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“Yes.” Avery nodded. “And as long as it burns, that means he’s still alive.”
“See, honey?” Kaitlyn said to Jalli, nodding at the brightly burning coal. “There’s no need to worry—Spike is just fine.”
“But where is he?” Jalli asked desperately, through her tears.
Avery frowned. “That I’m not exactly sure of,” he admitted. “The castle is a big place and the location spell isn’t meant for pinpoint accuracy—it just lets us know he’s somewhere on the castle grounds and still living.”
“I’m glad he’s still alive but he must be trapped or hurt somewhere,” Jalli said, sniffing. “Otherwise he would have come back when I called him. He…he…always comes.”
And she broke into fresh sobs that were painful to hear.
We all did our best to console her but she could not be comforted. Spike, her favorite little pet, was gone and no matter how we hunted or how many spells Avery did, none of us could seem to locate him. It seemed he was gone forever…
Well, until I saw him the next day in my AP Biology class.
7
I wasn’t looking for the little flying seahorse when I walked into class. I had my mind on the quiz we were going to have that day—microbiology—and I was wondering if we’d be asked to identify all the different slides or only some of them.
I had tried to review the material but time with the microscopes—which only worked in Mr. Barron’s room due to magical interference elsewhere in the castle—was hard to come by. Also, I had been working a late shift at the I Scream the night before, so it wasn’t like I had much time for extra study. I still couldn’t tell smooth muscle from striated muscle or epithelial cells from blood cells. I was going to be in trouble, I thought grimly—which wasn’t good for my grade.
Which in turn, wasn’t good for my scholarship.
My thoughts were so firmly fixed on my neglected schoolwork that I almost didn’t see Spike at all. It was only a brief, rainbow flutter in the corner of my eye that brought him to my attention.
When I turned, to see what had caught my eye, I gasped in surprise and outrage.
There, fixed neatly to a comb in Morganna Starchild’s perfect blond hair, was Spike.
The poor little chimeling’s body was almost completely immobile—held in place, I guessed, by some kind of magic spell. But when he saw me his dark ink-drop eyes rolled anxiously and his rainbow wings fluttered in agitation. His tiny mouth opened and a squeaky chime came out, so thin and faint that if I hadn’t been so focused on him, I wouldn’t have heard it at all.
“Oh no!” I exclaimed. Without thinking, I ran over to where Morganna was sitting and flirting with Elian Darkwing, and tried to get Spike free from the comb in her hair.
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing, you grubby little human?” Morganna spat, slapping my hands away before I could make any progress. “Get away from me before your human filth rubs off on me!”
“I’ll leave when you give me the chimeling,” I said, glaring at her. “He’s a living creature—not just something to wear in your hair! And he doesn’t even belong to you.”
“What are you talking about?” she demanded. “Of course he belongs to me! I found him out in the common area by the Café. I trapped him fair and square with my own magic so yes, you nasty little Norm, he’s mine.”
She glared at me with her big, gorgeous china-blue eyes as though she thought if she insulted me enough, I would leave her alone and let her keep Spike.
Morganna thought wrong.
Despite the fact that every eye in the class was now on me and it was an excruciatingly embarrassing situation, I refused to back down.
“He belongs to Jalli—the little Drake girl who’s Ari Reyes’s sister,” I told her. “He’s her pet. You can’t just steal him and pin him in your hair to starve until he dies and you discard him like a piece of trash!”
The Blue Morpho butterfly I’d found dead in the Dining Hall was still fresh in my mind as I spoke. I don’t know if I would call myself an animal rights activist, but I had never been able to stand watching anyone hurt or mistreat any kind of wild creature.
Once, when I was a little girl, my mom found me fighting with a boy twice my size because I had caught him throwing stones at a bird. I had also gotten into trouble in elementary school for kicking a boy who I had seen kicking a dog that had wandered up to the school during recess. According to my teacher I had been shouting, “How do you like it? How does it feel?” as I went after the boy who had been kicking the stray mutt.
