas on, attempt to sweep up the remains of the ugly “fashionable” dress, and go to bed. I would deal with Saturday’s attire and the house tomorrow.

*          *          *

I woke up at 10:00. At least I felt better. Whatever unknown magic I had used to dispose of the dress, I would also use it to redecorate the house. Because I had no clue what it was I had to be cautious of using this magic too much. It could be dangerous.

I started with the bathroom. If Katyen had a second house, what would it look like? I could only guess what her bathroom looked like. I hadn’t seen it. I was guessing bubble gum pink. So, pink rug, pink shower curtains, pink towels, gold-ish-colored faucet, whatever. I left it there.

Kitchen. Okay, maybe colors. Something pastel and cutesy. Yellow table. Turquoise dishwasher. Pink sink. Cutesy orange oven. The remaining glow from the magic was blinding me, so I went into the living room. Teal curtains, a red sofa, and gold chairs all seemed to fit Katyen’s weird style. I changed the sturdy hardwood floors to red and gold swirly carpet that I’d seen in a library once. It had fit there, but I couldn’t exactly see it in my house unless I was playing house dress-up or something, like right now.

I decked out the entry room and my bedroom in pink and looked over the house. A few hallways had to be done, but otherwise the house was good. Now I had all day to find something to cook and to find a dress that wouldn’t suffocate me. I got dressed and went out to the mall. From a different dressmaker than before, I bought a cutesy wrap dress that, when I tried it on, did not choke me to death or require rosebush pruners to take off. On a whim, I bought some plant food. My plants probably needed it by now, and I needed to find some kind of clippers quickly. The squashes were probably big enough to use as baseball bats by now.

I went to the grocery store and bought a solid pound of lamb and the smallest bit of saffron. I figured that would be sophisticated enough for Katyen, with a salad. But the spice cost about as much as the lamb did, and the lamb was pretty dang expensive. Didn’t matter. I had money.

I went home and cooked the lamb, grew a salad and put everything in the oven, where it would keep warm and the cat wouldn’t get it.

I went out to tend to the tomatoes in my teensy greenhouse. They were suffering from my absence and the lack of rain (the greenhouse was designed to water them continually with the rain through sprinklers on the ceiling so that all I had to do was go out and water the container that provided water for the sprinkler. The container was dry, and the plants, though still in the greenhouse, had been without water for two weeks. I took the hose and set it in the container on full blast. I wished I’d set it to drip in the bucket before I left. Oh well.

“Hi, guys, I’m back,” I said conversationally, entering the greenhouse. The chirpy voices of the plants all chorused at once.

“I brought you some fertilizer,” I said, beginning to dump the blue powder in each of the pots. As predicted, the tomatoes were suffering but not too badly. My Earth magic combined with the moisture-trapping greenhouse and the sprinkler container that had been full when I left had meant that none of them were too wilted. The plants knew why I’d left, anyway.

“Can you fly now?” the cucumbers asked.

“Yeah, let’s see it!” the cherry tomatoes twittered. I smiled at the plants. They reminded me of little kids. They were fun. Trees are reliable and down-to-earth, no pun intended, but plants are fun and upbeat.

“Yeah, I can fly. And a heck of a lot more.” I saw that the clay corner of the greenhouse had a humongous thistle in it. I set the flower seeds on fire so that they wouldn’t grow. I like setting thistle seeds on fire, because of how the fluff just lights up. It’s especially fun if you put dandelion or cottonwood seeds on top, with maybe a little coffee creamer or eye shadow (especially 80’s eye shadow) on top if you’re in a place where nothing will burn down. Light it and watch the “poof.” Mwahaha!

I cut the thistle down with a hack saw and picked it up with my gloves on. The plants watched as a Fire spell reduced it to cinders. I swept them into a corner.

“But you can’t do Fire magic!” a pea plant twittered.

“Oh, yes I can.” I grinned.

