The Last Dragon Read online

  It would mean at least a week of practice. But maybe the portal spell would be the second one. Or worst case, the third. He’d already waited two weeks just to get the book. He could survive three more.

  More weeks while his father suffered who knew what—

  Stop! he shouted in his mind. Focus. That doesn’t help. You need to master this spell as quickly as you can, not worry about what’s out of your control for now.

  He quickly stood up and grabbed the book from where it lay on one of the counters, opening it back to the teleportation spell again. This time, he read the description, just in case there was anything he’d missed.

  When an object must pass between nonadjacent spaces, yet still within the same reality/probability time line, a teleportation circle can be opened, connecting those two spaces.

  Though true magicians know that space is a false equivalency, and everything lies within our own reach, to convince the cosmos of this, one must first bring to mind one’s destination location and merge it to your starting point.

  Even through his roller coaster of feelings, Fort’s eyes started to glaze over at the text, completely unable to concentrate enough to figure out what it was trying to say. The Healing book’s language had been nice and simple; why couldn’t whoever had written the Summoning one spell things out in plain English? Or whatever magical language this actually was?

  Please note, it continued. Distance can only be traversed when the mind accepts that reality is naught but a figment of our imagination, and what we see as separated can never truly be.

  “Ugh, get to the point!” Fort hissed, scanning down to the bottom of the page:

  A portal shall open, bridging the distance like a termite eats through wood, and remain open until such time that the magician desires it to no longer exist. Please do not leave your various teleportation circles open, as it may create hazards to indigenous life.

  All right, see, that he needed to know! If he made a teleportation circle, it’d stay open until he canceled it. Fair enough. Now all he needed were the spell words…

  Something began to glow at the bottom of the page, and when he looked closer, two words filled his mind, followed by a flood of energy he hadn’t felt in weeks.

  Gen urre’plat. The words to the teleportation spell.

  Weirdly, the magic didn’t feel the same as when he’d learned Healing spells. That energy had felt cold, whereas the Summoning magic almost made him itchy, like he wanted to jump out of his skin.

  That didn’t matter, though. He’d take some itchiness if it’d help him master the spell faster. As it was, he’d still have to cast it a few thousand times to master it. And then, finally, he might get to a spell to open a portal and save his father.

  There was no time to waste, either way.

  “Gen urre’plat,” he said, bringing to mind the first place he could think of and opening a teleportation circle there on the wall of the kitchen.

  That same itchy energy filled his hands, making them glow a strange green color, which matched the circle of energy that appeared on the wall, a tiny circle no bigger than his hand. He concentrated on increasing the circle’s size, and it widened to about the size of his torso, letting a frigid wind into the room, making Fort’s teeth chatter.

  He stepped closer, then slowly stuck his head through the hole and found himself staring out of the very top of the Empire State Building in New York.

  For just a moment, all of the anger and worry were put aside, and Fort actually found himself staring in wonder at the lights of the city spread out below him, as the high winds a thousand feet in the air buffeted his face.

  His father was right. This spell was pretty amazing.

  And soon, he’d show his dad in person.

  - THIRTEEN -

  FORT PULLED HIS HEAD BACK through the teleportation circle, but instead of closing the circle right away, he just stared through it for another moment, letting the wonder of it all wash over him.

  Okay, so he couldn’t open a portal yet, or go rescue his father. But teleporting would probably still prove pretty useful in the monsters’ dimension, so the time he spent mastering it wouldn’t be a complete waste.

  And, well, if he had to go visit some of the biggest landmarks around the world in the process, who could blame him?

  Something creaked out in the hallway, and Fort immediately froze, not sure if someone was coming, or if the facility was just settling. Looking around, he realized what it would look like if a guard came in: He was standing in the middle of a smoky-smelling kitchen, holding a book of magic he’d stolen from the headmaster. That might not go over so well.

  Fort quickly hid behind one of the counters, just in case someone barged in to expel him, but the hallways went silent now, and no one emerged. Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, he stood back up and shut off the fans, hoping they’d done enough of a job to pass a quick inspection, and then turned off the lights. He went to leave the kitchen to find a safer spot to practice teleportation, only to stop. Was there a safer spot anywhere at the Oppenheimer School?

  He couldn’t open teleportation circles in his room, not with his intense new roommate around at all times. And there were cameras basically everywhere else. At least the kitchen was out of the way, and there shouldn’t be a reason for anyone to come to the unfinished areas of the facility at this time of night. Besides, Cyrus had said it would be safe for them to destroy the books there, so hopefully that applied for a few more hours.

  Fort flipped the lights back on, still worried about staying, but what choice did he have? Not to mention he now had a bigger problem. He’d been so focused on just getting the book and then immediately portaling off to find his father that he hadn’t considered where he could hide the book of Summoning if he needed to.

  The kitchen definitely wasn’t secure enough. If nothing else, Rachel knew about it, and as angry as she was right now, he didn’t want to tempt fate by letting her get another crack at burning it. And his room wasn’t any safer, not with one bureau and a nightstand. Gabriel would find it for sure.

