“I’m not trying to make anything difficult,” Laric said.
“Oh, I know you’re not trying to. But you are.”
He shook his head. “I learned a few things.”
“Oh?” Malcolm glanced behind him. “My father is helping get food together. Your sister is resting.”
“That’s probably for the best,” Laric said. “I’m not sure she needs to hear all of this yet.”
Malcolm stepped out. His home was one of the nicer ones on this street, and remained unharmed despite the attack. It was good that it did, but it was also surprising that so much of the city, at least the central part of it, had survived the dragon attacks. Having witnessed what the dragons were capable of doing—and honestly, feeling what the dragons could do—Laric remained curious as to why there had not been more widespread devastation. Maybe it was because the dragons had not wanted to destroy. If that were the case, then it showed a measure of restraint that might be helpful to keep in mind, and perhaps helpful for others to learn about as well.
“So?” Malcolm asked.
“Xavier told me that my grandmother was placing glyphs around the city.”
Malcolm leaned forward, and his eyes widened. “She was placing glyphs in the city? But we would’ve known, wouldn’t we?”
“Apparently, people don’t really pay attention to such things, mostly because nobody knows how to make glyphs, now do they? According to Xavier, he became aware that new glyphs had appeared, and he started trying to make sense of it. Once the mages discovered that was happening, they sent a representative here.”
“But we’ve always had mages here,” Malcolm said.
“Not according to Xavier.”
Malcolm glanced back at his house. “We could ask my father about that. He would know.”
“We can,” Laric said. “I don’t know why he would have any reason to make that detail up, so I’m inclined to believe it.”
Malcolm let out a sigh. “I suppose that we should both be. Why would that be the case, though? What would have brought them out here?”
“Presuming that they were aware of the glyphs. But I think the better question is how they had detected that there were glyphs.”
“Unless they knew something was happening out here.”
“Maybe,” Laric agreed. “I’m starting to think that there is something about this place that was significant to my grandmother, but I don’t really know why or what that might have been.”
“Not just the glyphs.”
Laric rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes. He preferred to have conversations like these with Rowan because she had a good mind for such things, but Malcolm was also clever.
“If she could make glyphs,” Laric said, “she didn’t have any reason to be here because of the glyphs.”
“Unless there were specific glyphs that she couldn’t make. Think about it, Laric. Maybe she placed glyphs to try to hide the others. Or maybe she hid others so that the mages wouldn’t pick up on what was already here.”
“I think you might be reaching a bit,” Laric said.
Malcolm shrugged. “I could be. But there has to be a reason behind it. We just have to figure out what that reason is.”
“I know. I’m not sure what we need to do with this, but we are going to have to come to terms with that. And at some point, we’re going to have to deal with mages.”
“You mean the school.”
“The school. Whatever mages come in response to what Talia did. And Talia herself.”
Malcolm was quiet for a few moments. “I was thinking about it. I didn’t want to talk to my father about this, but Joselle and I were talking a bit. We could just play like we don’t know anything about what Talia was involved in. Or Daelon. And since Daelon is gone, we don’t have to worry about him. We can make it seem like Talia took off. She was doing that quite a bit anyway, so it wouldn’t be all that surprising.”
“We are still going to have to explain why we keep going to the shed,” Laric said, “assuming that we can still get into the shed. And if not there, then we’re going to have to explain why we’re going out into the mountains to use the portal.”
“Or we just leave her there,” Malcolm said.
“Both you and Rowan have made the same comment,” Laric said, shaking his head slightly.
“I don’t say it to be cruel. I’m just saying it because…”
“Because it makes sense.”
And it did. If they didn’t have Talia in the picture, they wouldn’t have to worry about any of this. So maybe in a way, it wouldn’t be wrong.
His stomach suddenly grumbled, and Malcolm grinned.
“Come on. We need to eat. Then I think that we should just get some sleep. It’s been a long few days.”
Laric didn’t argue, and followed Malcolm in. There was a warmth and a feeling of welcome inside Malcolm’s home. That had been the case ever since Laric had come to stay with them. Malcolm and his father had both been incredibly accepting of Laric and Joselle and said that they were welcome to stay with them as long as they needed. There had never been any sort of timeline on how long that might be. Laric hadn’t even started to consider the possibility of where they would go, though increasingly, he thought he was going to have to come up with an answer as to where that would be.
They couldn’t stay here forever, regardless of how welcoming Malcolm and his father were.
The dinner was delicious, and there was pleasant conversation, but by the time they wrapped up and Laric had helped clean up, he was every bit as exhausted as Malcolm had alluded to them being.
He crashed on his bed in the room he shared with Joselle, and sleep claimed him. He had dreams of movement, which Laric suspected came from the connection that he shared with Sashaak—the one that he was going to eventually have to master in some way. He also didn’t think that he could stay in town and truly come to understand that connection, as Laric thought that he was going to need to have a greater proximity to Sashaak to better learn how Sashaak could help him.
