Ariel stood tensely in the backyard of the cabin she shared with her lover, Jett. She studied the reference Strengthwork that Mathis the witch had created using water sourced from different buckets. Each bucket had been dyed with a color indicating the affinity it was supposed to represent. Gray for Air. Green for Earth. White for Light. Since only the wielder could see a particular Weave, colored water was the best way to demonstrate designs, and the liquid was itself held in place by invisible Weaves of Water and Air.

Dressed in his usual trench coat, Mathis stood off to the side, the witch seeming unaffected by the effort required to hold the designs in place. Behind him, Gwendoline and Jett sat together on the deck of the cabin. The brother and sister wore their usual fashionable attire, Gwendoline in a flowing white dress with a silver tiara on her forehead and intricately carved silver bracelets on her wrists, Jett in a black and gold dress shirt and distressed jeans, his beautiful golden locks flowing free around his spectacular face, his sleeves rolled back to reveal the tribal tattoos on his bulging forearms. He sat there with the casual ease of a man secure in himself and full in the knowledge that he held the complete loyalty of every man and woman in the camp, shifters who would follow him anywhere. Everything about him oozed confidence, and his panty-wetting good looks could still take Ariel’s breath away, which was why she had to be careful not to gaze at him too often during her training.

Jett and Gwendoline talked quietly as they observed the proceedings. Ariel heard occasional snippets:

“She reminds me of…”

“Certainly a beautiful dragon.”

“Do you remember…”

“Ugly one.”

“Big teeth. Small bite.”

Spread out on the grass on either side of her were the other shifters Ariel had met since leaving for the Steel Tower, those men and women who, in addition to being able to transform into wild beasts, were capable of manipulating the magic known as the Strength. There was Ked, the werebear who had helped Ariel escape the Steel Tower the first time. Brian and James, wolf and panther shifters, respectively. Michelle, a falcon shifter. The Elk shifter Katelyn and her werebear mate Philip. Tina, a lioness, and finally Sarah, a gorilla. They were all studying the Weave Mathis demonstrated.

And they were all outlaws.

The Blue Hurricane pride that Jett led as Alpha had fled Serbia soon after escaping the Steel Tower. The witches, or Wayfarers as they call themselves, weren’t too pleased about the attack the lions and other shifters had made in their bid to save Jett, even if in the process the pride had liberated the Tower from the coven of vampires who had secretly taken control. After saving Jett, the pride had crossed the Atlantic by private jet and returned to their North American camp—a series of cabins nestled in the forest a short ways from the mountains that housed Midnight, secret capital city of dragons.

Jeremiah, the pride’s resident lion witch, was absent today. He sometimes joined Mathis, helping to teach those Weaves he knew, but apparently he didn’t want to get in Mathis’ way today. Or maybe Jeremiah just didn’t want to take the blame if a Weave involving Light went awry and hurt someone.

“Are you ready?” Mathis asked, snapping her from her thoughts.

Ariel exchanged a glance with the other shifters, and then nodded.

“Then Weave,” Mathis said. “All of you!”

Ariel mentally dismissed everything, ignoring all external stimuli: Jett and Gwendoline’s smalltalk, the other shifters, the birds twittering nearby, the heat of the sun on her face. Then she reached through the dragon bone rings and bracelets she wore and touched the Strength. She surrendered to the flow and Siphoned it into a small river whose ethereal tip wavered before her like a flickering candle flame.

She concentrated on teasing out the design Mathis yet held in place with the water. One small mistake and the work would fail to take. Worse, since she was using Light, an unstable affinity, that mistake could be disastrous. It was why the other students were spaced well apart, and positioned some distance from the cabin.

She completed the work and severed it from the energetic river, then directed the design toward the rotten apple that resided on a wooden pedestal in front of her. All of the apprentices stood before similar apples on pedestals. The work was a healing Weave, and the apple was her practice. By swapping out Earth for the Life affinity, the exact same Weave could be used to heal a human being.

Ariel let her Weave descend into the apple, and then she waited. Nothing happened for several moments.

And then the apple exploded.

Ariel instinctively covered her face and ducked.

“I’m sorry,” Ariel said, glancing at her friends who were distracted by the explosion. “I’m sorry everyone.”

“You all right?” Jett called from the deck.

“Fine,” Ariel said. “Just covered in rotten apple sauce, that’s all.”

“Well, Ariel,” Mathis said, wiping a mushy piece from his face. “It’s looks like you’re the only one here who has perverted a healing Weave into a spell of destruction this morning. Nicely done.”

She realized that Mathis had let his demonstration Weaves fall, and the water had splashed to the grass. She must have scared the bejeebers out him

She glanced at the pedestals of the other apprentices and realized Mathis was right: while all the other fruits remained rotten, at least the apples hadn’t exploded.

James looked at her. “In every group there’s always at least one rotten apple.” The handsome panther shifter winked.

“Try again,” Mathis told them. He glanced at Gwendoline. “Love, we need another apple.”