  The problem was the book’s size: It was just too big to hide easily. The only place it might fit would be under his bed, and that just seemed like the most obvious spot in the world. And considering they hadn’t switched the two books of magic with their fakes, it wouldn’t be long before Colonel Charles or Dr. Opps came around looking for them.

  If only there was a way to hide the book outside the school, someplace where he could still get to it. But that wouldn’t… wait a second. Fort slapped his forehead, amazed at his own ignorance.

  Of course he could hide it outside the school. He could hide the book anywhere on earth, now that he had the teleportation spell!

  He quickly flipped the book open, and read the spell again, letting the magic fill him. All he had to do was cast the spell, relearn it quickly, then deposit the book on the other side of the circle. Then he could open a new circle whenever he wanted and retrieve it.

  So where in the world should he leave one of the most dangerous books in existence?

  What he needed was something secure, like a bank vault. Only it had to be a vault that people didn’t go into very often, a vault that would remain undisturbed, yet still guarded. Something like… Fort Knox?

  That could work! Fort prepared the teleportation spell in his mind, picturing the vaults full of gold at Fort Knox in his head. He whispered the words, gestured to the nearby kitchen wall again, then waited for the circle to open.

  Nothing happened.

  Fort frowned, not sure what he’d done wrong. The spell had worked fine the last time. Was Fort Knox magically protected somehow? No, that couldn’t be possible. The only one who knew anything about Summoning was hopefully hiding from federal agents in an airport with Sierra right now, and there was no way Damian would have cared about protecting the United States’ gold.

  So why wouldn’t it work?

  He started to open the book to relearn the spell, only to reali
ze the words were still in his head. That made sense… he hadn’t been able to use the magic, so it hadn’t faded from his mind.

  But what was the problem?

  He pictured the Empire State Building again and recast the spell. This time, the green circle opened without any problem, and the cold New York wind quickly sent a shiver down his spine. Fort winced at the chill and immediately closed the circle.

  So the magic still worked, but something about Fort Knox was stopping him.

  Fort quickly relearned the spell and tried a new destination, one he knew well: the room he’d lived in at his aunt’s house. Again, the portal opened easily, and he found himself staring at a rowing machine, the one his aunt had moved to storage back when she’d taken in Fort.

  But beyond bringing back the exercise equipment, she hadn’t changed anything else. The blanket on the bed was still the one from his old bedroom, and she’d kept all of his pictures up around the room.

  As he stared at the bedroom, part of Fort wanted to step through the teleportation circle, find his aunt, and tell her that everything was going to be okay, that he’d be bringing her brother-in-law back soon. But instead, he canceled the spell and sighed deeply.

  Either she’d see her brother-in-law soon, or she was better off not knowing. And he still had a teleportation issue to work out.

  Reading the spell again, Fort considered the problem. Clearly the magic was still functioning okay. The only time a circle hadn’t opened was when he tried to jump into Fort Knox. But why would that one in particular not work?

  Or was he thinking about this the wrong way? Maybe it wasn’t something about Fort Knox that didn’t work, but something about the other two places that did. What did the Empire State Building and his aunt’s apartment have in common? He’d never actually been to the Empire State Building, even though he’d seen pictures of it, so it couldn’t be that he needed to have visited a place first. But he’d also seen photos of Fort Knox, and—

  Wait. Had he?

  Fort frowned, trying to remember. Was there ever a time he’d actually seen pictures of Fort Knox? Thinking back, he realized instead of photos he’d just been imagining random piles of gold inside a huge vault, and that didn’t seem likely to be what it actually looked like. And now that he was searching his memory, he couldn’t remember what the outer building looked like, what color it was, or even where it was located.

  Could that be the answer? He could only open a teleportation circle to somewhere that he’d seen, either in a photograph or in person?

  There was only one way to find out.

  Fort whispered the words and pictured in his mind what he imagined Jia’s hometown in China looked like.

  Nothing happened.

  Next he tried to open a portal to Dr. Opps’s office at the school.

  Nothing.

  The Oval Office.

  Noth… wait, no, that one worked!

  Fort’s eyes widened as he watched the president of the United States reading over some papers at a huge brown desk. He immediately canceled the spell, closing the teleportation circle as his heart threatened to explode out of his chest. That had been close! If the president hadn’t been reading at that exact moment, Fort might have been seen. And that would have been the end of everything.

  And why had he even tried the Oval Office? Of course he’d seen pictures of it. He’d seen it thousands of times, probably! For some reason, he’d lost track of what he was doing and just started focusing on places he’d never visited. He needed to be a lot more careful in the future. Teleportation was just too powerful to mess around with.

  But at least he’d figured out the problem: He could only open a teleportation circle to somewhere he’d seen photos of or had visited in person. Not that solving the issue helped narrow down where to stash the book to keep it safe.

  What did that leave? Where was somewhere that no one else would go, but that Fort had seen before? Was there a place that only he had ever been? He couldn’t imagine anything, unless it was like a locker in one of his old schools? But even a locker would have been given to other kids by now.

