“What about it?”
“Potential,” the dragon repeated.
The sudden change was enough that Laric thought he understood. This was what the Grand Mage had done. This was how the Grand Mage had harmed other dragons.
He had stolen potential.
“How can I help you?” Laric asked.
“You can’t,” Sashaak said.
“There has to be something I can do. There has to be some way I can give you some of my potential.”
“There is not.”
“What if I were to—”
“You must keep yourself safe,” Sashaak said.
“No,” Laric said, understanding what Sashaak was going to try to do. He was going to deposit Laric on the ground and do the same thing he had done with Malinar—try to leave him behind. But Laric wasn’t going to sacrifice Sashaak, the same way that Malinar had not been willing to allow his dragon to sacrifice himself, Laric guessed. Malinar had been the one willing to suffer on Sashaak’s behalf.
And Laric now understood how.
His potential.
He started to push it toward Sashaak.
Normally when he was connected to Sashaak, he was the one drawing on that potential. The dragon had far more potential than Laric did, which meant that Sashaak was the storehouse of all that potential. This time, Laric pushed it the other way.
Sashaak roared, and then trembled, but they continued to plummet.
As they did, Laric noticed there was other potential around him. He didn’t know how he could use it, but he had to do something. He had to try. He felt that around him, and he began to summon it to himself.
Heat rose from the flames in the walls of the tower. The fire was building, cascading from Sashaak, and dimming.
That was working. Laric had no idea how that was possible, and he didn’t even know if it was what was supposed to happen. Maybe this was some means of fueling Sashaak. Whatever it was, those glyphs were holding.
Sashaak righted himself and then roared.
“Down,” Laric said to him. “You can’t stay here. I’m going to deal with him.”
“Careful,” Sashaak said, but tilted so that Laric could scramble along his wings and then to the top of the tower. The dragon deposited him back where he had started.
Then Sashaak shot upward.
“Let me still borrow from you,” Laric said.
“Careful.”
But another idea came to Laric. It was one he wasn’t sure would work, but at this point, what else was there for him to try?
This was all about potential. The Grand Mage had been successful because he had the ability to drain potential. Laric had no idea if he was going to be able to do anything that would stop the Grand Mage short of cutting him down, but it seemed as if there had to be something.
Wasn’t potential the key here, after all?
Laric scrambled down the tower until he reached the base of it, which was still burning, but what was left was more glowing embers than flames. He saw students streaming away from it and realized that Malcolm was there. He called out to him, and Malcolm, Joselle, and Iveris separated from the crowd and came over to him.
“What are you doing here?” Malcolm asked. “Did you see the fire in the great hall?”
“No time to fill you in, but we have to stop the Grand Mage because he’s trying to destroy the dragon and the town. I can tell you more when this is all done, but what I need for you to do is to go to as many glyphs as you can find in town and use the key that we used to enter the shed on those glyphs.” He looked over at Joselle. “Our grandmother gave us the key, but we all have to use it.”
Malcolm frowned. “Are you sure about this? You’re talking about the Grand Mage? I don’t know anything about him—”
“You don’t want to know anything about him,” Laric said. “I know what I’m saying. I know what we need to do. We have to do this.”
Malcolm shrugged. “Well, I suppose if we can stay out of this fire.”
“Activate as many glyphs as you can,” Laric said. “And if you want to push some sort of spellslip or spellcraft form into them too, be my guest.”
Joselle was watching him, but she said nothing.
“This is what we need to do,” Laric said.
Finally, Joselle nodded, and they ran off.
Laric walked out of the school. He was focusing on his detection spellcraft form, using that to try to identify anything that was here, while not at all sure if it was working but feeling as if he could find something.
Then the energy in the city shifted.
