Page 26 of Scales ’N’ Spells: Volume One

“Well, let’s add this up, shall we? I’m ignored for twenty-three years, then I meet the Fire Dragon Clan. Fire Dragon Clan discovers I’m from magical family. I smell like magic. All within the space of three days, and for the first time in my life, someone tries to kidnap me. Coincidence? I think not.”

“Laid out like that, I see your point.” Her lips pursed.

“Be safe and keep your guard up, okay? I think life just took a plot twist.”

“About freaking time. I was getting bored.” She pointed a stern finger at him. “Be safe, stick with the dragons, and don’t get kidnapped.”

Cameron gave her a sloppy salute. “Will do.”

With the call ended, he set the phone aside and let his head drop back again. He did feel a little better after talking with his sister. Food needed to happen, though. His stomach was rumbling petulantly.

There was a light knock at the door. Turning his head, he called, “Enter!”

A white-haired woman named Lisette stepped through with a covered tray, a hopeful expression on her face. “How are you?”

“I’m alright.”

He’d met Lisette very briefly when they came in, but her focus had been on helping Alric. He’d barely gotten more than her name before Baldewin was ushering him away to this room while Alric was shooed in the opposite direction under the woman’s watchful eye. “Alric?”

“Will be fine. He’s resting at the moment. His old wound never healed right, and if he over-exerts himself, this happens.”

Cameron felt a little guilty. But he was glad to hear Alric was fine, or would be.

Lisette strode in, the hem of her green skirt swirling around her as she moved. She put the tray on the little round table near his chair, but her crystal blue eyes remained largely on him. “I’ve brought you Kartoffelpuffer.”

One deep breath was all it took for his taste buds to send up signal flags. That. Yes please. “It smells amazing, but I don’t know what that is.”

“Potato pancakes,” she translated with a smile, lifting off the cover. “I thought some comfort food might be in order.”

“God, yes, and thank you.” Cameron dug in with a sigh of bliss. They were warm and perfect on his tongue, with lovely flavor. He could eat his weight in these. “Please tell me you live off these here.”

“Some dragons try.”

Lisette turned to sit in the other wingback chair. She had a slight smile on her face that still somehow hinted at calculation. “Well, young mage. You’ve had quite the day.”

Cameron’s mouth was full, so he couldn’t protest her descriptor, but he frowned at her. It was a frown that relayed disapproval. And frustration. And many other things because he could frown with the best of them. He’d learned it at his father’s knee.

The frown did not have its desired effect. She smiled in return, as if he’d said something particularly amusing. “I think you’re under the wrong impression about magic. Many are if they don’t grow up around people who actually practice it. It’s not a matter of waving your wand, speaking a spell, and poof! Things happen.”

Cameron felt his brain grind to a halt. Swallowing, he demanded, “Wait, that’s not how it works?”

“No, no. Perish the thought. Books and movies often make it sound as if you have a well of magical energy in you, and with the right talent and intent, magic will leap to obey you. But really, most mages have very little magical power to call their own. We have the talent, certainly, but our magical core is more like a conduit.”

“Like the grounding wire to a battery?” he asked slowly, wrapping his head around this new information. Alric had mentioned something about this too. He hadn’t elaborated on it much, though.

“Something like that. Although, we channel power.” She crossed her legs, hands resting on a slim book in her lap as if they had all the time in the world to discuss this. “Mages actually require quite a bit in order to do any working. I’m sure you’ve wondered why mages were always willing to partner with a dragon?”

“It did cross my mind. Alric said something about it, but he didn’t really elaborate.”

“I imagine he, as a dragon, doesn’t really understand it well enough to explain. But you see, when a mage forms a bond with a dragon, we gain access to all of their magical power. It’s readily at our use, and it boosts our own abilities by at least fifty percent.”

Cameron did and didn’t follow this. “So…you have to have something magically powerful to work with?”

“Forgive me, I’m not explaining this right. It’s been so long since I’ve taught a young mage, I think I’ve forgotten how.” Lisette took a moment, breathing in and rephrasing things. “Mages require magical elements in order to do any working. We build our spells, enchantments, and potions much like you would build a machine. It all has its own design, its own elements, and it has to be a cohesive force in order for it to work. Our magic is used to tie it all together and put it in motion.”

Cameron ate the last bite of potato pancake, chewing on both her words and the food. “So, say that I want to build a vehicle. I’d design it, gather the materials for it, and then I would use magic to assemble it?”

“Precisely. And drive it, presumably, but you take my point. We use many, many elements in order to build spells. Some elements don’t work with others. Some do. Build too lopsided of a spell, it will collapse and backfire. Or just fail to function.”