Page 97 of The Tribes of Magic
I smiled at him. “Besides, weonlyneed to mix our Dreamweaver magic—yours and mine—for the teleportation spell. So, what do you say, Conner? Shall we give it a go?”
“You don’t even need to ask. You know I’m absolutely up for anything Kato is.”
The two of them could be very competitive.
“And don’t worry about summoning all that magic into a single spell,” he continued. “I’ll be there to make sure you don’t blow up anything.”
I countered his smirk with one of my own. “Actually, Conner, I think it’s a good thingIwill be there to make sureyoudon’t blow up anything.”
CHAPTER 5
LINKED
Conner and I snuck into the Castle, cloaked under a veil of invisibility. Being a Rebel and the Rebel leader at that, he really wasn’t supposed to be there. I grabbed the Paragons’ spellbook out of the locker I’d put it in this morning. Then Conner led me to a room where we could try out the special ultra long distance teleportation spell. I was surprised by his choice.
“The Metamorphs’ library? Why here?”
“Why not?” he countered.
“Aren’t you worried the Metamorphs might walk in on us?”
Conner laughed. “No.”
“Because?”
“Because the Metamorphs hardly ever come in here. This is a place for reading. And the Metamorphs aren’t big on reading.”
I guess he had a point. The Metamorphs were more into physical endeavors than mental ones.
“Ok,” I said. “Let’s get started.”
The spellbook’s pages looked blank to Conner, so I had to describe the spell to him, step by step. Teleportation was a Dreamweaver spell, which meant we had to weave strands of otherworldly magic into a complex pattern. And boy was it reallycomplex. I’d never encountered such a difficult spell before. It was a good thing there were two of us because I wasn’t sure it was even possible to weave this spell with only two hands.
“Hey, that tickles, Red,” Conner laughed lightly.
We’d been at this for fifteen minutes, and we were only on the fourth glyph in the spell sequence. I was holding Conner’s left hand, moving it to duplicate the pattern as best I could. My right shoulder was poking him in the back, and our ankles were tangled up in each other.
“This spell is like a game of Twister,” I grumbled.
“What’s Twister?”
“An old party game my mom still has from The World That Was,” I told him. “Ok, we’re ready for the final symbol now. We just need to—oomph!”
Conner caught me when I stumbled. Luckily, he still had one free hand. “Careful. One wrong move will shatter the whole spell, and then…we’ll have to start all over again.” His face grew serious as our eyes met.
“Uh, Right…” I couldn’t look away.
Conner cleared his throat, his smirk returning. “You were trying to steal a hug, weren’t you, Red? There’s no need for covert maneuvers. My hugs are always free for you.” He winked at me.
That snapped me out of it. I snorted. “Good to know, but we can hug later.Afterwe’ve successfully pulled off this spell.”
“Good idea. It’s a date.”
“Uh…”
“Shall we continue?”
“Yes.” I cleared my throat, then made the movement, drawing the next glyph. This one was the trickiest one yet, involving two of my fingers on the same hand making perfect little loops—in opposite directions. Symmetry was more important than speed, so I took my time.
