“It was. Everyone there was a magical being, and that was where the Mages Guild trained. My parents were both instructors there. They were proud when I was accepted to the guild. I was one of the youngest witches to ever be trained there.”
“You must be very powerful.”
“I thought so,” she said sadly.
“Ursula must have thought so, too.”
“Ursula used to belong to the guild. She was cast out for practicing dark magic. Besides, people knew she’d been stealing paranormals.”
“Paranormals?”
“You know: people with special abilities.”
“Like what?”
“Like shapeshifters,” Tabitha explained. “Have you ever met one?”
“No.”
Then again, he wasn’t quite sure if that was true. Something tugged at the back of his mind: a memory, perhaps. Two memories in one day? That was something that had never happened.
Although, since Ursula died, Felix had found more and more that he’d been remembering bits and pieces of who he’d been before she’d taken him.
“Well, a shapeshifter is someone who looks human, but they have another side of themselves. They can change into an animal, too.”
“An animal?”
“Usually something big, like a lion or a tiger. Sometimes there are shapeshifters who are smaller, though.”
“What about something bigger?”
“Bigger than a lion?”
“Like a...”
“Dragon?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know if she ever stole a dragon, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Dragons are sketchy and hard to capture. They’re well aware of their poaching appeal.”
“What do you mean?”
“Dragons are different from most shifters. They can heal things. Their blood is a powerful antidote for most poisons, and they can lick wounds to heal them. It’s actually pretty cool.”
Felix felt something twist inside of him. He felt like this was knowledge he should have already had, but he wasn’t sure why.
“How do you know all of this?”
“I learned it at the guild.”
“What did Ursula do to your people, Tabitha?”
“She came and demanded to be let back in. When my mother refused to allow her to rejoin us, she brought a horde of shapeshifters to slaughter us.”
Chapter 9
It wasn’t something Tabitha wanted to think about.