Page 42 of Destined Dawn

I test my weight against the broom, it gives a little, but remains in the air as if it’s floating on water.

“Give it a try,” Tristan tells me.

I rest my backside against the trunk of the broom and when I’m sitting on it, I lift my feet carefully from the ground. The broomstick supports my weight perfectly but I have to grip the handle tightly, working my core to remain balanced on the skinny piece of wood.

I grin. Renzo is wrestling with a broomstick in a corner, the thing hissing and writhing at him and Spencer is struggling to get another broom to lift from the ground.

“How do I make it go?”

“With your magic.”

I huff. Why is that the answer to everything?

I let my magic curl around the broom, sensing like I had with the dragon, that it has a magic of its own, a sleepy dormant magic that’s only just emerging and awakening. I go on instinct, my magic coiling and curling into this old magic, until the broom is vibrating beneath me.

Forward, I say in my head and the broom shoots across the room, leaving me hanging on for dear life.

“Stop!” I yell and the broom comes to a screeching halt, sending me hurtling forward to the floor.

Tristan offers me a hand and helps me up to my feet.

“We’re finding another way,” Azlan says.

“It was my first go. Give me a chance!” I jump back on the broom and try again, this time urging the broom forward more slowly. I glide forward, swinging to the left when I ask it to and then to the right, circling the room and stopping right in front of Azlan.

“Looks like we’ve found our way to the Gray Isle.”

“Will it be any quicker than walking?” Stone asks skeptically.

“These things can go really fast if you let them,” Trent says. “I mean not as fast as Winnie’s car, but a lot faster than walking or traveling by most normal forms of transport.”

“I really don’t understand why people stopped using them?” I say.

“On account of the falling off and smashing their skulls open,” Azlan harrumphs.

I admit that doesn’t sound like much fun, but neither does falling back into the hands of Christopher Kennedy.

Winnie, Trent and Tristan spend the next few minutes showing the others how to make their brooms work and how to ride them. Renzo brims with enthusiasm. The others less so, grumbling and bitching the entire time. Once they have them working though, Stone seems a little more on board with the idea, especially when he manages to do an impressive swerve around the room. Spencer and Azlan – the biggest of our group – do look slightly ridiculous hunched over their brooms, like giant grizzly bears clinging to the teeniest, tiniest of branches, but tough shit. Escaping Chistopher Kennedy’s clutches is worth a little dented pride.

Once we’re all confident enough, Winnie goes over some safety precautions, suggesting we all use our magic to lock ourselves to our brooms, refrain from any crazy maneuvers (she directs this comment towards Renzo) and remembering to listen to our broom.

“It knows better than you do how to fly,” she says.

“So how are we going to do this?” I ask. “As soon as we pass through the shield, we’ll be seen.”

“We’ll leave out the back. That will put some distance between them and us before we’re spotted.”

“Pip?” I say.

We all glance down at my pet who for once has been sitting patiently without complaint while the rest of us have been playing with our broomsticks.

“I can’t see little man sitting good and proper on the back of your broom,” Renzo says and I have to agree. Pip has never had a great sense of balance or acrobatics.

“Want me to knock him out?” Azlan asks.

I peer down at Pip with a look of sympathy.

“Sorry Pip,” I say. He stands up alarmed about to snort at me but in the next moment, Azlan waves his arms, and Pip slumps to the floor.