Page 36 of Red Dragon’s Flame

“I could see one of the Allohim swooping down on me. I was so scared, I thought it was going to snatch me up and take me away to hell—”

Remembered panic surged through her, and she felt a sudden upswell of fire. A smattering of “Oh, fucks” followed it, and Devon’s eyes popped open.

She’d just set King Emon’s desk on fire.

Frozen in fear and mortification, she watched as the light of three different spells emanated from the three dragons. The flames winked out as if smothered.

Emon rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers, and she could feel him working hard to gather his patience.

Zakerek, unbelievably, was laughing.

Mikah patted Devon’s knee and said something soothing, but she was too mortified to take it in.

That was it. She was definitely getting kicked out.

Mikah got up out of his chair and began to murmur soft words, his hands spread out in front of him, fingers pointing at the damaged desk. Light spread out from his hands, covering the burned area, shimmering blue and green and purple.

To Devon’s shock, the burned papers began to re-materialize from the ashes, the melted computer keyboard re-formed, and the scars on the desktop vanished. In a minute or two, everything looked exactly the way it had before she burned it.

She turned to Mikah, feeling like her eyes must be the size of dinner plates. “What did you do?” she asked.

It was Brock who answered. “Restoration spell.”

“A must-have around fire creatures,” Zakerek said. “Trust me.”

Emon commented, “I could have done without some of that paperwork, though.”

Mikah smirked at him. “Those corporate proposals were due yesterday.”

Devon was astounded. “You can just… make it all how it was?”

“Pretty much,” Mikah said. “Although, the longer it’s been since it was destroyed, the harder it is.” He sat down again beside her.

Emon said, “Can we get on with this? As Mikah pointed out, I have a lot to do tomorrow, and none of this has been very informative so far.”

Zakerek said, “Sheesh, Emon, way to minimize her family tragedy.”

The king said unapologetically, “I’m a bastard. Everyone knows that.”

Devon was beginning to think he wasn’t quite as bad as he made himself out to be. He hadn’t seemed angry about his desk catching on fire. Just irritated.

And somehow, the interlude had made the remembering a little easier. “I thought the car blew up,” she said. “All I remember is fire—fire everywhere. I felt like I was burning from the inside out—trying to scream, but the flames went down my throat.”

“Geez,” Brock muttered. Mikah put his arm around her again.

“I must have passed out, because I woke up in a motel, with Auntie May. She told me my parents had been killed, but that my dad had wanted her to take care of me, and she would.”

She paused for a couple of deep breaths, and then went on. “Auntie May was… I found out later she was a sorceress. I asked her about the Allohim, and she told me we shouldn’t talk about them, that it might attract their attention. And that we had to hide and be very careful, always, so they wouldn’t find me. We went to live in this little tiny town in Washington state, and we hardly ever saw anyone. Auntie May homeschooled me, and I learned coding, and… she protected me with her magic. I lived with her for fifteen years. And then…”

She stopped.

“And then she died,” Emon said, more gently than she’d expected.

Devon nodded. “Two years ago. It was a heart attack. She’d always said that she would make me protections for when she wasn’t around anymore, but I think she’d grown a lot weaker than she wanted to admit, and she hadn’t done it. The wards on the cabin faded after a few months, so I left. I went to Seattle, thinking maybe the Allohim had stopped looking, or they wouldn’t look in a city. But I stayed hidden.”

Emon was gazing at her, and she could almost see his brain clicking away behind his eyes.

“So how did they find you?”