Blazing the Trail: The Dragon Diaries

  I believed I’d made the right choice.

  I’d believed it more five minutes earlier, but I’d work with what I had.

  Isabelle moved and Jared eased into the seat beside me, pressed the length of his thigh against mine, and leaned closer to steal one of my fries. His eyes were glinting with mischief and still appeared ten thousand shades of green. He bit the fry, so obviously enjoying my awareness of him that I thought I would spontaneously combust.

  “Hey, dragon girl,” he murmured in that low sultry voice of his, the one that gives me palpitations. “Miss me?”

  Then he winked at me, and I was a goner.

  Again.

  Or maybe still.

  I barely noticed Derek shoving out of his seat to leave. In fact, I wouldn’t have noticed at all if he hadn’t sworn under his breath and slammed the door.

  Even so, it didn’t seem important.

  Which was a very big problem.

  Sadly, it wasn’t my only one.

  Chapter 9

  Garrett smiled at Meagan and moved to make a place for her to sit. Meagan blushed and sat down beside him, looking radiant and happy.

  So at least something was going right.

  “You want something to eat?” Garrett asked her quietly.

  Meagan looked at me, grinned at my reaction to Jared’s presence, then stole the other half of my tofu burger. It wasn’t as if I was going to manage to eat it, not while I was sitting there gobsmacked. She and Garrett shared a smile and he sat back down beside her.

  I tried to focus on job number one, which was keeping the alliance together.

  One member of which was walking away. “We have to stick together,” I reminded them all, looking at Derek’s retreating figure.

  Yet not wanting to leave Jared.

  Now I needed to be in more than one place at a time. I wanted to be here. I should go with Derek. I should stick with Jessica and Liam. I needed to check in with Muriel in sixteen minutes. All the while, I was keenly aware of Jared close beside me, listening and watching as my carefully built alliance shattered into shards.

  Isabelle took a napkin and started to write on it. “Okay, we have a bunch of issues,” she said, starting a list. “It might make sense to split up to solve them. We need to locate the NightBlade to destroy it. We need to figure out how to destroy the ShadowEaters and why we need to hurry. It would be good if we could find Kohana and learn what he knows.” She glanced up with concern. “You don’t think they’ve captured him, do you?”

  “We never know what side that guy is on,” Nick said, eyeing the menu as if he wanted another round.

  “Nick and I will look for the NightBlade and Kohana,” Isabelle said firmly. “I’ll bet one will lead us straight to the other.”

  “Don’t you have class, Zoë?” Garrett asked.

  I nodded. “And a detention afterward.” I snapped my fingers as I remembered something. “Which happens at the same time as Trevor’s jazz-band practice.”

  “Good,” Jared said. “You can show me where, and I’ll corner him, see what I can learn.”

  “He’s not going to want to talk to you,” I protested.

  Jared grinned. “Don’t underestimate my charm.”

  His confidence annoyed me. “You’re not part of the alliance,” I said. It sounded rude the way I blurted it out, but it was true.

  “So maybe I’m joining up.” Jared glanced pointedly over the table. “Doesn’t look like you have much of a team left, anyway.”

  It was too much.

  First he ignored me.

  Then he showed up and confused me.

  Then he implied criticism of what I was doing, even though he wasn’t doing anything. In fact, if he hadn’t arrived, Derek would still be at the table.

  “And whose fault is that?” I demanded of Jared. “You just show up, out of the blue, and screw up everything. Why? Because you like to mess with me?” I pushed to my feet, really angry. “It’s not funny. Jessica and I were nearly claimed by ShadowEaters in our dreams last night. They’re free, and the veil between their realm and ours is destroyed. We have some kind of limited-time offer to destroy them but I’m not sure what it is. I know in my gut that it’s going to take every one of us to pull it off. We don’t have time for screwing with people’s feelings just for fun.” I hauled on my coat and zipped it up with a savage gesture.