“You’re going to do something you’re not sure about,” the mint said. The mint had an uncanny way of reading me. I didn’t know if it was my face, my mood, or just the way I moved, but the mint always knew what I was thinking. I kept fertilizing the plants.

“It has something to do with the village. You’re trying to be strong, but you’re panicky inside. You’re worried about the kids.”

It wasn’t my expression, and I’d been acting pretty upbeat.

“Your posture,” the plant continued. “Your footsteps. The way you breathe. You are who you are, and you know it. You knew who you were before your powers came to you.”

My eyes narrowed. Sometimes I didn’t want the mint shouting my thoughts to the world. Fortunately, I’ve been the only person who’s been able to talk to plants, as far as I know.

Unfortunately, Tony was standing in the doorway. “The mint is right, you know. You’re tense. You don’t want to kill anything, but you know you have to. To protect the village. To protect… us.”

“How did you do that?” As far as I knew, the mint was the only thing capable of really reading me.

“You’re incredibly easy to read. To avoid being read and also possibly being red, you need to convince yourself that you’re feeling something different. You’re worried about the kids. No… you’re worried about the other kids. You’re not worried about me.”

“That’s because you have Earth magic,” I said. “Don’t underestimate its strength. I did. It’s not a sissy healing talent… well, it is kind of a sissy healing talent, but it’s not just a sissy healing talent. If you are gentle and kind, you can direct the trees to help you in battle. Find a spot in them to hide and drop rocks on someone.” I frowned. “I wonder if you can shoot my old bow?”

I led him into the house. “No, I’m not this girly,” I said in response to his odd looks at my pink entry room. “I’m having Katyen over for dinner to… gain a little power. It’s a long story.”

“Is that what the plant meant when it said you weren’t sure about something?”

“The mint? I don’t know. I can’t read my own mind, strange as that sounds. Wait here.”

I left him staring in disapproval at the pink feather boa over the doorway and found the hall closet. I went rummaging through the closet past generations of random bows. It was exactly the closet you would expect from me, with the occasional slingshot (which I’d never gotten the hang of) littered around the floor. I found the flimsiest bow there, which hadn’t been my first bow, but just one I’d made for the heck of it once. I never intended to shoot it, but it looked like nine-year-old Tony probably could.

I brought the bow outside. I hadn’t made arrows to go with it, so I taught Tony to do so.

“You have to use Earth magic, or they don’t work. Earth magic is kind of unique. It doesn’t use spells, exactly, just mind tricks. You know you want to heal a wound. Vocalizing it is just focusing your power. You can do Earth magic silently. You can’t do Light magic silently. Earth magic is communication, and it’s usually with your own power. Magic is a force, but it has raw feelings: a sense of humor, pity, anger and the desire to get revenge on those it sort of protects. I could go on.”

I started making arrows and explaining how to do them. In about fifteen minutes, we’d made enough to stuff a quiver. Which he needed now.

I went into the house again and found a laundry bag. I cuffed it a little and safety-pinned it so that it wouldn’t drown the arrows.

I came out. “This will do.” It was a drawstring bag, so it fit Tony almost like a backpack. I was doing what Mel did for me, I realized. But Mel hadn’t been an Earth Anoki then, and she couldn’t have taught me Earth magic. I could teach Tony, though; I did teach Tony, come to think of it.

Tony tried to draw the bow. We were aiming at a tree stump, out in the forest. I wasn’t sure if Tony should actually try to fight. He was older than I had been when I started healing warriors and shooting people, but he didn’t have an incentive to do it, and his parents would probably be much too worried about him. Which also reminded me that I had to keep this training out of sight of any adults. I knew Tony wouldn’t tell his parents, but he wouldn’t be able to hide the bow.

I realized that Tony was standing there, waiting for instructions, with the bow drawn.

“No,” I said. “You need to draw it sideways. Watch.”

I drew the tiny bow. It was an out-of-proportion example. When Tony tried it, he wasn’t drawing the bow all the way back to his face, because I wasn’t.

“You’re still not standing sideways. Look.”