  Maybe he needed a different approach. Not someplace only he’d been, but maybe a place that only he could reach, with the teleportation spell. Not many people would be hanging out just below the spire on the Empire State Building. Or maybe like someplace inaccessible, someplace…

  Someplace underground.

  The solution came to him in a flash, and he immediately knew he had to try it, just to see. No one would be able to get there, so the book should be safe. Assuming there was any there left to stash it.

  Fort bit his lip, then pictured the place in his mind. He unleashed the magic, and a circle large enough to fit the book opened in the kitchen wall. He slowly pushed his head into the darkness on the other side of the circle, and was happy to see that not only was there plenty of room to stash the book, but it looked like no one had been there since the attack.

  He quickly relearned the spell, since if he didn’t, he’d lose the book forever once he closed the circle. For luck, he pulled out the Gettysburg Address brochure and stuck it between two pages. He wasn’t sure why, but it felt like his father would be watching over the book if the brochure was in there. Then, with a final pat good-bye, he slowly pushed the book through the glowing green circle into the darkness.

  He gave one last look at the tunnel beneath the old Oppenheimer School, the one created by a giant scaly black monster when it had attacked Fort, trying to drag him down into its own dimension two weeks ago.

  “I’ll be back, Dad,” Fort whispered, patting the book again. “Soon.”

  And with that, he closed the circle, leaving the book behind in the darkness.

  - FOURTEEN -

  FORT SLIPPED INTO HIS ROOM, closing the door as slowly as he could so he wouldn’t wake Gabriel. Without the light from the hall, he had to carefully pick his way around the other boy’s bed to his own, but he wasn’t going to chance switching on a lamp. It’d taken him what felt like hours to get back from the kitchen, avoiding the guards and cameras as best he could. Now, he just wanted to hide in bed for a few days and process everything that had happened.

  He successfully made it to his bed without stubbing a toe or whacking his shin, which was maybe his biggest victory of the night. Now he could just lie there in silence for a minute and think about what had—

  “How’d the plan go?”

  Fort bolted straight up, panic exploding in his brain before he realized it was just Gabriel. “You’re awake?” he whispered, trying to calm back down.

  “I’m talking to you, aren’t I?” Gabriel said as Fort’s eyes adjusted enough to see his roommate sitting up in bed now. “I think it’s safe to assume I’m awake, yes. So? How was it?”

  “We were just hanging out, like I said at dinner,” Fort told him. “That’s it. Nothing exciting.”

  “You don’t have to tell me what’s going on, Forsythe,” Gabriel said, lying back down. “But don’t lie to me either. There’s no need. Just say you don’t want to talk about it.”

  Fort felt warmth slowly run up his face. “Okay, sorry. Yeah, I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Fair enough,” Gabriel said, staring up at the ceiling. “So did you get caught?”

  Fort groaned. “You just said that if I didn’t want to tell you—”

  “I didn’t say I’d stop asking,” Gabriel told him. “Were you stealing one of these amulets?” He tapped his chain that was now sitting on the nightstand. “Do they have ones that do cool things, unlike this one? If there are some that turn back time, I’m going to go steal one myself.”

  “We weren’t stealing amulets,” Fort said, his embarrassment now setting his face on fire.

  “So what were you stealing?”

  “Nothing! No stealing. Can we just go to bed?”

  “I did go to bed,” Gabriel pointed out. “You’re the one who snuck out after curfew. Don’t worry about that, though. I’ll tell them you wer
e here the whole night if they ask.”

  For a moment, that actually seemed nice of him. And then Fort remembered how many soldiers had seen him and Sierra in the hallways. Well, Sierra in Dr. Opps’s body, at least. “You, uh, shouldn’t do that,” he said. “Just… it’s fine. They won’t ask. Nothing happened.”

  “Sounds like it,” Gabriel said.

  “Gabriel?” Fort said after a moment of silence.

  “Yeah, kid?”

  “You can call me Fort. Forsythe was my grandfather’s name. Just… just call me Fort.”

  “Sure, kid. Fort.”

  Fort lay back, dreading any further questions, but when none came, he slowly started to relax and go back over everything they’d done that evening.

  Rachel wasn’t going to forgive him any time soon, if ever. Neither would Jia. Cyrus might, but that was more because he was just that easygoing, not because Fort deserved forgiveness.

  And was Sierra okay? He’d tried calling her name several times on the way back to his room but eventually had given up, worrying that she was trying to hide or something and couldn’t be distracted. Mostly he wished he had some way of getting news about the outside world down here in the school. There was the room with the computers and the TVs, where he’d first seen Sierra and Damian labeled as terrorists, but that had been filled with soldiers and wasn’t really a place he could just wander in and crank up the volume to hear what was happening.

  Of course, he could have used a teleportation circle to find out what was going on. Maybe even go to the airport and try to rescue her and Damian?

  Of course, Damian could teleport himself, except that the Old Ones would be watching for it. And even if Fort got away with it, he had no idea where they were. Or which airport they were at. Or what it looked like. Or if he’d get caught by the same agents.