Quest Maker Read Free Page B

Greater Realm, and, always, she was disarmingly calm.
    Her calm hid a deeper storm, though. And she took training seriously. Her strikes with the training mop had deadly intent. Her concentration was complete. Perhaps it was because she’d so recently suffered at the hands of the local villains.
    When Caden and Brynne were first stranded, Jane had been missing. While searching for her, they’d discovered mysteriously labeled vials that the lunch witches and Rath Dunn—Caden’s great enemy and math teacher—sought to fill with ingredients for dark magic. Three were empty: the first, “Essence of Dragon,” referred to Ms. Primrose’s perfume; the second, “Magical Locks,” Caden suspected was connected to Brynne somehow; and the third, “Blood of Son,” referred to the seventh-born son of a king.
    The fourth vial, however, “Tear of Elf,” was full. Caden now knew it was Jane’s tears that had filled it, and he hated to think how they’d been caused. Whatever horrors Rath Dunn and the lunch witches had inflicted on her, it was clear she had rage in her that wanted to get out.
    Caden pointed the mop to the green and white speckledhillside. “First we sprint the mountain. Then drills.”
    They ran. They practiced staff formation two and sword formation seven. Caden found it hard to concentrate and Tito knocked the mop twice from his hand with a large twig they were using for the second sword. After a while, however, Tito’s schoolbooks called to him.
    â€œI really need to study before school,” he said.
    Getting Tito to do what Caden wanted required a two-part strategy. One, persistence was essential. Two, it was important to agree to his strange study habits. “So be it,” Caden said.
    â€œOh, it be, bro,” Tito said.
    After Tito left, Caden and Jane ran the mountain once more, then took a break on a log midslope. A tree beside them bore an orange ribbon, a symbol that indicated the city limits. Caden suspected it also indicated the border of Ms. Primrose’s territory. He really needed to talk to her.
    â€œI want to tell you something,” Jane said. Her gaze drifted toward the misty morning path. “And I don’t want you to tell Tito.” She reached in her pocket as if she grasped on to something, and turned back to him. “I want you to promise.”
    A promise was binding; a promise must be kept. Jane seemed honorable enough, but Tito was Caden’s close friend. The idea of keeping information from him felt wrong. He hesitated.
    â€œI’ll consider that a yes,” she said.
    â€œIt’s not.”
    She nodded as if he’d said the opposite and pulled out a chain of silvery paper clips. Caden had limited knowledge of paper clips. In the Greater Realm, tomes, deeds, and documents were bound in sun griffin hair and inspected by the spellcasters’ librarian. For unimpressive and uninteresting Ashevillian paper clips, however, these seemed especially fine.
    Jane held them out. “I enchanted them,” she said.
    Caden took them. As he held them, their magical nature became more obvious. He felt a soft hum of power in the metal. The chain glittered in the light.
    There were only one hundred and twenty-eight known magic items in the Greater Realm. Caden’s coat was number one hundred and twelve. His brothers envied him for owning it. Enchanted items were rare and valuable even among princes.
    In Asheville, Jane had created two more. Item one hundred and twenty-nine, the Half Elf’s Necklace of Protection, which hung always around Tito’s neck, and now, item one hundred and thirty, the Magical Chain of Paper Clips that dangled from Caden’s fingers.
    The ability to put magic into an inanimate object, Jane’s enchantment magic, was different from the other magics. To permanently power an item, she had to put part of her life force into it. It shortened her lifespan. It took a