  To Jared’s credit, his cocky smile was gone, but I was too mad to let it go.

  “Did you see the news?” I demanded. “That kid, that apprentice Mage, is dead. They sacrificed him. This isn’t a game!”

  “He was an apprentice Mage, Z,” Nick said.

  “So what? Maybe he didn’t know what he was getting into. I doubt he knew that he was going to be sacrificed before it was too late to save himself. I understand what he must have felt in his last minutes, and it’s not funny.”

  I turned on Jared before I lost my nerve. “I’m glad you think it’s entertaining to mess with people’s lives,” I said to him, my tone snarky. “Thanks for your help. I’ll have to put you in my will.”

  Then I pivoted and marched out of there. I might not have been breathing fire, but I was pretty sure there was steam coming out of my ears.

  Nobody came after me.

  Big surprise.

  TREVOR FELL INTO STEP WITH me as I was walking back into the school. I spared him a look and kept walking. He seemed nervous—again—but I was pretty sure he was putting it on. There was a shimmer of spell light around him, but it wasn’t very bright. It was just enough to ensure I didn’t forget what he was.

  “Zoë, I need your help.”

  I glared at him. “Be serious. We’ve been there and done that.”

  He shook his head. “No, this is different! Didn’t you see the news?” He dropped his voice to a horrified whisper. “They’re hunting apprentice Mages!”

  I stopped and turned to face him. “So you invoked them, but the ceremony went wrong. If they were eating shifters and I came to you for help, what would you say?”

  His gaze locked with mine, then danced away.

  “If I ask you now to tell me what they want and how they can be stopped, will you tell me?”

  “Zoë, I just need some help.…”

  “Bullshit. Clean up your own mess.” And I marched into the school, leaving him staring after me.

  I had my locker open before I thought of it. The ShadowEaters were hunting Mages and apprentice Mages, eating their shadows and taking on their power. They were building their strength with spell power from their own kind.

  But what had traditionally given Mages a burst of energy was the elimination of a species of shifter. And what was supposed to give them the big final surge was the elimination of all remaining shifter species. I’d asked the Wakiya elder what they wanted, and he’d said they wanted what they’d always wanted.

  To become pure spirit and poison the universe with the strength of their malice.

  The ShadowEaters would stop only when they destroyed all of us—unless we destroyed them first.

  The question was how.

  I GOT THROUGH THE REST of the day somehow, even though Meagan and Jessica didn’t come back to school, nobody sent me a message, and Derek had disappeared without a trace. I even survived my stupid detention.

  I was feeling like a total loser at my locker afterward when I packed my books up for another riveting night of homework and nightmares. I could not solve this riddle, and it was the most important one ever.

  Then I saw denim in my peripheral vision. Dark jeans and biker boots.

  I knew who was wearing those jeans.

  “Still pissed?” Jared asked. His eyes were glinting, as if he were on the verge of laughter.

  That annoyed me. I’m not funny when I’m mad.

  “Didn’t anyone stop you from coming into the school?”

  “Some woman. She was intense.”

  “Muriel.”

  “Perfect name for her.” His grin widened. “You probabl
y didn’t even know that I’m your cousin from Philadelphia.”

  I straightened and didn’t look at him. “Shouldn’t I be pissed with you, cuz?”

  He leaned against Meagan’s locker, apparently thinking, and folded his arms across his chest. “It wasn’t quite the reaction I’d hoped for.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have screwed up everything when you got here.”

  I saw the flash of his irreverent smile. “True.”

  I made the mistake of looking at him when he made that concession and the warm glint in his eyes confused me all over again.

  “Maybe I just didn’t think it all through, dragon girl.”

  “Maybe you just like to make an entrance.” I slammed my locker.

  He fought a smile. “I do.” Then he leaned closer, his proximity making me dizzy. “But maybe, dragon girl, you mess me up just about as much as I mess you up.”

  What?

