“My bad,” I said as I used another tendril of power to capture the heat and recycle it into my reserves. The two dudes hit the ground, the first rolling and leaping upright, the second one bursting apart into clumps of blackened clay.
“Where did all that heat go?” Levi asked.
“Declan is recycling it, putting it back into himself to replenish that what he’s using. Okay, enough of that, lad. Show them something else.”
I pulled out of my remaining avatar as Draco landed on the mountain peak and peered down into the valley. Once the dude went inactive, the little dragon lost interest and began preening his wings.
“It acts just like you’d imagine a flying creature to act… why?” Darci spoke suddenly. She’d been quiet, just watching, which made me really nervous.
“I wrote his spells to act like a dragon should act… at least, what I think a dragon should do,” I said. “The spells kind of learn as they go.”
“Like a computer… like artificial intelligence?” Levi asked.
I shrugged but Aunt Ash answered before I could speak. “Not precisely. Declan writes spells like he writes the codes that built our website, but this is different… and so, I believe, is the other one… the giant.”
“What do you mean?” Darci asked.
“Both the dragon and the giant man have something in them that’s beyond the spells and the Craft.”
This was news to me. My aunt had never shared that detail before.
“A spirit?” Levi asked, his voice anxious.
“Not exactly. Something more.”
“What’s more than a spirit?” Levi demanded, backing up a step. I’ve never seen him afraid before, but it seemed like he was.
“Not what you’re thinking!” Ashling said, shaking her head vehemently. “Never that! This is something natural, something that’s already a part of this world.”
“Why did it attack?” Darci asked.
“Attack? Did it attack you, did it? Was I somewhere else when that happened?”
Darci frowned right back at my aunt. “It came charging up the hill.”
“Declan, was that as fast as your creation can go?” my aunt asked, never taking her eyes from Darci’s.
“No. I don’t think so. He doesn’t usually move fast but there was a tree that started to fall toward me, and his arm knocked it aside very, very fast.”
“So, what was he doing, lad?”
I took a breath. “I got upset. You two were beginning to fight and I was the cause. And then they were going to get scared of us… me. I think he felt that and came to see if I was in trouble.”
“Would he attack Darci?”
“No. His spells, like Draco’s, include Darci and Levi as people to protect and listen to.”
“Oh? So what would it have done?”
“Well, Rory’s family has that female Doberman, Chella. She’s protection trained. If Rory and I get arguing over something, like a movie or something, she jumps up on the couch between us. That’s because she knows I’m a friend. I watch and feed her when they go away. I’m part of her pack. So, she wouldn’t attack, but she tries to separate us. I put something like that into his spells.”
Ashling turned her eyes back to Darci, who stood, arms crossed, staring in turn at me.
“What else?” she asked. “What other clever tricks can you do.”
I almost bristled at the term tricks, but a split second later, I realized she was deliberately downplaying my abilities.
I pulled a log off the nearest pile with telekinesis, holding it six feet in front of me, about eight feet off the ground. Then I focused all the heat I had absorbed and added a bit more from my reserves. The split piece of beech burst into flames, completely engulfed almost instantly. I’d pushed a little hard, deliberately overpowering the spell.
“Recycle it, lad,” my aunt said.
Oops. I gathered the heat my floating bonfire was emitting and pushed it back into the log, creating a loop. The flare of warmth against my face dropped to almost nothing even as the log flared to white hot, rapidly consumed to just ash in less than a minute.
The smoke filled the rafters, pressing down toward us, and my aunt waved a hand, sending a cool wind through the building. Like a well-trained dog, the stream of sooty gases obediently left the old structure in a twisting cord of smoke.
Despite her tough act, Darci looked a little shaken.
“You must be great on rainy campouts,” Levi said, his own voice mostly even.
Now it was Ashling’s turn to fold her arms across her chest as she watched and waited for Darci’s reaction. For her part, the deputy was looking at the pile of ash on the ground, her expression unreadable.
“That’s, ah, normal?” she finally asked.
“Not remotely,” my aunt said. “There are whole circles who would have trouble raising and channeling that power.”
It was Levi who broke the quiet next. “Well, it’s no wonder he made that golem.”
“What?” my aunt asked, rounding on him.
“Look how much wood you have here,” he said, waving a hand. “I’m exhausted just looking at it. It would take two men with chainsaws and a four-wheeler a solid week to cut, split, and haul this much wood. He’s not even a teenager yet.”
Ashling looked surprised at his words, then she turned and took in the stacks of cordwood, a frown forming on her brow.
“You’re saying I’ve demanded too much of me nephew,” she said.
“Ashling, this is enough wood for all your heating needs for the whole winter. I’ve seen his gear—an axe, an old saw, and a pull sled. I thought it was just a character-building thing, not child labor.” He smiled as he said it, but my aunt looked a little hurt. She turned to me.
“Declan, I think perhaps I’ve been a wee bit demanding of ya. I forgot that your physical horsepower doesn’t match your Crafting horsepower.”
“Does that mean I can keep using
