Page 96 of The Tribes of Magic
I set my hand on his arm. “I’m never disappointed to be spending time with you, Conner.”
He flashed me a grin bright enough to melt even one of my avalanches.
“I’m just worried, you know,” I said, flushed, “that the two of us might not be able to handle a hundred Cursed Ones.”
“Oh,youcan handle a hundred Cursed Ones no problem, Red. Actually, I’m certain you could handle thousands more.”
“Uh, thanks. I think. But I really hope we won’t have to test that statement.”
“Don’t worry so much. The chances of us facing thousands of Cursed Ones are about as high as the General learning how to smile.”
“But there’s still the matter of getting to the Dark Woods. It’s so far away.”
“We could steal one of the Watchers’ SUVs.”
Conner pointed at the big, black vehicle parked outside the coffee shop across the street. How exactly were those Watchers planning on drinking their coffee with their helmets on? Like Knights, they never took them off in public. Maybe they had a drinking straw inside the helmet…
“Everything ok, Red? You zoned out there for a while.”
“I do that when I’m thinking.” Then I added, “For this Quest, we really should keep it stealthy. I think stealing one of the Watchers’ SUVs and being pursued across the whole city is anything but stealthy.”
“Point taken.”
“However, I do have another idea.”
“I’m listening.”
“I think there’s something in the Paragons’ spellbook that can help us.”
“The Paragons’ spellbook? I thought we’d agreed you wouldn’t be trying out any new spells today, Red. You know, so you don’t pass out from all the blood loss.”
“It’s not anewspell I’m thinking of. It’s one I already know. A lot of the spells in the Paragons’ book have different variations. Like the teleportation spell I learned from the book. I was reading the spellbook this morning, actually, trying to figure out a way to travel between realms without a Spirit Tree.”
Conner looked impressed. “Nowthatwould be a handy spell to know.”
“Yeah, I thought if I could do it, I could use it to search the Many Realms for the missing Apprentices, and I wouldn’t need the General’s permission because I could do it without the Spirit Trees.” I sighed. “But that realm-hopping spell requires way more magic than I can muster. I need to totally up my endurance before I even attempt it. Still, there was another variation listed in the teleportation section. And it’s kind of like a precursor to doing the inter-realm teleportation spell. It’s teleporting longer distances in the same realm. Teleporting to the Dark Woods would be a great way to test out the spell.”
“We talked about this already,” Conner said. “And we agreed teleporting that far would require too much magic for you to attempt it safely.”
“Yeah, but there are a bunch of tips and tricks in the book, ways to conserve magic. And then, well, I was thinking if the two of uscombinedour magic, maybe we’d be able to teleport that far.”
He blinked in surprise. “Combine our magic?”
“Right.”
“I didn’t know that was even possible.”
“It’s totally possible. Kato and I did it yesterday. The combining-magic spell is another bit of magic that I learned from the Paragons’ spellbook. Hey, I wonder if all six of themever combined their magic. The six Paragons, I mean. If they could combine their magic, that would certainly explain how they’d have enough magic to perform some of those really big spells in that book.”
Conner seemed distracted.
“Conner?”
He shook himself, refocusing. His easy smile returned. “I’m not sure if the six different kinds of magic can mix like that.”
“Why not? The six kinds of magic do mix in me. And in you. And in Kato. So why not in them?”
“Well… I guess you’re right.”