  That made me look at him. The notion of me having an effect on any guy, especially a guy like Jared, was radical enough to stop me cold.

  He must have seen how it surprised me, but he just held my gaze steadily.

  Willing me to believe him.

  It took me a minute to find anything resembling coherence.

  I glanced down the hall and saw Muriel watching.

  Was Jared just telling me what I’d longed to hear?

  “But notice that I haven’t screwed up your life over it,” I said, although my tone wasn’t as frosty as planned.

  He laughed. “Haven’t you? I just bailed on my band again to come here and help you fix this issue. Trust me, they are not happy. There was some manager coming to hear us play tonight, and Angie nearly ripped my heart out when I said I wouldn’t be there.” He grimaced. “It’s entirely possible that they are no longer my band.”

  I stared at him in shock. He’d trashed a chance for his band just to be here. I could understand Angie’s frustration in a big way, but in a bigger way, I was impressed that he’d done that to help me. I shouldered my pack, well aware that my resistance was melting pronto. “You did that to come here?”

  “I did that to help you, Zoë.”

  Why did he have to use my name? It was easier to keep my guard up when he called me dragon girl.

  Okay, everything is relative. I still can’t keep my guard up completely, but it’s at least in the vicinity.

  “I thought you didn’t answer to anybody.”

  “I don’t.” He glanced up and down the hallway and I swear he looked surprised by what he was going to confess. “But I help the people I care about.” He looked me in the eye, dead serious. “Like you.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, but the astonishing thing was that he was right. He had helped me solve the riddle, each and every time. He’d prompted me to try harder when we’d first met, then returned to help me fight the Mages. He’d sent me that book the second time, leaving a note in it to guide me to the answer.

  Maybe he’d help me with this one.

  I watched him warily. “That could be true only if you know the way to destroy the ShadowEaters.”

  His grin lit his features. “Bingo, dragon girl. I think I know how get rid of them for good.” His eyes glinted with satisfaction at my evident surprise; then he turned and strode down the corridor.

  I ran after him like some besotted fan. “When exactly is it that you plan to start helping me?”

  “Now.”

  “Are you going to tell me what you know?”

  “No,” he said, and I could have swatted him. “I’m going to show you.”

  “What about the NightBlade? Do you know how to break that?”

  “First things first.” He held the door for me, and stepping into the cold air made me catch my breath. It had nothing to do with my elbow brushing against his chest. “Let’s go for a ride.”

  RIDING WITH JARED ON HIS motorcycle was every bit as exhilarating as I remembered. If anything, it was more exciting in the city, as he cut in and out of traffic with elegant ease. I halfway didn’t want to bother him with questions, but there was so much I needed to know.

  “How do you know this?” I asked finally, taking advantage of the fact that there were microphones and headsets in the helmets.

  “There has to be some benefit of having been courted by the Mages for an apprenticeship.”

  Right. Jared was a natural spellsinger, like Meagan, and the Mages had tried to recruit him. That’s why Derek didn’t trust him at all. He said it wasn’t clear how far Jared had progressed in the training and that we only had Jared’s word on the fact that he’d declined to continue. And Jared had acknowledged that the Mages had been using him to get to me, even without his agreement.

  I had a funny feeling then that maybe coming with Jared hadn’t been the smartest choice.

  That feeling redoubled when he parked the bike in front of that vacant lot.

  It was the very same one. Same streetlight, trash can, locksmith, convenience store. I thought back to being trapped here by Trevor and Adrian, of the ShadowEaters biting my shadow, and shuddered in recollection.

  “Not here,” I said.

  “Here,” Jared insisted, and turned off the engine.

  Before I could ask more, Jared marched to the edge of the sidewalk. He looked up, as if he was looking up the stairs of that library glamour I’d seen before. Then he propped his hands on his hips and began to hum.

