Page 41 of Monster's Pet

I shook my head. “That too, I suppose. But for helping us with Moonbeam even though your professor is so freaked out about her.”

Rhiannon shrugged. “I guess some of his fearlessness is rubbing off on me, but also, she’s so sweet. It’s possible that’s part of the manducare’smodus operandi, being cute, but I’ve been around her since you brought her in. She doesn’t hurt people on purpose. And now that Aiden hasn’t let her feed off his magic, his control has returned and he’s not feeling weak anymore.”

“That’s actually one of the ways I figured out that she was eating his magic,” I said. “He only had trouble when he’d been around her. After a day in the classroom, he was fine.”

“That makes sense. It also makes sense that some of the first magic she’d have eaten would have been from her mother.” Rhiannon was silent for a moment. “It doesn’t make sense that they were at all involved with the disappearance of the ley lines. Even with a humongous draw of power, the lines would have bounced back once the mother was dead. It’s been weeks, and there’s no change.”

“Exactly,” I said. “It must be a coincidence.”

“Weird that a manducare shows up right after the ley lines disappear, though,” Rhiannon said slowly. “Almost like they are linked, in a way.”

I frowned.

“Not like that,” she rushed to reassure me. “I wonder if there are more?”

“There must be, unless they reproduce asexually!” I said with a chuckle.

“Unlikely that a creature of such enormous size would do that, but I never say never,” Rhiannon said.

I opened the door to my room and greeted Lilia’s miniature dragons with head scratches on their eye ridges. “She’ll be back soon,” I crooned to them.

We had all agreed to keep all magical creatures away from Moonbeam in case of accidents. We didn’t want the dragons especially to get hurt.

“Here’s my textbook,” I said, pulling it off the shelf.

“Excellent.” Rhiannon flipped to the back, where the skeletons and muscle structure of different animals were located. “We’ll do dragons, since we’ve got them here. Look at the difference between an infant and adult dragon. See how the bones are more solid in the older dragon?”

“It won’t be different because these guys are miniature versions?” I asked.

“No, it’s the age that matters.” Rhiannon chirped at Pinkie Pie, who landed on her forearm, crooning as he cocked his head one way and then the other. “Hello, beautiful boy. Can I look you over, please?”

He chirped back at her and nudged her cheek with the top of his head.

“These two are very smart,” Rhiannon remarked, sitting on a chair and putting Pinkie on the desk in front of her. “They understand basic questions. Very similar to a toddler.”

I nodded and watched her as she made the simple spell movements with her hands.

“It’s like an x-ray,” she said. “It’s hard to use for long periods of time, so once you see what you need to, stop it.” She patted Pinkie’s flank. “Good boy. Thank you.”

Pinkie chirruped and leaped off the table, flapping his wings to circle the room.

“Why don’t you look at Dip?”

“Okay,” I agreed, suddenly nervous. “Here, girl,” I said, lifting my arm up.

Dip swooped down from the top of Lilia’s four-poster, where she’d been watching the proceedings, and lit on my arm.

“May I look at you? It won’t hurt,” I promised.

She seemed to understand what I was asking, as she took her place on the table without me needing to put her there myself. I sat in the chair and took a breath, clearing my mind for the new magic spell.

As soon as it took hold, my vision changed to black-blue-white. I blinked, feeling nauseated when closing my eyes didn’t help.

“Look at her hip,” Rhiannon said.

I almost jumped, having forgotten she was there. Focusing on Dip’s thigh bone, I saw what Rhiannon had meant by the bone not being fully formed in the young dragon. Near the balljoint, the bone looked spongy. Closer to the middle of the bone, it looked completely solid.

“That’s so cool,” I murmured, removing the spell from my vision.

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