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“Fancy? Yeah, she won’t go anywhere; this is a totally new place, and she’ll want to stick with us,” Erica says. She takes the cat out of the backpack and Fancy wobbles, pawing at the air. “Where do you want her?”

“Right in the center.” I gesture at the spot where all the cords meet.

The cat’s size will be the center of the spell.

It’ll take raw mana from around us, using the four of us as conduits, and anchoring to Fancy.

“You can set the saxophone down here, make sure it doesn’t touch any of the cords. And we’ll need to hold hands.”

I draw the gesture for float and let my runebook hang in the air with the completed matrix open. I barely notice the energy cost for this spell; there’s so much mana swirling around me, eager, waiting to be used. The energy curls and licks around my fingertips, voracious and hungry for action.

Brenda takes my hand, and Jenn next to me, with Erica between the two of them, the four of us forming the cornerstones of the spell.

“I’ll read the spell, and I just need you all to stay focused—you’ll feel it coursing through you, and keep your focus on the dragon, keep looking at it, and think— small , like the cat, okay? ”

Jenn nods. “Is that all? Do we need to do anything else?”

“You’re going to be the conduit for the raw mana, but it’s also going to take some of your energy, too, so it’ll be tiring and we’ll need to rest after—”

Brenda looks at me in alarm. “The Lightning Bolt I cast—it melted my d20—”

“That won’t happen to the cat. Don’t worry. That was a raw spell, there’s a clear framework here, even unstructured as it is.” I take a deep breath. “You all ready?”

Erica nods, Jenn’s chin wobbles, and Fancy flops over in the center of the spell diagram and starts grooming herself. She looks up at us, bored, as if she’s wondering why she isn’t being petted right now.

I begin, reading each incantation aloud as we go through the entire spell matrix. Unlike physical spells completed with a runic gesture, which take mana charged already to a runebook, this one is filtering from the raw power in the environment around us.

I can see it, the flickering strands of mana, wrapped around everything.

It’s been wafting toward us ever since we got out of the car.

I can feel it pulsing around us as it seeps through me, like a rush of running water and I’m caught up in the current.

I read and read, forgetting that this should be boring, reading the basic instructions, the variables I’ve plugged into the spell matrix.

Verbal magic is a compilation of multiple languages, each word suited to the most powerful version of each request, the most simplified version from every culture it’s derived from, and it feels like a song, a melody that I can’t stop now that I’ve started.

I can barely feel my feet on the ground where I stand, but I know I’m being held safe, friends around me, as the energy flows through us and finds the pattern I’ve laid out.

I can feel my intentions, the question I’m asking of the universe and the power inherent in this, starting with the size and weight of Fancy, meowing somewhere at our feet, and coming all the way back to the question, asking the universe to change the size and shape of this being for now, to ask it to take another form, that this will be one best suited for finding treasure, for being safe, to explore this world, to find peace and joy and happiness.

As the spell finds its intended target, the dragon, her name finds me and I know it as if I’d known it my whole life, a long string of beautiful melodic sounds from a language time had forgotten, created from when this galaxy was still stardust and hope and mass floating around the birth of a sun.

The spell is speaking for me now, and I’m immersed in the dragon’s memories and her heart and feelings.

She doesn’t remember when her kind ruled the skies and dominated the earth, but she’d heard stories from her mother and her mother before her.

I see in her mind the passed-on memory of huge towering plants and multitudes of reptilian creatures roaring as dragons flew overhead, and then with each generation the dragons’ numbers dwindled as they settled down to hibernate and protect their hoards.

She’s been alone for a long time, asleep guarding her hoard, awakened to heat and light and noise and confusion, separated from everything she knew. She thought she had to start over and rebuild, and she saw us, saw the saxophone, wanted to start there.

There have always been people, the two-legged creatures, some who made treasures, some who chased her kind, hunted them down, until they were few, hiding in caves and under the deep earth. I see her curiosity at the question at the heart of the spell, and the opportunity inherent in a new size.

Yes, take it , I think. You’ll have so much more you can add to your hoard, and we can keep you safe.

Safe? the dragon asks in my mind.

I’m thinking about my promise to Brenda, Brenda solid and warm by my side right now, I think about Dad, how he takes care of our little family at the coffeeshop, scattered and broken as it is. I think of safety as family, as the people we’ve connected to and chosen.

I’m not small , the dragon thinks.

You never will be , Brenda thinks, and her voice is soft and smooth in my mind.

Erica’s mind is filled with a melody that is short and sweet, like staccato notes, and Jenn’s is smooth and fluid next to me. I’m connected to everyone I’ve trusted with this spell, our minds linked together for this one purpose.

Channeling raw mana is hard enough, and doing it with others isn’t something you can casually do. I’d always scoffed at the idea before, didn’t think I could trust anyone enough to do it, but for some reason I knew this would work, that I could do this, that I could help these people in this way.

I speak the final closing phrase and the magic takes hold, energy pulsing and finding the spaces in the pattern.

I exhale, knowing it’s worked. I close my eyes and lean forward as the energy cost hits me, and I yawn, exhausted.

It must have taken a significant amount of the mana around us, and it’s not too bad, not as bad as I thought it would be—I just want to take a nap on this nice, soft rug right here—

Something chitters behind me, and I hear a slight scritch-scritch of tiny claws. I turn and open my eyes and see the dragon—small now, the size of the cat.

It worked.

Up close, the dragon’s scales are a pretty, pale opal color with shades of teal blue and deep coral pink and dark violet. Or maybe there are all the colors, radiating in between them. Brenda is enchanted, reaching forward to pet it.

The dragon skitters and curls around the saxophone, making a pleased noise as it wraps its wings around the now huge instrument.

“Uh… guys?” Erica’s voice sounds in alarm.

Below me, the warm, furry rug moves, and a deep rhythmic sound rumbles like soft thunder behind me.

Jenn gasps. “Was this—was this supposed to happen?”

I twist around and tumble backward as I recognize the sound. It’s a thrumming, satisfied purr. I step off the furry ground—a fluffy, twitching tail—and look up, and up, and up.

“Fancy!” Erica exclaims, reaching up to hug her cat’s head.

Fancy purrs, headbutting Erica with her entire new mass—the former size of the dragon.

Brenda stares. “Uh—”

“This was definitely not supposed to happen,” I say, staring at the massive cat. “But at least the danger has passed for now, right?”

Fancy meows happily at us.