“You wanna go first?” Julia doesn't look any less aghast than he is, and she's still processing what all of this means. Him taking that quiet tone is bad news when he addresses her.

“Yeah. I think I should. You didn’t tell me you got into USC.”

You just had to bring that up first, didn't you?! Julia fumes internally. “You’re focused on that? It wasn’t her place to say!” She crossed her arms and looks back towards the house with a contemptuous expression. Dragon baker totally screwed the mood.

“You can’t put the genie back in the bottle,” Drenar states firmly. She makes a deep gruff sound in her throat and turns towards him. “So. Did you get in? I thought you were going to Boston College.”

“I didn’t just get in, I got a full ride, Drenar. At USC. I found out last week. I'll get a full scholarship.” She can barely talk above an indoor voice on this one. This isthe worst time to bring this subject up.

“When were you going to tell me?” She makes a sharp tsk sound.

“Why do you care? You wanted out of this town, too. And you got into WPI, that’s a master-class school well suited for your engineering, half a country away.”

“I know! I just...I thought that…” he trails off, possibly realizing his error. “I thought you’d be close by. You know, driving distance, not across the country."

“Angela’s going to Amherst College, that’s also not that far away.” Julia sighs, knowing this is going to hurt, no matter what. “You knew this day was going to come, Drenar. We’d go our separate ways from this town, go to college, meet new friends, and that would be it. It’s only natural. People leave their hometowns. More than ever now.”

“It doesn't have to be that way. I took that school because you guys would be within distance. I know it sounds a little selfish of me–"

"You are being selfish." She takes his admission and throws it back in his face. He could be so attached sometimes, even if she perfectly understood why. “You were going to leave regardless of which school you went to! You were going to leave and never look back at this place with even a second thought! So don't pull that on me!"

"That's not true. I would have come back during the summer and semester break to see you guys!" That wide-eyed look of his suggests it's true, but she's fed up with the way life is still derailing.

"And you didn't even think that some of us might have plans of our own! Why were you so eager to leave anyway?" Her words sting like venom, and she realized she might be pushing too hard this time. He's got that quiet look. Like a ghost creeping back in.

“Because there’s no future here for me, Julia. I wanted to have the…things that mattered to me, and just…not be reminded." He looks up at her, a somber look etched in his eyes. "My parents are dead and buried, Julia. Diane and Dave are great people, and I will always appreciate the shoes they had to fill, but they can’t fill the void that Mom and Dad left when they passed. This town has no major tech for the field I want to go into. You’ve been my closest friend since as far back as I can remember. And it was a comforting thought, that you'd be close by."

“And I still am. You think I didn’t think about this?” she asks, her breath coming in slightly shaky, and she's quivering with fury. “You think I didn’t struggle with it? A free ride out of this go-nowhere town, but at the cost of barely seeing any of my friends? You forget I lost my dad too, in some stupid war that we had no business fighting half a world away! My dad was fighting for people’s safety, and it was for nothing!” she shouts angrily, her eyes moist. “Let me tell you something, putting distance between here isn't going to fix that void, you know that? I will always miss my dad. No matter how far away I am from home. And it's not a thought that's gonna go away.”

That day is still painful to think about, when she'd come home from school to see mom in the house, screaming and crying, crumpled on the floor of the kitchen, like half her soul had just been cut out. She still didn't remember how she got through that day. “Drenar, I still haven't made up my mind about USC. And I have no idea how our current crisis is going to further disrupt things for any of us. So just shove this problem aside for now, because I don't want to think about it just yet." He sees her trying to hide misting eyes and she feels the choking cling in her throat, and his whole expression droops. He knows this is beyond painful.

"Alright. Okay. Let's just…let's tally it up as something that became small in the shadow of this disruptive situation. For now." He glances back at the pretty farmhouse and sighs before gesturing briefly in that direction. "Regarding our investigation, we've gone beyond the edge of the map, and there are indeed dragons. Like my brother wasn't enough of a clue. Seriously, I asked him to transform and he was terrified, like he didn't want to risk it. I guess that's a fair point.”

“Focus, Drenar. Please.” She's barely kept her composure, and he's getting slightly sidetracked. “Malena should be dead of old age. She’s not who she says she is, that’s for sure. Or what she is,” Julia adds for emphasis. She edges in a little, as if there wasn’t enough distance between them and the house. “I think she knows we're on to her."

“Ya think?” Drenar responds sarcastically. "Hey I've got an idea, let's go back in there and just ask her. Then we can ask all sorts of questions I really don't want to know the answers to. And hope that I don't have a future appointment for a magical lobotomy."

"What could possibly top this so far?" She asks heatedly. "There's an azure skimmer dragon sitting half a mile from my house! Who does baking for a living! Is that not just a little incongruous? Like, they don't have way bigger things to do with their time?!"

