Fearless (The Blue Fire Saga) (3 page)

“I know.
I was just thinking about that. I don’t want to go, but I’m ready to.”

A thin smile curved the wizard’s lips. He rested his hand
lightly
on Leesa’s shoulder.

“You did
no
t hear me,” he said. “I said that I must leave. Not you. You
a
re staying here.”

Leesa’
s brow furrowe
d in confusion and the
fingers of her right hand began
to dance nervously
in her long blonde hair.

“I don’t understand. What do you mean I’m staying? I don’t get it.”

Dominic turned his head and glanced at the spot where the
black
ashes of Josef had lain until he destroyed them just a few minutes ago.

“The danger is to me, not to you. Josef proved that. Until he heard you cast your spell, he had no idea you possessed magic,
not even when you roll
ed the log
at him
. T
hat’s all the proof we need that t
he black waziri are unable to
sense your magic, just as I
had
hoped.”

“I kno
w,” Leesa said. “And believe
me,
no one’s happier than me
to learn that. But why can’t I come with you?”
She
couldn’t believe how quickly her thoughts had shifted. Just a few moments ago she
ha
d been thinking about how much she would hate leaving, and now here she was asking Dominic why she couldn’t go with him.

“
If you came
with me,
you
woul
d be in constant danger. Here, I think you’ll be safe.”

“But
I can help you,” Leesa protested. “We did pretty
good
together against Josef.”

Dominic smiled. “Yes, we did. Of course, we got a bit of help from Rave.”

“If Leesa goes with you,
” Rave said, “I
wi
ll come, too.”

Leesa was thrilled to hear that. She grabbed Rave’s hand and squeezed it.

“See?” she said.
“The three of us should be able to handle any black waziri unlucky enough to find us.”

Dominic shook his head.
“One of them, perhaps.
But what if the Necromancer sends two, or even all three of them? What then?”

Leesa hadn’t thought of that. She h
a
d no answer. She looked at Rave
and then back at Dominic. Together, the three of them
had barely defeated Josef. She knew they couldn’t defeat two or three of the evil wizards.
Not yet, anyhow, with her magic as weak as it was.
She needed to get much, much better at using her magic
before they would have any chance
.

“How will I learn to
use and
control my magic without you to train me?” she asked.

“I’ve been th
inking about
just
that
.
”

Dominic
reached into his back pocket and pulled out his old leather wallet. Holding it in front of him, it looked much too large to have fit in his pocket, but Leesa knew the wallet was magic. Not only did it
fit in places it shouldn’t
, but it somehow held more stuff
inside
than
a good-sized
suitcase. She had seen Dominic pull stacks of cash a
nd handful
s of jewels out of it. She
wondered wha
t he was going to take
out
now.

Dominic
unclipped the brass fastener
that held the walled closed
and
reached inside
. Hi
s hand disappeared
halfway up to his elbow
as he rummaged around inside the magic container. When he
drew
his hand
out, he was holding a thick, leather-bound book the size of a small dictionary.
The book was much larger than the wallet
that had just contained it
. Leesa wondered if things shrank
when they went inside
, or if there was just more space in there than the normal laws of physics would allow. She guessed
it didn’
t really matter—magic was magic.
The laws of physics did not apply.
She looked at the book more closely.
There was no lettering anywhere on the
cover that she
could see.

“What’s that?
” she asked.

“Right now, it’s jus
t an empty book.” Dominic
opened the cover and flipped through the page
s, showing Leesa they were blank
.

Closing the book, Dominic
waved his hand
slowly
over the cover
and mumbled a few words in what Leesa recognized as the waziri language
. She knew he
was casting a spell of some sort
. What kind of spell, she had no idea.
So far, h
e had o
nly taught her two spells
, the plant growth spell and an air shield spell. She
ha
d yet to
come close to successfully completing
the shield one.

Dominic opened the book and held it out to Leesa.
She took it gingerly into her hands.
It was surprisingly light
—more magic
at work
, she guessed. She looked down at t
he pages
, which
were now covered in a flowing black script. The words were foreign to her.

“What does it say?”

“It’s a book of spells, plus some other useful information about your magic.
T
o use while I’m gone.”

Leesa glanced
back down at the book, confused.

“But I can’
t read a word of it.”

Dominic smiled again. “Not yet,” he said.

He placed his hands on the sides of Leesa’s head and uttered more magic words. Leesa felt a slight warmth
flow into her skull
, but nothing more.
The feeling
was different from Rave’s heat
, but had a similar magical quality to it.

“Try now,” Dominic instructed.

She looked down at the pages
and gasped in surprise. She
could
understand
every word of the strange language.

“Wow!
Can you do that for other languages, too?” She
flipped through the pages, grinning
. “I was thinking of taking French next year—I could get an A without having to do any work at all.”

“Sorry.
The spell
only works for the waziri tongue.
Our language has been nascent inside you since I imparted my magic to you. It just needed to be activated.
If you want to learn French,
I’m afraid
you
wi
ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.”

“Drat.”
Leesa feigned a pout and then smiled again. “
Oh,
well, who wants to learn French, anyway?”

She flipped back to the first page of the book and saw
Blitha
egras
sumuss
—the plant growth spell. She
felt her excitement growing as she
began to imagine all the
other
kinds of
spells and magic the book
mus
t contain
.
But then she remembered how patiently Dominic had instructed her on the growth spell, and how she hadn’t
yet
come close to performing the air shield spell, even with
his tutoring. She wondered how she would ever le
arn any other spells without the wizard’s help
,
even with the book.

Another concern suddenly struck her.
She looked up at Dominic.

“That thi
ng you just did with my head—t
hat was active magic, right?”

“Yes, it was.”

“So the black waziri could sense it, then?”

Dominic nodded. “Yes
, they can
. But they already know I used magic here
, so it doesn’t matter
.”

“They won’t be able to sense the spell in me, though, I hope.”

“N
o.
The magic was only active when I used it. In you, it is now passive magic.”

Leesa was still worried
, despite Dominic’s reassurance
.

“Will they know you used a translation spell?”

Dominic realized where Leesa was heading. She was
worried
that if their enemies knew he had used
such a spell, they might conclude
he had an apprentice wizard, something she and Dominic were working very hard to keep secret.

“No,” he assured her. “It does
n
o
t work that way. They can only sense that I used active magic, not what specific kind. Nothing about any of this will lead them to you.”

Leesa nodded. “I figured you knew w
hat you were doing…b
ut I wanted to make sure.”