I drew my own bow (like I said, I always have it with me if I have a choice) and shot the stump squarely. “Try to get your arrow in that area,” I said.

Tony drew his bow, not perfectly but almost right this time, and shot an arrow right next to mine. Granted, the stump wasn’t that far away and the bow was really easy to draw, but this kid must have been a fast learner. Like I had been. I found this almost creepy. Déjà vu to the max. That stuff. Yikes.

I corrected his stance a little and let him shoot again. He knocked a little bit of my arrow’s fletching to the ground, the realistic version of a Robin Hood split. But when he drew another arrow, I noticed that his stance was odd again. But he was shooting the bow to its full length.

“You need a thicker bow,” I said. “This one’s too easy. A heavier draw will require you to stand right and you’ll do it instinctively.”

I went back into the house and returned with a heavier weight bow—maybe about five pounds more? For those of you who aren’t archers, “heavier weight” doesn’t refer to the actual weight of the bow, but how hard it is to draw, to pull the string. And who says I’m not educational?!

Tony shot that one as well, knocking my arrow and his arrows out of the way. His stance was still weird.

“Dang, kid, you’re strong.” I went back in the house and returned with a bow that was a little heavier still, another five pounds. Tony had to shoot that one right. It was just about perfect; he wasn’t drawing it quite to full length, but pretty darn close.

“That’s yours. Don’t shoot it around other people unless those other people are attacking you. But a bow isn’t very useful when someone attacks you up close. You’re going to learn Amanda-Kwon-Do now. I taught myself by watching the warriors and adapting their techniques. Anoki have weak points, and basically if it’s unguarded, you hit it. Your defense is mainly dodging stuff and waiting. Because once you attack, you compromise your defense. But that works the other way too, so once someone tries throwing a punch, you go for their unguarded jaw, or their temples or nose. You can kick their feet out from under them, once you get older and heavier, and if they aren’t standing sideways like an archer…” I lowered my voice. “Go for the crotch. That’s the one place that you hit to guarantee that someone’s not going to try striking again for the next three-to-something seconds, depending on how hard you kick and whether your opponent is male or female.”

“You are so weird.” Tony rolled his eyes.

“That’s my job!” I giggled. Well, it was. “Wouldn’t it stop you throwing punches? Anyway, your goal is to get the other dude on the ground. A really hard hit to the temple will black someone out, and you can make them wake up with any number of bruises, or if they really threaten you, make them not wake up at all. But only if they threaten your life. Otherwise, dragging their knocked-out body to the police does fine.”

“That’s what you’re not sure about,” Tony said. “You’re going to kill someone. Did they threaten you?”

“No. They threaten you. They threaten everyone.”

“The Kliid?”

“No.”

“A Zephan?”

“Several. The wars will stop, though, once I’m done. You’ll see.”

“Then they do threaten you,” Tony said, “because the wars would stop without them, and the wars threaten you.”

I was about to say that the wars didn’t threaten me, but then I thought. The wars killed my parents, and my mom was a Star Anoki. They’d managed to kill her. I didn’t know how, but they had. And they’d gotten my dad, too. Somehow this made me slightly more cautious, but not scared. Just really, really teed off. Who knew how long it would be before more kids’ parents got killed? I never knew mine, not really, and that sort of made it better, I guess. But if you know what you’re missing, that’s got to be worse. Really worse.

Now I was angry and totally ready to assassinate someone. Usually, logic whips people’s poetry, so it’s unwelcome, but right now I kind of liked that idea. Logical. Mechanical. Sturdy. Intelligent.

“Don’t let anyone know I taught you this,” I said grimly as a warning horn sounded: the Kliid had attacked again, even though their Air Anoki was missing. Foolish. That wasn’t logical, or any of the other adjectives I listed (especially the last one). It made me angrier. I couldn’t believe I’d thought of the Kliid as my home for any length of time. I ran away and took off.