"Hey, the existential crisis is still young, so don't tempt fate." He folds his arms and gives her a stern look for emphasis. Then the thought sticks. “Seriously, you're right. If I had a thousand-year-plus life span, baking seems a little trivial in the grand scheme of things. She does make really good scones at that bakery though. Absolutely magical.”

“You know you might be unintentionally on the mark on that one,” she suggests. “Imagine that, a dragon-fired oven!” The discourse helps lift her mood a little.

“Azures spit out plasma bolts that are concentrated energy. You want flame-based, go find a Hinterland green,” he states flatly. She raises an eyebrow. “I have Amaranth's section on dragons memorized now.”

“Or a Nightwing. Or a hellkite–yeah you know what, the hellkite would just burn the bakery down. Probably. Honestly, why aren't they just swimming in gold piles like Scrooge McDuck?” She says with annoyance. “A thousand years of compound interest, and they'd have more money than anyone on the planet!”

“Maybe all the billionaires are dragons? We are also getting delightfully off-topic,” Drenar reminds her.

"Alright, fine, way to be serious and ruin my fun. The question is, what's the next move? Calling Amaranth over the phone or sending an email sounds like a winning move. 'Hey, can you tell us why we're Awakening, and what other uncomfortable physiological changes we can expect for our bodies?'" She scoffs at her bad idea.

Drenar sighs. "Yeah. This paranoia shit is getting old. Why the hell couldn't the adults trust us and tell us something? I refuse to believe that Diane and Dave don't know anything."

“For now, pursuing Amaranth might take some time. I think we can get in touch with him directly through Malena. For now, I think that there are other threads we can follow." He has an idea. He usually does, she thinks with a mild sense of relief.

“You mean like tailing Nick?” she asked inquisitively.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

“I think following him is risky. Let's do something a little less smooth-brained. Let's find out what Nick's been digging into." He makes that squinty face like he's trying to solve a puzzle without all the pieces. "I mean we already nailed it before, maybe he's a mage? Or a dragon camping out in high school?"

"But why?" She asks. "Our town is a footnote in history. No, it's a footnote to a footnote. Unless there's a grand old conspiracy of wizards, dragons, and more, and we just happened to luck out that no one ever spilled the secret to us!"

"Okay Tsundere, focus? I'm trying real hard to solve the immediate mysteries and the total danger level," he reasons. He's not entirely wrong. “Okay, so, the mages and dragons have the Conclave, and SAF. There’s some stability, though we haven’t heard much other than snippets from Evan, and Rick is unreliable. Seriously I’m gonna tie him to a chair and let you go to work on him with your chemistry set,” he proposes. She’s not quite at that level of frustration just yet. “I’m starting to think our Plan A is to get Nick on our side.”

"The wizard police.” She narrows her eyes and lets out a disgusted sound. “I gotta tell you, not all law enforcement is automatically good, Drenar. Like I said before.”

“Look, here’s what we do know: Nick didn’t expect the Talons to show up, based on what I heard him saying on his cell phone earlier today. They view the Conclave, whoever they are, as usurpers and tyrants.” He exhaled heavily. “Julia I think for the first time, there’s something even bigger than what has been going on with us. I’m not ready to trust Nicholas yet, either. Not until I know for sure he isn't part of this mess. Getting some leverage or evidence could help get him on our side. We still have the looming problem of Jonaleth. We need to start having a serious plan for Evan’s sake. And probably mine, but I’m less worried.”

"Why aren't you worried?!" She almost shouts it right in his face.

"Jonaleth murders a whole family, because we don't join his club? That attracts a ton of unwanted attention that the Talons don't want right now. I still feel like it might be a bluff."

"You gonna bet your life on a bluff?" She wants to slap him in the face right now.

“No. It's just me I'm worried about. We need every advantage we can, and if this goes so far south we don't see an alternative, we tell your mom everything."

"I don't want to! Because if she's in on this, she's been lying to me my whole life!" Drenar grunts, but doesn't push back on it.

"Fine. Still an option of last resort, and if we have to, we will. Now, who can we trust on our next mad cap idea? I think for now it's just You, James, Angela, and Evan. I promised James I’d fill them in, and we put all our cards on the table on Thursday.”

“Man, Angie’s gonna freak out when she hears beyond what I've already told her.” Julia groans, knowing she’s going to get an earful about not telling her the second she learns about all of this. Then, a suddenly unrelated item creeps into focus, and she realizes their problems just got way bigger.

Monumentally bigger.

"Oh crap, I just thought of something! Gym class earlier, she looked like she was winded, and Angie's no slouch after a couple of laps, I asked her if she was alright, and she snarled at me that she was fine. She was also complaining her heart rate was through the roof. She might be Awakening too!" Drenar hits his limit break, and his face goes wildly exasperated.

"WHAT?!"

