The Curse of Arkady Read Free

and learn to guard yourselves. Take care of each other, Jason.” He tapped the head of his cane, and his very body seemed to grow thin and disappear. His voice lingered after he’d vanished, saying, “Do all that is within your power to do!”
    â€œI will!” pledged Jason, and the Magicker was gone. It was only then that Jason realized Gavan hadn’t told him what the Curse of Arkady was.

2
    CURSES
    â€œW HEN are we seven met again?” asked Bailey, her voice hollow and thready, pitched to send echoes through the air and raise the fine hairs at the back of everyone’s neck.
    Trent wadded up a piece of paper and threw it at her. It bounced off her freckled nose and into the pocket of her shirt. “We’re in my backyard and we’re only here till my dad gets home!” he snorted, unimpressed.
    The pocket rippled and bumped and squeaked, and the paper wad was abruptly ejected, followed by the whiskered and curious face of the pocket’s occupant. Lacey let out an indignant chirp, cleaned her pack rat face with tiny paws, and dove back into Bailey’s pocket, leaving only her tufted tail hanging out. Grinning, Bailey tucked that back in, as well.
    Sounded good, though!”
    Ting smiled slightly as she smoothed a dark wing of hair from her oval face, her almond-shaped eyes lighting with a quiet humor. “You always sound good, Bailey. It’s the mind behind the words. . . .” Her sentence trailed off. She folded her hands in her lap and bumped her shoulder against her friend’s as if to emphasize the tease.
    â€œYeah, yeah.” Rich and Stefan had been playing cards, as usual. Stefan gathered them into his big, chunky hands as he turned his attention to the meeting. “I got football practice in thirty minutes. This had better be good.”
    Getting them all together at one time was no small feat, and Jason could only thank a slow Saturday morning for the timing. He’d sent a summons by crystal, but it had taken days to get them together here. He fished out the raven-delivered paper. “Anyone besides me get this from Tomaz?”
    Bailey’s hand shot up. Ting frowned, then shook her head. Rich grunted and both the redhead and his chunky pal nodded. Danno’s answer was to pull out a similar piece of paper from inside his jacket. Trent shook his head in the negative. “What’s up?”
    â€œIt’s a warning.”
    â€œTrouble?” Trent’s eyes lit up. “And they’re worried we might get into it?”
    â€œI think,” said Danno quietly, “we’ve got enough problems with the Dark Hand. Fair warning against anyone or anything else is good.” He wrapped his arms about his legs, darker Latino face a contrast to the cream color of his shirt.
    â€œBut no one’s been bothered, have they? School’s been going, days and weeks are passing. I think it’s all a bunch of hooey cooked up to keep us quiet.”
    Stefan echoed Rich’s scoff. “Yeah. Like homework.”
    â€œHomework is cooked up to help us learn,” remarked Ting. She stared at her slender hands in her lap.
    Jason sat down on a big rock that occupied most of the corner of Trent’s small patch of yard. “I think,” he offered, “that we can expect the Dark Hand, just like the Magickers, to be recovering from the battle at Ravenwyng. First we defeated their spy Jonnard, and then the others. They’ve probably been catching their breath, and now they’re getting ready to strike again. I don’t think they’ll have wolfjackals to help them, but they could be anyone, anywhere, tracking us.”
    â€œWhy no wolfjackals?”
    Jason shrugged. “They need a lot of mana. My guess is they stay close to Havens and Gates. But members of the Hand are just like anyone.”
    Rich rolled his eyes. “Like they can find us. There’s only how many million people in the country