My warriors were, all of a sudden, boring through the Kliid like moles. There were fireballs. There were splashes. There was a ton of street fighting, swords and bows, like all the army had suddenly been replaced by Romans. But right now, I wanted revenge. For everything.

*          *          *

About fifty fireballs, twenty mass healing spells, and a flood that left Zephan warriors in air bubbles and looking like Moses. The Kliid warriors that couldn’t swim drowned. It was too good for them.

No matter how much I fought, I couldn’t get rid of this burning desire to kill whoever did it. I started shooting the older Kliid troops. I still felt… I don’t know. I went back to healing and realized that I wasn’t the only one. Mel was still babysitting my friends…

I looked over to try and see where Tony was, and if he needed help himself. Probably not. But I wanted to know, anyway. I scanned the crowd, only to turn and see him perched in a tall tree, grinning at me.

“Did you really think I’d leave you alone?” he said.

“You remind me of me,” I said. “Protect your parents.” Tony, instead of climbing down, had the tree lower him from branch to branch. It was slow, so I just picked him up. His new bow was strapped to his back. He’d figured it out with the typical cleverness of an Earth Anoki, and I noticed that his ring was hunter green. Like a guy.

“Where are your parents?” I asked. Tony pointed to an area of the battlefield. Dang.

“Both of them?”

He nodded.

Mega dang. I flew him over but decided that it was much too dangerous. I couldn’t take him to Akana or he’d be left to a fate fighting. But if his parents got killed, like mine… then again, I couldn’t leave the Zephans without a healer. I decided to do the spell myself and set Tony in a tree.

“Hold still for a minute, would you?” I did the spell, remembering perfectly what Akana had done. I hoped I’d done it right.

“You can fly now, I think,” I said.

“You think?!”

“Look, I’ll put you on the ground first. You can try and take off from there.”

Turns out, I did the spell right. Tony could fly.

“Can Earth Anoki fly?” someone asked, confused. There were murmurs of “No…” everywhere as Tony flew to his parents and shot their attackers in the stomach. Moving targets didn’t seem to bother him.

Tony fought as I did, despite being an adorable nine-year-old boy with fluffy brown hair. I had to remember that in times of crisis, kids were violent when threatened, or at least tried to be. I had no clue whether the shield I’d tried to put around my friends earlier had worked, since they hadn’t been attacked, but they hadn’t been hurt, either. I did the same spell for the village kids. All of them. Nobody could hurt them now, not if the spell had worked.

I sent another mass healing spell and landed in a tree. I didn’t know what to do. Something was telling me to worry about safety and about Katyen and the other elders, but my violent half wanted revenge. I was rattling with adrenaline,  but I was also tired in that way you only get with adrenaline. I sent another mass healing spell, but I was physically and magically exhausted. At least the meal was cooked and still warm in my Fire Anoki-made oven. I sent a new spell, a regenerating healing spell, but it took all my energy and I had to climb down the tree the conventional way. I went home.

*          *          *

I wasn’t feeling well. I didn’t have the angry bloodlust that I’d had earlier. I took a nap, knowing that I couldn’t possibly manage Katyen and an assassination without magic. I was really debating the merits of just killing them off before anyone can object. Seriously.

This playing dress-up just so I could…

I fell asleep before finishing the thought. A self-defense system programmed into Anoki instinct everywhere demanded that we fall asleep after running out of magic. It’s protection, because without magic… we die. Anoki require magic, both feeding off of it and supplying a home for it, and both die if the magic is overused. That’s why everyone needs to learn not to use magic for everything. Yes, it’s easy. No, you shouldn’t be using it just to use it.

When I woke up, I had only an hour before Katyen was to be here. The Anoki that got killed almost immediately died, but flesh wounds and more minor wounds got healed through the spell I’d left, and it probably worked a lot better once I was awake and able to do magic again, since it had a source.