"Our problems got bigger, short version. Oh man, this is just snowballing out of control," she groans. Drenar still looks like he's trying to take this in, and his brain just won't let him.

"Way to drop that bomb at the worst time possible!” He looks like he just cannot compute this one this time, and she doesn’t blame him. “Okay, we need to go, we have work to do Julia, big time. Did you fry any more microwaves? Because you start seeing that, the countdown clock is ticking on your draconic, uh…evolution." She gives him a smoldering look.

"People are not Pokémon, Drenar."

"Yeah, the Internet disagrees with you. But again, any luck replicating it?"

“Not yet,” she conceded, “I’ve been trying to replicate the exact conditions but given what we’ve read, our powers don’t start coming in until just before our first transformation. Honestly, getting mad at you again might work." he glares at her accusingly.

"I am not your lab experiment, Julia. Even if I can shrug it off."

"You just love my electric personality!" He sighs and just let the comment slide this time, much to her amusement.

“Alright. For now, maybe we just wait and collect more information. Vertimer might be a dead end without talking to Malena, and gambling on attracting attention. I’ve got one more idea. Mount Syren. Something is going on there, according to Nick. He said that the Talons had put in a permit at the mine, or some intermediary did it for them. Do you remember there being some kind of big industrial accident in town?"

"Vaguely. There was a little hand waving about safety procedures not being followed and there was a collapse, maybe a couple of years ago,” she is scouring her brain for just what had happened. “So how’s this related to us?”

"Not sure. Maybe it’s unrelated, but Nick thinks the guy pulling the financial strings for this group was brutally murdered to cover up a trail of evidence," he explains. She huffs and knows where this hare-brained plan is going.

"And let me guess, you're going to go looking for evidence. While you may or may not have a massive physiological change in your body. This has 'bad idea' stamped all over it, Drenar, and what's scary is that you know it's a bad idea anyway."

"I mean, hey, the dragon in hiding is thirty meters that way," he suggests. She glances at him, concerned he’s taking an awful risk, trying to get into that mining site.

“I don’t like this plan,” Julia tells him while tapping a nail on her arm nervously. "If we're going to do this, we need to research everything we can about the mine, the company, and layout, and go well prepared, and possibly well armed. We have no idea what we could find up there.”

"Teenagers with guns sounds like a profoundly bad idea, and that's a felony and a half." She hates it when he brings in a cutting logic.

"What kind of felony is it for a dragon to murder your whole family, and burn your house to the ground?" she retorts.

"Okay, You got me there. There's a weird thought. How do you arrest a deviant dragon, anyway?"

"With a grenade launcher. But I'm pretty sure Mom doesn't have one of those. That I'm aware of." She does wonder if her mother has other items stashed away that are not supposed to be in civilian hands--she has a storage case upstairs in her bedroom closet she's never seen inside.

“Fine, let's not bring firearms. I'm keen on keeping the body count to zero, thanks. But barring that, what's our backup plan?” He puts the proposal back in her court.

“Ride it out. Wait for it to happen. Worst case? I mean, if we had to broach the subject to anyone, it would be my mom in a last-ditch effort. I mean, c’mon, my mom is friends with an ancient lady who should have died a long time ago, and was in possession of a book written by her son about monsters and dragons in our world. It’s a little freaky coincidence, isn’t it?” she asks. “I think my mom hasn’t told me everything yet. and I’m scared to even ask her right now.”

"What could possibly be a bigger secret than being a dragon? Is she a superhero dragon?" She can't tell if he's being sarcastic or not on this one. Mom is this ancient dragon being, and didn’t even bother to tell me, because of course she wouldn’t, she groaned internally before addressing him.

“The raven has hearing and eyesight like a hawk, and I’m pretty sure she could bench press a car if I didn’t know better sometimes,” she sighs. “I mean Amaranth’s book did say dragons in human form do tend to carry over a lot of the sensory and physical abilities, they’re just a little bit more squishy. Let’s go down that route only if we have to.” She scuffs her boot and sighs. “Plus, if she wanted to tell us, she would have told us years ago, don’t you think?”

"True. Or they had to take a vow of silence, part of the Veil they mentioned? Like the path of a monk? Like, ‘hey, we can't tell you anything until you start sprouting scales and wings, but after that, here's a crummy brochure on how the adults decided to cause massive mental trauma when you inevitably found out!’" She shakes her head--it's so stupid sounding, it probably is close to the mark.

"Yeah, that would make sense in about the most awful way imaginable," Julia replies. "Are we ready to go?"

"I am. Let's head back to your place, and grab some food. We’ll flesh out the next move over tacos.”

“Blah. Make me some of those world-famous slider burgers you claim to be so good at making, then we’ll talk.” Once again Julia cuts to the heart of the conversation, and he smiles lightly.

“Only you would rope me into a world-spanning magical conspiracy just to get a free dinner out of me.”