The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

bolder. It jumped to Jaylor’s crossed legs and bit him. Then it hopped to a clump of grass and began its next meal.
    “I didn’t have time to find your thoughts!” Jaylor protested. “The rabbit split into two halves of the same whole. We have to find it and put it back before Brevelan finds out.” Life wouldn’t be easy for either of them if Brevelan discovered something wrong with one of her creatures.
    “It should have worked.” Yaakke shook his head in dismay. “I was right beside you the whole way.”
    Yaakke looked at Jaylor strangely, his head cocked to one side.
    Jaylor calmed his frantic pulse, forcing his aching muscles to cease their trembling. Magic had never been so difficult. He would have to gain more strength before trying the next spell. A few moments of calm meditation.
    There was supposed to be a silvery-blue ley line filled with magic power directly beneath his rump. The magic should have surged through his body and completed the spell properly, with only a little guidance from his mind. He was too tired to seek a solution to the double rabbit right now.
    “But it’s so simple!” Yaakke placed a steadying hand on Jaylor’s knee.
    “If the spell is so simple, why did Lord Krej offer me a knighthood and three estates for it?” He threw off the boy’s gesture of comfort, more angry at himself than at Yaakke. The meditation hadn’t worked.
    “How come Lord Krej could work magic with only two Tambootie leaves? That’s not the antidote to witchbane,” Yaakke said, changing the subject.
    “You’re right.” Jaylor hadn’t thought about that. The ancient textbook that had given him the formula for witchbane specifically mentioned that Tambootie enhanced whatever was present in the body: magic, disease, health, drugs.
    “I vowed not to tell anyone Krej is working magic again. That night I was too worried about Brevelan to notice how much Tambootie he ingested—barely enough to feed his addiction, not enough to fuel his magic.”
    “The magic was in him before I brought him to the clearing. That’s how I found him. Lord Krej’s magic is very distinctive. I’d smell it anywhere.”
    “I have to get to the capital right away. The antidote must be discovered and neutralized. I also have to keep Krej from making any more mischief like he did last spring. Explain the spell again, Yaakke, so I can send myself.” Decisive energy pulsed through him again, his momentary weakness and the rabbits forgotten.
    “I can’t.”
    “Think, Yaakke. Think about it very hard. This is important.”
    “But you can’t send yourself. You can only transport other things. Just like you do the wine cups from the University cellars. You’re better at that than anyone. Even me.”
    “Then why hasn’t Lord Krej figured it out? He said a living subject always dies or is maimed when transported. And I split that rabbit. Why can’t we make it work?”
    “Did you imagine the rabbit about five heartbeats younger than it really was at the tail end of the spell?”
    “Younger? Time. Are you moving them through time, then?”
    Yaakke shrugged. “I guess so. That’s what Nimbulan’s great-grandfather surmised in his journal. I found it in the forgotten library at the University—the one that was hidden in the cellars and sealed at the end of the war.”
    “And when you don’t know where someone is, you can locate them by smelling their magic.”
    “Sort of. I guess it’s like when you and Brevelan said you’re connected by colored umb . . . ubil . . . whatever. Everyone is different.”
    Excitement danced around Jaylor like a firefly, lighting this idea, then the next and the next. His imagination soared with the dragons.
    Dragons.
    “We could bring Shayla back!”
    “I already tried. I couldn’t find her. I guess ’cause I can’t gather dragon magic.”
    “Then we have to try harder. Walk me through the spell again.” Before his third breath, Jaylor was back in the void. His mind sought a presence. A greenbird this time. At the touch of his mind, the bird flew from its perch in fright. He caught the bird on the wing and brought it to his hand, perched as it had been on the branch, seconds before.
    “Twuweep?” the bird squawked in puzzlement.
    Jaylor’s eyes snapped opened. He’d done it!
    “Twuweep!” The bird took off again, frightened by Jaylor’s convulsing arm muscles.
    “Master, are you all right? Master!” Yaakke screamed.
    Blackness encroached on the edges of Jaylor’s