Page 7 of The Witch & the Dragon

A fourth-year student wouldn’t be interested in someone like me. He might remember and thank me, but that’s pretty much all the interaction I can expect at this point.

Nothing more, nothing less, which was fine. Of course, her mind was a little… overactive at times. It liked to picture hypothetical, impossible scenarios and conversations that might never happen. It was like, sometimes, fantasizing about an exceptional life waiting for her just around the corner.

The lessons blurred into one another, with one more “vision” encroaching on her during a session with Professor Z’Hana, but that vision, dutifully recorded in front of witnesses, gave her no clues that it might be for something… useful. Something about a pack of dogs chasing someone, or maybe it was wolves… anyway, they were chasing someone who ran supremely fast, and there was a river, sunlight, and nothing more.

“So, someone might be in danger,” Z’Hana had noted after checking over the vision. “From dogs or wolves. And they are… running. You had no indicators to see who was running?”

“Nope. It was in first person for me. I was whoever happened to be doing the running.”

“Anything else?”

She thought and thought. Had there been any defining features of the place that she might recognize? But no. Straining her thoughts yielded nothing, and they chalked it up to yet another vague vision that might have been about anything over the world.

“I had some high hopes for your type of magic,” Z’Hana had told her. “Of course, everyone with oracle powers can glimpse the future on occasion – but it is said that those with intuitive abilities on top are meant to get more relevant visions. It doesn’t seem to be the case for you, however.”

“Harrow had the most accurate visions.”

“Yes, well, Harrow also had some assistance that boosted her vision capabilities. Now, without that assistance, she is about as reliable as the rest of you.”

“We really should try to make another artifact that can assist with these visions.”

At this, Z’Hana grimaced. “Well… there’s only one entity we know that is capable of even enchanting such a thing, and that individual isn’t exactly known for being a pleasant person.”

“Maybe someone should try. Baba Yaga talked to Kati and Harrow, right?”

At this, Z’hana shook her head and placed a long, thin finger against her own lips. “Not something we can have open discussion about.”

These powers were so stupid. Traipsing to eat dinner after her lessons had finished, Chloe felt in quite the mood, even more so when she spotted other students demonstrating their awesome and multifaceted powers, like flames, wind, floating objects, zipping around at ridiculous speeds, and even one person lifting an immensely heavy statue with one arm, grinning and posing for a photo.

What I wouldn’t give to actually have a useful power… She stabbed aggressively at her food. One pea, harder than anticipated, pinged off the plate and hit a figure moving in her direction.

“Ugh, I’m sorry about – oh, it’s you.”

“Me,” Tiran said, rather nonplussed from being assaulted by a pea. “Do you mind if I sit here?” He gestured opposite her, which was less awkward for her, having chosen to sit near the end of one of the long tables.

“Sure. Be my guest.” Puzzled but pleased that he was now sitting with her, she tried to quell the storm of thoughts in her head, the questions that wanted to emerge and shout themselves at him. Surely, by choosing to come here when he had his friends – he wanted to talk to her. Her father used to say that the best thing you might do is to listen, stretch out silences, because people loved to fill the silence with something that chased it away.

When he didn’t, in fact, strike up anything, she figured she may as well. “So… I feel like I haven’t seen you around for a few weeks.

“That’s true,” he said. “I’ve been on sick leave. Then, I was… with my uncle in the funeral procession. We wanted to do it without those… other family members around.”

“Ah, right.” Her brain began to sparkle with remembrance. “That can’t have been easy. I guess they were mad they couldn’t come?”

“I think they were happy for the excuse, really, because they can paint it like we’re the bad people. But we didn’t want them to come – they didn’t deserve it. My uncle hired a lawyer to see if the will can be challenged. But short of finding a new and revised version of the will, it looks like I’ll have to strike out independently.”

This wasn’t quite the romantic conversation she might have daydreamed about, but still, she nodded and smiled and expressed sympathy in hopefully all the right places. “Do you think they… made a new will?”

“I think so. But… it’s hard to know where even to look to find it.” He lifted his eyes to the ceiling for a pause. “It’s most likely best that I try to focus on…making it on my own.”

“Perhaps. But, uh, why are you telling me all this?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I feel like I can trust you. Is that odd?”

A little, she thought, but she nodded outwardly.

“It sounds like you’ve been dealing with a lot. Are you at least a little better now?”

“I can get up, talk, and function like a normal person,” he said. “I think that’s about as much as they expect from me. My friends ask if I’m all right, but they get uncomfortable if I actually say I’m not. So, I put up a big front for them.” His amber eyes now settled on hers. “Have you… lost someone?”

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