I was angry again, but I didn’t know why. I considered stopping time again and killing Katyen now. I don’t know why Mel said to invite her to dinner, or any of them. It would be obvious that they had been killed at my house… unless…

I knew why Mel had told me to do that. I hurried and put on the dress I’d bought. It was actually halfway comfortable, almost like my normal green dresses (which I’d sewn myself so that I could make the skirts loose enough to kick in, and which I wore shorts underneath).

I found the dinner still good and warm. I set the various types of wine on the table, wondering when Katyen would arrive. I didn’t know what to do next when the doorbell rang and I didn’t have any more time for preparations. Things would have to be as is.

I did the whole welcome thing, then led her to the table and set out plates and dinner. I set out a glass for her and offered any of the wines.

“Aren’t you going to have some?” she asked with surprise.

I wanted to say, “I’m thirteen, lady,” but what I did say was, “It’s not healthy. I have to fight.” It definitely sounded more like me.

“Of course you do,” Katyen said with that smile adults give kids when they think they’re being cute. She’s really going to think I’m cute later.

I served her the meal, but I think she approached it with the same attitude one approaches a child’s tea party. It didn’t matter, anyway, because all I needed was to get her here.

I gave her the silly tour of the house. “It looks like my vacation home,” Katyen said.

SCORE!

Then she got ready to leave, and exited my doorway.

“Hold on,” I said. “There are Kliid warriors snooping around everywhere. I should go with you for protection. I’d hate for you to get ambushed without someone around. I’ll walk you home.” I slipped on some sandals and started walking with Katyen to her house. Which she’d never reach. I’d hidden the sword in my quiver, and in the dark, Katyen couldn’t see it. When we were halfway to Katyen’s house, I whispered, “Wait, I heard something!”

I snuck over to the nearest house, peered around it, and jumped back. “Close your eyes. I’m going to do magic now that will blind you if you don’t.”

It worked. I tiptoed back to behind Katyen, her eyes still shut and totally believing me, and I stuck her in the back with the sword, yelling, “Katyen!” as if I’d just realized that she was being attacked by “another warrior.” I hid the sword in a raspberry bush and, forcing myself to sob, ran straight to the police.

I faked a story about how the Kliid killed her from behind while I was distracted, and they bought it, too, with a little bit of secret Dream magic. It’s a good thing that, at least according to legend, only Star Anoki can tell when someone’s doing magic. I know that before leaving, I couldn’t. I can now, so I’m assuming it’s true.

Two down, three to go. I headed home.

“I can’t believe it,” Tony said, dropping out of a tree. “That was who you had to kill?”

I made the cut-throat motion. Fortunately, no one was around.

“Decent story, though. Why’d you go to all that setup? You are a Star Anoki. Everyone knows now.” Then Tony shut up all too quickly.

“Cat got your tongue?”

“Butan got my tongue,” Tony said in a whisper. “Here’s your sword.”

Oh, whatever. I had a story going. I snuck up behind him and stabbed him as well. I was really glad I didn’t have to play Southern Belle with some old fat dude, but I had other problems. A Kliid troop had seen me. I dispatched him immediately and stopped time. I didn’t find anyone else, so I returned time to normal.

Three down, two to go. Now I needed Intellect Guy and Fairy Godmother Wannabe. I’d have to get them differently. I reminded myself that I had to do this for the safety of the tribe. The dictators had laws that we disagreed with. People were drafted into the army—they didn’t have a choice. There was the commitment law. And technically, you weren’t allowed to speak against or insult the dictators or their laws, but they couldn’t get rid of me without having to face a revolt, more in the form of everyone starting to ignore them than everyone starting to kill them. The dictators could almost face a fight. They couldn’t persuade people into listening.

“Where are your parents?” I asked Tony.

“Asleep. They know I go out, but they also know I can do enough Water magic to make myself invisible and sneak out of anywhere.”

“Whatever,” I said. I wasn’t looking forward to the other elders, but Mel had said that Katyen was one of the worst, so I should deal with her first thing. I’d visit Mel tomorrow, but first, I was going to get some sleep.

“Come on,” I said to Tony. “Stay at my house. It’s going to be a long night.”