Wish (Scales 'n' Spells 3)

Dragon scale? Check.

Map? Check.

Bottled wind? Check.

Moonstone? Check.

Compass? Check.

North rubbed his hands together, ready to go. This wasn’t the first seeking spell he’d done—far from it—but each time he attempted it, he found himself holding his breath; praying, hoping, wishing this time it would work.

North had faith the spell would take him one step closer this time. Ever since he’d arrived in Europe, the deep red dragon scale had started rattling, as if wanting to move. His attempt in London had sent the scale zinging off the map’s surface and straight into the hotel’s boring white wall. The scale may or may not have left a dent. Confirmation pending.

He was in Belgium now, in a hotel near the Brussels airport. Quite a nice place, really, but he had a feeling it wasn’t his final destination. Not by a long shot.

“Okay, Gramps, you ready?”

North glanced over at his laptop and smiled at his grandpa on the open Skype call, who was dressed in his favorite red flannel shirt—for luck, naturally. His snowy white hair looked a little disheveled from running his fingers through it. The man was as excited and nervous about this expedition as North. His grandpa gave him a thumbs up from the laptop screen. “Ready. Let ’er rip!”

North found himself praying again, his fingers trembling slightly as he set the scale on the edge of the map. This map covered more territory than his last one because North could learn from his mistakes, thank you very much. His first map had been of the United Kingdom only, because that was the direction the scale had headed in the first time. His new map showed the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Czechia, and part of Poland. He put the compass down on the map, double-checking his own orientation. North sat facing due north on the hotel bed.

It was probably insane, what he attempted. Scratch that. It was definitely insane. Trying to find dragons when everyone insisted they’d been extinct since the Dragon War more than five hundred years ago fit the definition of crazy to a T.

But something in North compelled him to at least try. To prove it to himself, one way or another. There had to be more to this world than what he saw when he looked out his window at home, more than what his parents believed in.

After all, everyone also claimed magic was dead as well, that mages were no more. And here he sat, a mage.

Well, alright, calling himself a mage might be a little bit of a stretch. He didn’t actually know all that much magic. Just what had been handed down through his family. And his own immediate family didn’t put much stock in it, despite what they’d seen him and Grandpa do.

That was all beside the point! He had magic. Dragons possibly, maybe, still existed.

And the dragon scale seeking spell on the map, that was reacting to something. Hopefully the dragon it came from. And not something gruesome, either, like a grave. Or possibly an ancestor of this dragon? Family member? Living dragon, that’s all North asked for.

Uncapping the bottle of captured wind, he set the charged moonstone to his left, the bottle to his right, and drew on the power of both as he focused on the scale. “Ziik dracon.”

The scale didn’t zoom off and try to drill through a perfectly good wall this time. It did move, though, decisively. Straight to a spot on the southern German border, almost in Austria, and started to glow with deep red-orange light. “Whoa! Gramps, I think I got a hit!”

“Lemme see,” Earl demanded.

Snagging the laptop, North tilted the screen so his grandpa could also see the map. “Looks like it’s right there on the border. Oh man, is that a mountain range?”

“Makes perfect sense for dragons to be high up in the mountains. No better place for dragons to hide.” He spoke while chortling with outright glee. “You know what that glow means, boy? The dragons are alive.”

That fact hadn’t quite connected, but when it did, North let out a whoop. True, the Dragon War hadn’t happened anywhere near Germany. It had gone down in Africa, in fact, in the now Sahara Desert. Wait, could they just assume that? Doubts creeped in. “You really don’t think the dragon attached to this scale is dead and just buried there?”

“Still a fifty-fifty chance, I suppose,” Earl answered, but he sounded doubtful. “I’ve been reading through your great-great-grandma’s diary, bless that woman. She wrote the best notes on the spells. She said the spell you’ve been using only works on the living, not the dead. I hope for your sake she’s right.”