the feeling it was their calling. Ditto with Loni. She said she wanted to be a goblin slayer, but Emma secretly knew her friend would’ve been just as pleased with whatever she was given, and as long as she grew up and married a nice sight-gifted Pisces guy (preferably on the cusp) her life would be happy. But it wasn’t like that for Emma, and finding out she might lose dragons was just like losing her mom all over again. Even thinking about it left her feeling empty and desolate.
However, short of throwing herself in front of the bus and making Kessler take her with them on the mission, Emma knew she didn’t have much of a choice. She gave her friend one final hug and reluctantly headed back to her room and got changed.
It was Burtonwood policy never to wear a uniform when you were doing any patrolling, and so Emma quickly slipped into a pair of jeans and the first clean shirt she could find. She was just checking to see that she had all her books when she glanced out the window and caught sight of Loni hurrying over to the bus that was parked in the second parking lot just in front of the woods that wrapped around Burtonwood like a comforter.
Another jab of disappointment went racing through her as she thought of Curtis and—hey, what was that black shadow hovering over the bus?
Emma’s eye started to throb with pain and she snapped it shut, while acknowledging that ripping off the patch and trying to prove her point to Principal Kessler really hadn’t been such a good idea. Especially since now, not only was her eye incredibly itchy, but it also appeared to be seeing big globby things.
She opened it again and peered back out the window, but instead of the dark shape disappearing, it had now taken on a definite form, and Emma felt a cold shudder go through her as she realized the shape had wings. This could not be what she thought it was. But after another look, it was confirmed.
A dragon!
She tried to focus her eyes to identify which breed it was, but everything was still blurry. She quickly grabbed her binoculars and raced back to the window, but even with a better view, she still didn’t recognize the species. It was small for a dragon, a lot darker than they usually were, and it didn’t seem at all affected by the fact that it was daylight. Even more disturbing, despite the fact that it was flying across the sky, no one on the ground below seemed to be paying any attention to it. Then, without warning, the dragon disappeared from sight, leaving Emma to wonder if she had imagined it.
Maybe she had? Nurse Reynes had said there was a small chance that she had mild concussion, so maybe it was all just a dream. After all, she was at Burtonwood, a place filled to the brim with sight-gifted students. So why couldn’t they see it? And more important, why was the dragon on campus in the first place? There were wards everywhere. Not just for dragons but for all elementals. In fact, Loni, who spent a lot of her spare time helping the tech guys maintain the equipment, used to joke that there were wards on the wards, all of them pulsing out positive electrons designed to keep Burtonwood elemental-free.
Emma rubbed her aching eye, but before she could figure out what it all meant, the creature suddenly reappeared in the sky, like a dark angry blot. Then she watched in horror as it made a dive directly toward the bus, where Brenda Vance was standing. Emma dropped the binoculars onto the ground as she realized that not only was this very real, but that the dragon was hunting.
Without pausing, she raced to the door and out into the hallway. Her legs pounded on the ground, her chest started to burn, and her shoes rubbed as she forced herself to keep going. Finally, she burst through the building doors, past the overhanging bougainvillea, and along the gravel path to where Principal Kessler was checking equipment and ushering everyone onto the bus.
“Thank goodness I caught you in time.” She panted as she came to a halt and tried to catch her breath. “There’s a dragon on campus. And it’s hunting.”
Principal Kessler looked annoyed. “Emma, I thought we’d talked about this. Anything else can wait until after this operation is over.”
“What?” She frowned for