“You can talk?” whispered Sarah. Dax overheard her and gave a groan.

“Of course she can talk,” he said, hurrying the group outside the tent and then off the circus grounds. “I don’t think there’s anything in this valley that can’t talk. The problem is getting her to say something meaningful, instead of letting her be her usual annoyingly cheerful self.”

Keeley took to the air again, and flitted like a white bird around Dax’s head. She gave a laughed that sounded like the buzz of a hummingbird’s wings.

“Oh Dax, Keeley’s glad to see you, too. She was a little worried you wouldn’t want to talk to her after what happened the last time.”

“What happened last time?” asked Sarah.

Dax gritted his teeth and kept walking. They were well away from the fairgrounds before he answered the question. “Nothing worth talking about. It was all quite forgettable, really.”

Keeley chuckled and began flying in circles around the group. She moved so quickly that Sarah got dizzy just watching her.

“Some of Baelan’s beast-men had found Keeley sleeping in the woods, and they wanted to hurt her, yes they did,” said the dragon. “They wanted to turn her pretty hide into a bracelet. They chased Keeley all through the woods until Dax found her. Then he bravely saved the day, and chased the beast-men off.” Keeley then landed on Sarah’s shoulder again, looking a little sheepish as she ended the story. “Unfortunately, all the excitement had given Keeley an upset stomach. She burped and accidentally lit Dax’s pants on fire.”

“They were a good pair of pants, too,” moaned Dax. “If any woman ever gave me the time of day, I suspect I probably would have been married in them. But I suppose there’s no use in dwelling on the past. A good set of clothes just goes to waste on someone like me. Better a suit of rags for poor old Dax.”

“Um…excuse me,” said Kay, who had been silent for quite a while. “I don’t mean to pry, but are you really a dragon? From everything I’ve read, I expected a real dragon to be…well, quite large.”

Keeley hopped and turned around on Sarah’s shoulder. Her tiny claws dug into Sarah’s pajamas a little bit, but they were too small to really hurt – though they did itch slightly. “And who is this one?” asked the dragon as she peered at Kay. “He looks quite handsome, even if he does wear funny-looking robes.”

“This one’s name is Kay,” he said. “I’m a wizard. Or at least, I’m working on becoming one.”

“And he does have a point,” added Sarah. “You do seem rather, um, shorter than one would expect of a dragon.”

“Well that’s easy to explain,” said Keeley, bobbing her head from side to side. “Keeley’s only ten years old. She’s still a growing girl. Someday, she’ll be bigger even than Dax. She just needs to start eating more.”

“Even if she does get that big, that’s still pretty small for a dragon,” whispered Kay. “And for some reason, I don’t think it’s her diet that made her so small.”

If Keeley heard those comments, she gave them no heed. She had already hopped off of Sarah’s shoulder again. Now she flew in circles around Dax’s head. The old warrior was marching the group back toward the site where they had lost track of Kay’s book. He didn’t look like he wanted to talk all that much, but that hardly seemed to stop Keeley.

“Where are we going, Dax? What are we going to do? Will there be good food there? How have you been? Is your mother feeling well? Does Keeley look like she’s put on weight since last time?”

Dax, for his part, answered the questions politely – or at least what seemed to pass as polite for him. He gave a nod and a grunt to most of the questions, and spent the rest of his effort in trying to mask his irritation at Keeley’s cheerful and energetic personality.

“We’re trying to find a book,” explained Kay, jogging a little bit ahead of Dax to get the dragon’s attention. “It’s a very important spellbook, and we think it was taken by the fey. Dax told us you could help track them down.”

Keeley nodded so furiously that Sarah feared her head might fall off her stringy neck. “Oh yes, Keeley is quite a good tracker, she is. The fey are hard creatures to find, but Keeley knows just how to talk to them. She’ll find your book for you, because you’re friends of Dax. And if you’re friends of Dax, that means you’re friends of Keeley, too.”

Kay seemed satisfied with that answer, and trailed back in the group toward Sarah. “I’ve never really met a dragon,” he whispered. “Keeley wasn’t exactly what my father taught me to expect, and I’m not entirely sure she’s all there. But she’s our best hope to find the book right now, so we’ll have to trust her.”

Sarah watched as Keeley continued flying around Dax’s head, bombarding the cynical warrior with question after question. “I’ve got to admit,” she said to Kay, “when we first met, I never expected you to be the most normal person I’d see.”

Kay smiled and actually blushed a little bit. “Yes, well, I can be surprising, you know. When I’m not transformed into a frog that is. Once we get hold of the book, we’ll look through it together. There’s got to be something in there for you, you know. There’s something for everyone else, it seems. We’ll find a way for you to get home. Then you can…well, I guess you can go back to your old life and pretend this is all a dream, can’t you?”

Kay suddenly seemed very glum. He looked at his feet instead of Sarah, and walked very quickly ahead of everyone else. Sarah wrinkled her brow at the boy’s sudden change in mood, but that didn’t help her figure out what was wrong. Maybe Kay was the strangest of the group, after all.

They made their way up the hill and found the spellbook’s disturbed hiding place with ease. Since it was past lunchtime by now, Dax unpacked the supplies he had worked for and passed out some stale bread and salted meat to everyone.

“They’re not much,” he said, “but they’re a great deal better than the worms and lice I had to live on in Baelan’s dungeon. Ah, but that’s just me looking on the bright side as usual. I apologize for getting your hopes up, since they’ll almost certainly be dashed to bits any moment now. I just hope the meat was cooked well enough that we don’t all get food poisoning.”

