Elliot arrived at our house a few minutes later and received the last of the birthday breakfast. He passed me a book without a hurried, “happy birthday,” on his way to the table.

This, unlike my parents and grandparents’ gift, was a new book. At least, it appeared that way.

“Thank you. You didn’t commission this, did you?” I asked. Our reading and writing lessons were long over, but he had let me borrow books from time to time.

“I did. You should like it.” He used his telekinetic power to move Theo’s vacated chair back to sit. He had hit stage-two at eight and became dubbed a magic genius despite him taking years to develop it properly. I silently let him soak up all the praise, comfortable with my secret progress.

I smiled as my hand went over the cover. It was the first book he had shown me in the book shop, History of Azuria. “Thank you very much.” I’d treasure it, but I didn’t say that in thoughtfulness of my parents’ lack of ability to give me the same.

I put it beside my book on my nightstand and wondered when I would stop grinning. This was the best day I could remember and it hadn’t even been an hour since I woke up.

When my friends were done eating, we left my parents behind and Elliot scooped up a basket left outside the front door. Instead of following the path, Elliot and Theo led us into the forest.

“Where are we going?” I asked, unsure I’d get an answer.

“A fun place,” Theo said. “Don’t worry. There aren’t monsters around and if any do show up, I’ll kill them.”

Francesca sidled up beside me, linking our arms together. Penelope took my other side, cutting Mot apart from us. Francesca whispered to me, “You don’t have to be shy. I’ve seen you two together. If you say you don’t like each other, I’ll call you the biggest liar.”

“We are friends,” I told her in a hushed tone. “I don’t want to ruin that.”

She gave me a dry look. “If you both like each other you should be together. Otherwise, you’ll get sad when he dates someone else.”

I eyed Mot’s back, wondering if he had enhanced hearing, but he didn’t act out any indication that he listened. Either way I wanted the topic over. He was almost as tall as Theo, and his hair was still as unruly, not that I thought he ever attempted to wrangle it neat.

“Just leave it alone, okay?” I whispered before saying at a normal volume, “Do you know where we’re going?”

“No,” Francesca said merrily, dashing my hopes of her leaving it alone.

“But it’s exciting, isn’t it? Wandering in the forest. What if we get lost?” Penelope said, her arm tightening around mine.

“Then an earth elementalist will track us down. Probably Uncle Nathaniel,” Francesca said, not worried in the least.

It wasn’t long before we reached a clearing of trees where a languid river cut across.

“Woo hoo!” Theo jumped right in the water. I guffawed at what he had chosen for my birthday party.

“We’re wearing dresses!” I protested, the thought of my dress floating up around me preventing me from entertaining the thought of joining him, despite wearing leggings underneath. I flicked a glance at Mot, preoccupied admiring the river.

The water came up to Theo’s chest and would likely come up to my collarbone.

“So?” Theo asked, not having pieced two and two together.

Mot laughed and slapped his knee. “So?” He used his hands to aid the motion of the water he brought up out of the river. The water flowed around us, reminiscent of a serpent-like dragon.

Elliot waded into the river and used his arm slicing in the air to do the same with his wind control to splash the water, getting us all wet.

Francesca gasped and I steeled myself for her to burst out in frustration. Instead, she giggled and removed her shoes before stepping into the river. “It’s cold!” She waded in, arms tight to her chest.

Theo swam around. “You get used to it. Come on!”

An already teeth-chattering Penelope followed Francesca, her hands down by her legs to keep her dress from rising. Francesca paid little heed to her dress flowing around her, splashing Elliot and Theo and squealing in glee at Elliot’s returned blows.

Her mother would blow a gasket at the sight.

Mot hung back by me. His water dragon stalled above us.

“If you don’t want to swim, we can do something else,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

As curious as I was to know what he had in mind, I owed Theo to see through his planned activity. Surely, he didn’t mean to spend the entire day here. At least through lunch, I guessed with the picnic basket.

“I’ll go in if you do,” I said as I plopped my hat down and stepped out of my shoes.

He sent his water dragon splashing in around Theo, who exclaimed in surprise. Mot held out his hand and I took it. We waded in together, me shivering from the immediate chill of the water. I used my free hand to keep my dress from rising as best I could.

“Can you control this much water?” I asked, eager to fill the strange tension between us with words.

Mot pressed a hand down and water helped my dress to stop trying to create an air bag around me. “No way. Not now at least.” He raised his palm to lift some of the water drifting our way to arc up overhead, letting trickles fall on us. He used one arm raised up like a pillar while the other guided the water in an arch.

“You aren’t the only one who can show off.” Francesca made little lights form in the space between our heads and the water above us. My ingrained fear of using magic around others kept me from adding my bunny light from leaping from light to light like I wanted to do.

Theo shot off a tiny fireball that hit the water above him and fizzled out. He had reached stage-two recently, but he couldn’t conjure much fire yet. If he kept it up right now, I would make him stop before he burned himself up inside out.

My fear turned out misguided because he sulked instead.

Elliot slashed air at the water, cutting through it easily and making chunks of water fall down.

We laughed and enjoyed the merriment when a sharp crack and a creak caught our attention.

Mot released his hold on the water and it splashed down on us. Something else hit the water immediately after, pushing me away in a wave.

Once I sputtered up out of the water, I spotted part of a tree had fallen into the river where Theo and Elliot had been. I hurried over, despising the water dragging my speed down. There was a clean line through one of the tree trunks high enough that aligned with Elliot’s slash.

Francesca and Penelope were getting out of the water at one end of the cut trunk, calling for Elliot and Theo as red colored the water coming out from under the tree. Mot streamed up to me with water accelerating him.

The collapsed tree trunk burst up.

Elliot dragged an unconscious Theo towards the bank and Mot gave an assist, water carrying them out. Blood seeped from Theo’s head, so much that I felt the blood drain from my face as my heart sank in terror.

I collapsed by him and lifted my palms, putting all my soul into healing him. Light exploded from him and I knew his body was repairing itself inside and out. It wasn’t the same as the scrapes I healed up to this point. My head became heavy and pulsed with a headache. I bore it, waiting until I felt the healing complete before releasing what I undoubtedly knew as my first third-stage spell, a greater healing.

Sleep or sheer unconsciousness beckoned to me, but I refused to succumb. This had gone poorly enough without me being carried home too.

Theo’s eyes cracked open. He glanced at us blankly before his eyes focused and recognition enlivened them. “What are you all standing over me for? What happened?”

I hugged him while crying at the leftover fear of losing him and the relief of him being okay.

“Are you feeling all right?” Mot asked, crouched by us.

“Of course he is. Didn’t you see him get healed?” Elliot responded. “That was stage-three healing.”

“I meant Maddie,” Mot said. “I don’t know how she managed a third-stage spell, but that must’ve taken a lot out of her.”

He wasn’t wrong. I felt the adrenaline leaving my system and found it hard to open my eyes. I felt a hand stroke the back of my head and heard them continue talking, but my consciousness disconnected into a daze. My last thought was of how long it had been since something like this happened to me.