The Otherworlder hauling me through the forest stumbled and nearly sent us crashing into a low tree branch. Cursing in another language, he ducked. Not soon enough. My back scraped the underside of the branch.
That snapped me out of my fugue. Forget about his magic. Forget about being polite. If some crazy Otherworlder was trying to kidnap me, I wouldn't go down without a fight. I thrashed, hitting him in the side of the head and kicking something sensitive. We tumbled down a short, muddy hill and plunged into the stream.
Water coursed over my head. I lunged upward, slamming my shoulder into a rock. The current yanked me under again. This couldn't be happening. I wasn't about to drown in a three-foot-deep stream.
Gritting my teeth against the pain in my shoulder, I grabbed a rock and hauled myself to my feet. The Otherworlder surfaced a couple yards away. Besides his violet-tinted glasses, he looked like a normal--albeit soaking wet--college guy in a t-shirt and jeans. If that wasn't strange enough, I recognized his boyish features and mane of curly, black hair.
Grandma had hired him to be our housekeeper at the beginning of the summer. We'd never really talked before, and I'd assumed he was either super shy or didn't like me. No wonder he'd been quiet. When most people hated you for being an alien, keeping to yourself was probably a good idea.
Unfortunately for him, he couldn't afford to be shy now.
I trudged through the water to him. "Kyton, what's going on? Why'd you grab me? And don't give me that prip about the friend and the mud-slinging," I said, using Grandma's favorite Otherworlder curse word. "I'm not an idiot."
Cocking his head as if he was listening to something, he muttered in another language. "No time to explain." He grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the opposite bank.
"Why?" I tried to jerk my arm out of his grasp. With those noodle arms of his, he looked weak, but I couldn't even make him budge.
"Let's just say my friend's awake, and he's not really my friend." When I dug my heels into the bottom of the stream, he groaned. "Look, I made an oath with your grandfather not to talk about or do certain things while you're around unless you figure them out on your own. Now, we have to get out of here, or my friend will-"
He shook his head like he was shooing a cloud of midges. "Prip, I can't say what, but he'll do very bad things. Understand?"
Whatever was going on, he looked too terrified to be lying. I nodded, and we raced onto the bank. A little way down the stream, my witch's trunk was beached on a rock. Kyton must've dropped it when we fell in the stream.
I gestured at it with my free hand. "I need that trunk."
"You'll live without your makeup trunk." He leaned down like he was going to give me a piggyback ride. "Hop on."
Who kept makeup in a trunk? He was definitely from another planet. "It's my witch's kit, not a makeup trunk. I can't lose it, or the witch's council will kill me." Figuratively speaking. They were very particular about where magical artifacts ended up. Losing mine in the stomach of a monster would probably get me banned from every witching college in the country.
"Fine." He plunged into the stream, grabbed my trunk, and spun around. Before he could get to the bank, he stiffened.
A roar like a jet engine rattled the trees. Screeching birds fled the canopy as a sickly-sweet breeze drifted our way.
Give up, fairy, a poisonous voice dripped through my mind. Your wings are torn, your magic out of reach. No puny human can save you from my claws.
Except for a slight shaking, Kyton was as still as stone. He must've heard the voice. Why wasn't he running? Maybe he was one of those people who froze when they were scared.
I jumped into the water and grabbed his arm. It shook violently in my grasp, like he was trying to fight off a seizure.
"We have to go."
"I know." It sounded like the words had echoed around a drafty passageway before squeezing through his lips.
"Then move." Whatever was coming, it had to be close. The sickly scent was almost unbearable.
"I can't. My friend is-" He shook his head. "You're a you-know-what, aren't you?"
"You mean a witch?" How could he not know that? Everyone in town had heard of the Hemlock witches, and he worked for one of them. No, that wasn't it. He'd said that he couldn't talk about something--probably magic, by the sound of it--unless I figured it out on my own. "Oh- I'm a witch, I can do magic, my family can do magic, you're an Otherworlder, there are monsters in the forest that come out at night. Is that enough? Can you talk now?"
"Yeah, thanks. Use a spell, levitate me, and run."
I took my witch's kit from him. It bought me a second to think, but I didn't come up with anything better to say than the truth. "I can't actually do magic."
"You said-"
"I meant I could theoretically do magic. If I had a familiar." I gripped the handle of my trunk tighter. "I've memorized lots of spells."
His eyes widened. "What good's that supposed to do when the dragon gets here?"
Was he insane? Oath or not, he should've mentioned the dragon earlier. I couldn't beat a monster like that, even if I had a familiar. It took teams of twenty witches--or even more nomahus--to take down a dragon. Maybe he was mistaken. This was the middle of the day, and I hadn't heard of any dragons coming to Earth in the last fifty years.
"What the heck would a dragon be doing-"
Sounds like gunshots cracked in the distance. I had a bad feeling those were the sounds of a dragon crashing through the trees. They sounded close.
Grabbing Kyton's arm, I jerked him toward the stream bank. "We don't have much time. Come on, shake it off."
"I'm a fairy. I can't shake off a fairy dragon's magic." His voice trembled, and his eyes darted away. No other part of him moved. "Just go. Run and get help."
He would be dead by the time help came, and we both knew it. What should I do? Kyton was an Otherworlder, someone I hardly knew. Not to mention, he was up against a dragon. However noble I might've wanted to be, fighting a dragon would only end one way--with both of us dead. If Mom was in my shoes, she would've left Kyton to die. Good thing for him, I wasn't my mom.
Maybe I could hide us. Hiding in shadow was one of my inherent gifts, but it only worked for a few minutes, and only in shadow. It was a long shot. If the branches shifted overhead and took away our shadowy cover, or if the dragon searched for us for more than a few minutes, we would still be doomed. But it was the only plan I had. Hopefully, the trees would stay still and the dragon would be too impatient to stick around long.
I hooked my arms under Kyton's armpits and dragged him up the bank. It was like dragging a shaky wooden mannequin. Unfortunately, that was the easy part. I knelt at his side. Hiding myself had always been fairly simple, but hiding other objects could be troublesome. It was best if the object was small and close to my body.
Kyton was the opposite of small. I was nearly six feet tall, but he was several inches taller. This was going to be awkward. If we lived, we could pretend it never happened. If not, I really hoped no one found our bodies like this.
Trying to ignore Kyton's uncomfortable expression, I stood my trunk up between his ankles. If he was embarrassed now, he would be mortified in a minute. As carefully as I could manage, I laid on top of him. Arm to arm, leg to leg, cheek to cheek.
"What are you doing?" he asked in the same whispery voice as before. Magic floated on his breath, dulling my thoughts.
I bit the inside of my cheek to snap myself out of it. "Hiding us without a spell. Be quiet." Embarrassed heat crept up my neck. This was the first time I'd ever been this close to a guy, and even if he was an Otherworlder, it felt wrong to jump on top of him like this when he was paralyzed. Not that I thought he would complain if I got us out of here alive.
I shushed my whirring thoughts. Embarrassment had to wait until after we were safe from the dragon. Gritting my teeth, I forced my magic to move. It flowed slowly from my pores, cloaking us in deep shadow.
The dragon's roar came again, closer this time. It rattled in my chest and brought the smell of rotting meat along with the monster's sickly magic.
Kyton let out a faint whimper. "It's bad enough I'm going to be eaten. I don't want to get you eaten too. You can't fool the dragon. Even if you had a familiar, you couldn't-"
With a thunderous roar, a dump-truck-sized heat shimmer pushed through two trees on the opposite bank. No matter what was about to happen, it was too late to run.
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