Naturally, the food was much better than what Dax made it out to be – although it certainly made even the simplest sandwich made by her mother seem like gourmet cuisine. Sarah ate her meal quietly. The food wasn’t as valuable to her as the chance for some rest was. She hoped to finally get a chance to collect her thoughts and figure out what she would do once the book was found and the adventure was over. She’d have to go home eventually, of course, but who was to say she couldn’t have just a little more fun in Greystone Valley first…?

Dax was quiet, too, but only in his own weird way. He didn’t talk, but he made such ghastly grunts and groans while chewing his food that it seemed like he was dying. To go along with those noises, his facial expressions made every bite seem like a chore. He rolled his eyes and pulled at his thinning hair while he ate, looking as though he were being forced to bite down on mud and rocks.

Keeley, on the other hand, ate her small portion of food with a great deal of joy, smacking her lips, licking her chops, and complimenting the meager fare with every bite she took. Her cheerfulness managed to penetrate Kay’s gloomy mood, and the young would-be wizard soon went back to being his cheerful but scatterbrained self.

“So, you need Keeley to track down the great spellbook of the Valley Wizard,” said the dragon before burying her face in a loaf of bread.

“That’s pretty much the score of it,” answered Kay between bites. “My father trusted that book to me, and Baelan’s been hunting it ever since he came to the valley. I might have lost my hat and staff, but I won’t lose my spellbook. I wouldn’t be worthy to call myself a wizard if I made that mistake.”

“Well then, Keeley is happy to help. But the fey don’t come around during the day, so we’ll need to wait until sundown. In meantime, Keeley will need to hear some stories to pass the time.” She hopped into the air, and with one flap of her wings landed in front of Sarah. “Keeley would like to hear some interesting stories from the girl in the strange blue clothes, please.”

***

Sarah had never thought her own world was very action-packed, but Keeley seemed to hang on her every word. She told stories about her life, about the games she played and the classes she took. She talked about her mother, and of what she remembered of her father. She talked about her friend Carrie, who would be having a birthday party not too far into the future. Even though she had just eaten, her stomach grumbled at the thought of hot dogs and ice cream cake. Dax had lay down in the shade for a short nap, but Kay and Keeley both seemed fascinated by Sarah’s stories.

“So wait a minute,” said Kay, interrupting her in the middle of one of her tales. “You’re telling me you have a box at home that has people in it?”

“Well…not really,” she said. “A TV shows pictures of people on it. The actual people aren’t really there. They’re just images coming from somewhere else.”

“And you use the TV to play something called Nin-ten-do?” asked Keeley.

“Well, that’s a bit more difficult to explain.”

Kay leaned against a rock and scratched his head. “And here I thought my father’s spellbook had every kind of magic there was.”

“It’s not really magic,” insisted Sarah. “It’s just electricity.”

Kay stood up and pointed at the sky. “Around here, the only electricity we have is lightning in the sky. You’ve got something that creates that lightning itself, then passes it through wires into your home. From there, it keeps your food cold, runs the microwave, whatever that is, and powers your TV, just for starters. If you asked anyone here in the valley what could possibly do that, they would either say magic or nothing at all.” The boy crossed his arms and looked at Sarah with a strange admiration. “No wonder you could read the words in my spellbook. I don’t even think the Emerald Enchantress knew about TV.”

On one hand, Sarah was flabbergasted that Kay and Keeley wouldn’t let the concept of her as a magician go. On the other hand, she felt a certain sense of pride when she saw the obvious respect on her faces. She started her stories again, and had her two-person audience hung on her every word. She didn’t even have to stretch the truth to make her world seem miraculous. Both of her listeners marveled when she talked about cars, airplanes, and movie theaters. Eventually, though, she ended up mentioning Dr. Goldberg, and suddenly stopped abruptly.

“What’s wrong?” asked Kay.

“Nothing,” she lied. “But it’s getting dark out. Keeley should be able to track the fey soon, I think.”

“Oh yes, yes! Now is the time for Keeley to find them,” cried the dragon, springing to her feet. She took off on her short wings and began sniffing the air like a bloodhound. Kay shook Dax awake, and the companions began following the tiny dragon as she zigzagged into the woods.

“I imagine this is all a waste of our time,” said Dax. “Even if we do find them, chances are they don’t even have the book anymore. At best, we’re just wasting our time.”

Sarah and Kay ignored Dax’s worries. Even the old warrior himself seemed to pay little attention to his words, since he moved just as quickly and energetically as the others. Keeley’s wings bore her forward at surprising speed. Even running to keep up with her, the larger companions couldn’t follow the dragon through the brush without pushing branches and weeds out of their way. Eventually, they lost sight of her entirely. That was when they heard a startled roar up ahead.

“Keeley? What’s wrong?” Sarah pushed forward through some brush to find the dragon. As she did so, she felt something brush against her leg. She tripped and fell head-first into some bushes. Behind her, there was a creak and a snap. She looked back just as a hidden net sprang up from the ground, catching Kay and Dax and leaving the startled pair swinging from the trees.

“What the—?” was all Sarah managed to get out before more movement distracted her. The firefly-like fey darted from behind a tree up ahead. This time, they didn’t move calmly and peacefully. Instead, they rushed at Sarah, buzzing around her like angry hornets. They stung just like hornets, too – or at least it felt like they did. Out of the corner of her eye, Sarah saw the miniature men and women raise small bows and fire at her. By reflex, she raised a hand to swat one of them. That’s when she noticed that something was wrong.

Where the tiny arrows had hit, she suddenly became warm. That feeling spread quickly, and soon her entire body felt warm and heavy, like it was made of iron. She stumbled forward and tried to say something, but she couldn’t hear her own words. The fey fired another volley of miniature arrows at her. She didn’t feel them this time. She had already fallen to the ground unconscious.