Page 33 of The Teacup Dragon Sanctuary

Old wives’ tales said moonflowers grew best along prime threads. But the island wasn’t important enough for that. It wasn’t powerful. Not like legendary Elanholm or the Academy in Tesh, or any number of places where great works of magic had been performed. It was just home.

And yet, moonflower grew here in abundance.

The magic came from the land itself. From the island.

She tried to turn the page to check if he had written more on the other side but it was stiff and unresponsive, almost as if… as if it didn’t want her to move on.

That was when she realised that it wasn’t just one page. There were two, stuck together. Carefully, Portia tried to peel them apart, even going as far as expending a little of her magic to encourage them. And if that didn’t work she was perfectly prepared to fetch a bit of the balm. If it could separate a dragon from its magical connection then…

The pages opened. She thought she heard the echo of a laugh in the noise they made and the shiver of an enchantment falling away rippled over her skin, leaving her breathless.

Inside, there was a map.

Portia made the ball of witchlight she was using to read by brighter and opened the page out completely. It was a map of the island. She knew the shape of it by heart, from the harbour to the castle, from the woodlands to the rocky beaches. Every pathway, every building, every square foot of her home. It was meticulously drawn, so much so that she was certain it had to be a work of magic itself.

Art had been powerful, everyone always said that, but this kind of thing… this would have chafed against the nature of his magic. He was chaotic, like Seb. The spell to seal the map away might feel like his work but not the map itself.

And the precise annotations, the delicate name tags, even the tiny waves… she knew that hand.

Her father had drawn this map.

Portia’s hands shook as she tried to smooth it out, to study it. The island was depicted in perfect detail, but there was more. Much more. Lines threaded through the landscape. They almost seemed to move across the paper, coiling and unfurling like living things. They all concentrated in the centre of the island, somewhere deep inside the rock on which it all stood, far beneath the castle somewhere. And from there they radiated out. She followed them, each one, and realised that one ran through this very room, spiralling up towards the snuggery.

Except… except, Portia had always been able to feel the presence of magic like that, wild, natural magic that threaded through the world. And there was nothing of the sort here now.

Had there been? Had she somehow severed it when she made her potion?

No, that wasn’t possible, was it? There had never been a prime thread running through her rooms, had there? She would know.

She traced the line back to its source, and then tried to plan how one would get there on foot. Outside the castle, somewhere in the forest to the back of it, buried underground. There might be a way to it through the cellars, but that didn’t seem likely. It was further down than that.

There were caves in the forest, weren’t there? She remembered exploring them as a child, herself and August here on a family visit, daring each other to venture further and further into the unknown. Their mother had found them and she’d been furious at the risks they had taken. But Portia remembered them.

The caves, where the moonflowers grew.

Something Milo had said came back to her. That wild magic was best left alone. They all knew that. Better to use the tempered kind, filtered through the soul of the magician, moulded by the Academy, and made safe by long years of training and manipulation.

Great Wenn, what if she had tapped into something else?

Or what if… what if she could do that for the teacup dragons now missing their own vital link to magic? What if…

Portia grabbed a spare sheet of paper and pressed it down on the map. She whispered the words so familiar to any student of the Academy and released the spell, drawing the image up from one page to another. A useful thing in a library full of restricted texts, that spell, passed around like contraband among the students, and still used by those who had graduated. Wenn help them if anyone found them using it, but all the senior staff knew it as well. It was the worst kept secret in Tesh.

Her copy made, she pulled on her coat and boots before heading out into the night.

13

The island might as well be a completely deserted one at this late hour. There wasn’t a light on in any of the windows and all around her the wind was rising. Portia turned away from the village, skirting around the edge of the castle, towards the woods behind it. Towards the caves.

She followed the treacherously steep path with familiar feet, long used to this place. They had been wild little things, her siblings and herself, rambling all over the island on their brief visits, especially when they were young.

‘Let them explore,’ her father had said, his voice indulgent and amused. And even after their parents died, Iris had hardly kept a tight rein on them.

This had been their playground. Their adventure. Their quest.

But maybe she had been away for too long, used to the sedate streets of Tesh, the sombre halls of the Academy. The woodlands to the rear of the castle felt different now. They tumbled down the steep slope towards the sea, as wild and ungovernable as the Starling children had once been. They felt like a force of nature themselves, a living breathing thing made of magic, especially now in the dark, in the gathering storm.

Because, she realised, there was a storm coming in. She almost hesitated. Perhaps she should have waited until morning. Perhaps she should go back.