“You got it,” Gwendoline said. She was all heavy-lidded and dreamy-eyed when she looked at Mathis, a flirtatious smile playing on her lips. It was an expression Ariel knew well, since that was how she looked at Jett, especially when she was remembering the last time he touched her.

Gwendoline had always seemed so cold and imperious to Ariel, but with the arrival of Mathis she was a completely different person. It was a good change.

Gwendoline reached into the sack on the deck beside her and tossed a new apple toward him.

Mathis caught it. “By the way, would you like to give it a try?” he asked Gwendoline.

“No,” Gwendoline said. “I know the limits of my abilities. I think it’s best if I don’t embarrass myself.”

Mathis shrugged, then set the fruit down on Ariel’s pedestal. It was even more rotten than the previous, covered in black, gapping welts. She could smell it with her enhanced senses from where she stood.

“That looks like it’s going to be a hard apple to heal,” Ariel said.

“You got this, my lioness,” Jett called in encouragement.

Mathis stepped back even further than last time, giving Ariel a wide berth, and recreated the demonstration Weave by drawing water from the buckets.

“Whenever you’re ready...” Mathis told the would-be witches.

Ariel tried again and once more the Weave didn’t take.

“Well, at least this time it didn’t explode,” Ariel muttered.

“You’ll get it next time,” Mathis said. “Or at least, one of you will. Again.”

And so they continued to practice.

Mathis took a more hands-on approach to their training than her professors at the Tower had, as he conducted very few classroom sit-down sessions. Sure, he gave them books to read in regards to the various histories, laws and whatnot of the Wayfarers, but otherwise he conducted mostly labs. It was also a more relaxed approach: gone were the robes, the apprentices allowed to wear whatever clothes they liked. And he didn’t force them to endure physical training.

At first Mathis had distributed his own bone rings among the students so they could practice, with the caveat that they return the items to him at the end of each day. But then Jett picked up a bunch of dragon bone accessories from the local den in the city and distributed them to the trainees.

Jett allowed the witches-in-training to keep the accessories; he wanted them to wear them at all times. As he put it: “I want you all ready to touch the Strength at a moment’s notice, because if that vampire witch ever returns, she won’t give any of you a chance to go running to Mathis for rings.”

Ariel did feel safer having so many Strengthworkers ready to defend the pride. Plus it felt great to have her own rings: to her, those accessories were like having a spray can of mace hidden in her purse, ready to use during those times when not even her lioness was enough. She wasn’t sure her and her friends, or even Mathis, would be a match for the vampire witch, but with four dragon shifters officially part of the pride, they didn’t have to be.

Calling the bone accessories a hidden can of mace didn’t really do justice to how she felt about the Strength. The magic she could call upon with those rings had become an integral part of her, and these days she rarely removed the accessories, not even to bathe. She felt powerful, like she could take on anything. She could Siphon while in lion form, and hunts had become a breeze for her now. So much so that the pride had asked her not to participate: it took away most of the sport when one could snare a fleeing game animal with an invisible Weave of Air.

Without the many classroom sessions and staggered lab schedules of the Steel Tower, the apprentices had advanced quickly, and they were already on material reserved for Second Years. Applying the Light affinity to a Weave, for example, was something First Years were ordinarily not allowed to do because of the unstable nature of said affinity.

Still, not everyone approved of the accelerated schedule. Even Jett himself had chided Mathis one time, when he and Ariel had invited him and Jett’s sister over for a private dinner.

“You need more classroom sessions,” Jett had told him. “You have to make sure the shifters learn that the Strength is to be used to help people, not for personal advancement. Gwendoline and I treat our own compulsion Ability the same way. We don’t use it for evil. Your students need to understand that using the Strength is a privilege, and that it can be used only for good.”

Mathis nodded. “I hear what you’re saying, but I see no need to slow their lessons. When I agreed to train them, you promised me I would have leeway to teach as I saw fit, and on my own schedule. I’m doing that. Listen, you don’t have to worry about your witches using what they learn for evil. The very fact they risked their lives to rescue you should tell you everything you need to know about their characters…”

“Even so, power can corrupt,” Jett said. “Vampire witches are the perfect example of that. As are Orion witches. It’s important that you hammer the point home: do no evil.”

Mathis sighed. “I will beat the appropriate moral code into them during the labs. I promise.”

And so Mathis did, often chiding the apprentices when he caught them playing pranks or inflicting any sort of pain on each other with the Strength, for example by creating lashes of Air to playfully whip someone in the butt. He would sometimes take away the rings of the guilty party, and force them to go a day or two without touching the Strength.

The morning passed slowly. After three hours, Ariel still hadn’t achieved the Weave, nor had anyone else. Michelle and Brian joined the Exploding Apple Hall of Shame with Ariel, so at least she felt better about her earlier misadventure.

By then it was lunch time, and Mathis called for a halt to the training. Though she was eager to practice further, Ariel’s concentration was wavering, and she could use a break. Besides, her stomach was growling big time. Sometimes when her hunger got bad like this, she couldn’t tell if the sound was sourced by her inner beast or her stomach. Or both.

“Someone’s hungry,” Jett said as he walked arm and arm with her toward the camp’s common picnic tables.