  It was a coaxing melody, like he was enticing something to come out of the shadows, to reveal itself to him when it would have preferred otherwise. I could see the silvery light of his spell, like fireflies dancing amid the falling snowflakes, winking and glinting, tempting something to follow them.

  And when I looked back up, the library was there again, just as substantial as it had appeared before.

  “You summoned the glamour again,” I said, astounded that he’d been able to do this. “How?”

  “Spellsinging 201.” He reached back and grabbed my hand, then started for the stairs.

  I halted, fighting his grip. “Where are you going?”

  “Inside the glamour.”

  “You can’t do that. It’ll ripple and disappear. It’s not real.” I pointed. “And what’s behind it is dangerous. I nearly was consumed back there.…”

  Jared looked pointedly between me and the glamour. “Don’t you want my help?”

  I was way out of my depth, no matter which way you measured the distance to the shore. It wasn’t much consolation that I knew it. “Yes, but not like this.”

  He tilted his head to study me. “I thought you trusted me. That’s what you said before.” His words were soft, and I sensed his surprise.

  As if my not trusting him could change everything.

  I was torn. I did trust Jared. I had told him that I trusted him, and I wanted that to still be true. But he wanted me to do something that I knew was dangerous.

  And I wasn’t nearly ready to attack the ShadowEaters. I had no plan. No understanding of their weakness. It was dumb to just leap in and hope for the best.

  I extricated my hand from his and took another step back. “I do trust you,” I said. “But you don’t have all the information here. I’ve been in that glamour and I nearly died, and I’m not going to go in there willingly again.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Even if it might be the only way to accomplish what you seek to do?”

  “Even then.”

  “Even if you didn’t have all the weapons you needed last time, but you do now?”

  I sighed. I swallowed.

  I took a step back.

  He half smiled and glanced away, then looked back at me, his eyes bright. “A dragon girl shouldn’t be afraid.”

  “I’m not afraid. I’m learning from experience.”

  He lifted a brow, skeptical, and I knew we’d never agree on this. Probably because it wasn’t strictly true. I was afraid. No, I was terrified. I had learned that from experience and I didn’t think it was a bad thing to recognize when a choice
could cost me my life.

  But Jared was daring. Jared was reckless.

  Maybe Jared had less to lose.

  Or less to live for.

  I felt that we were on opposite sides of an abyss, that there could be no middle ground. There was only one thing I could say.

  “I’m sorry.” I turned and walked away from him, past the bike and down the street, feeling the weight of his gaze as he watched me.

  And when he finally started the bike again, its sound faded from earshot.

  He rode in the opposite direction.

  That was that.

  But this time, I’d sent him out of my life.

  Funny, but it didn’t feel like much of an accomplishment.

  I FEARED I COULDN’T go into that glamour and survive, not without a better plan, and I resented that Jared had expected me to do it at his request. On the other hand, I had a niggling sense that I’d made a big mistake by turning him down. I walked back to school to get my car, arguing both sides of it in my mind until I was sick of myself.

  Eventually I heard the faint hum of a motorcycle cutting in and out. I was sure it was the Ducati and I suspected that it was trailing behind me, even though I never caught a glimpse of Jared. The engine was throaty, maybe a bit unhappy to remain in a low gear. It both irritated me that Jared was following me and pleased me that he was sticking with me.

  As usual, he was mixing me up in a very big way.

  It was getting dark, though, and I was starting to glimpse the golden glint of the eyes of ShadowEaters in the periphery of my vision. When I looked straight at them, they faded from view, as if they’d never been.

  As if they were figments of my imagination.

  But I could feel them.

  And I could hear spellsong.

  Faintly.

  Hauntingly.

  How many apprentice Mages did they have to divest of their shadows before they could attack me outright? Were they mustering power? Or waiting for an opportunity?

  It took me a while to realize there was another song on the wind, mingling with the throaty purr of the Ducati’s engine.

  It was Jared. He was humming that song of his, the one called “Snow Goddess,” the one I thought was about me.