Jan discovered the dragonet late in the afternoon, after most of the blue shift had clocked out of Pensey-Pump Fifteen, which was a strange thing as dragons had been extinct for four hundred years.
To be a digger, you needed to be strong enough to wield a diamond-tipped impact drill, steady enough to place explosives in a carved-out hole, and smart enough to get the hell out of the way when the whistle blew. According to the For’Cap’n of the Shift, Jan was exactly… none of those.
Jan worked the rubble pits, an unglamorous assignment that meant running a pneumatic claw mounted on spider-walker legs to scuttle around the pits as he scooped up useless rock boulders and sorted through debris to see if there was anything interesting in the detritus.
He was good at it. Twice he had spotted mineral deposits in the rock, guessed when they had been dumped, and alerted diggers that they were near something valuable.
He was working through the remains of a vitrified hoard. Jewels and gold and trinkets. He was sorting them out when he noticed what he had thought was a gold-decorated egg sculpture on a flowery, wrought iron stand.
“What have we here?”
Jan swiveled the bucket over to take a closer look, and realized it wasn’t solid. In fact, the small gold-lace on the outside of the stone was squirming. The egg rocked about in the metal scoop, then began to crack.
When Jan hopped out of the cab, knocking over his lunchbox, to get a closer look, a brilliant green and scaled horn broke through the gold thread. Yellow eyes covered in mucus blinked at Jan as he stared in shock.
Then the tiny, toothy mouth opened wide, and the reptilian face screeched at him.
A faint hint of sulfur filled the air between them.
Jan looked around. There was a policy that he should follow here, he knew. Past magical artifacts all went to the Ministry of Archeology. But this wasn’t an *artifact*, it was an animal.
And recovered animals from dig sites were put down. He’d seen a team recover a reanimated griffin his very first month on the job. Later in the shift, a veterinarian had come in from Special Finds and put it down.
Reanimations were dangerous. They threatened modern life.
But a dragon.
Since the dragons died, and magic fell from the world, there had been prophecy about their return. Some believed it would start the end times. Others believed it would return the world to the glory days of heroes, magic, and great kings.
The tiny dragonet slashed its way out of the stone egg with sharp claws and stretched its adorable, useless little wings.
If Jan didn’t do something, it would be put to death.
He opened his lunchbox and pulled out a strip of steak. “Hey, buddy, you hungry?”
The dragonet hopped onto Jan’s arm, claws pricking his skin and drawing blood. It snatched at the strip of meat.
“We can’t let you get put down now, can we?” he murmured.
***
Pensey-Pump Fifteen was originally a deep well and main pump for an irrigation system plan for the tri-satrapic area. But in the process of drilling down toward the water table, they had discovered a subterranean cave system, vitrified dragon hoards, and the remains of a pre-modern castle system.
Rook Inc took on the reclamation contract, and Jan had been apprenticing as a machinist. In theory he should have had a few more years under his belt before going under the earth, but there was money to be made here.
Because they were a small, rushed crew put together when the surprise hoard had been found, security was a bit lacking. Roan, the only guard working the metal detector and x-ray machine, merely glanced at the screen where Jan’s lunch box rode the conveyor belt. He was looking for dark lumps that stood out, and the machine would also alert him if it noticed anything its algorithms flagged as jewel or precious metal.
The curved skeleton wrapped up around some bits of aluminum foil did not get flagged by the software, and Roan’s glazed eyes passed right over everything.
Jan, knowing he was stepping over a very serious boundary, let out a deep breath.
“You’re leaving early,” Roan said. “You’ll need to sign.”
“I was feeling dizzy,” Jan said. He’d alerted the For’Cap’n and gotten permission. He held up the slip.
Roan pushed a sign-out sheet over to him. Jan signed, and as he did so, the lunchbox rattled slightly. Jan looked up at Roan, but he was looking off down the entrance tunnel.
“Feel better,” Roan grunted.
***
Seval screamed when she saw the dragonet. Her eyes widened with comprehension the moment Jan opened the lunch box and the tiny dragon leapt out. “This changes everything,” she shouted.
His sister was not one for exaggerations.
“They would have put it down if I didn’t,” Jan said. “I just wanted to help it.”
“Yes, but Father will freak when he sees this. You may have just become his favorite child.”
“Not likely,” Jan said.
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure. Remember what our last name is, Jan. *Caster*. Last names come from the jobs our ancestors used to hold. We were casters, Jan. It runs in our blood. If magic is coming back to the world, then we will be able to throw spells. We’re casters. It’s our legacy. Few others can say that.”
Jan Caster. *Your legacy*, his father had often called it.
Jan Caster worked the mine, digging around in the rubble for small bits of precious metals leftover from the older ages.
“I just didn’t want to see it killed,” he said.
“But you understand what you’ve done, right?” Seval practically vibrated with excitement.
Jan made a face. “I’m going to see if I can find the parrot cage in the attic,” he said. “Don’t tell Dad yet. You know how he gets when he’s excited.”
Seval thought about it. Then she slowly nodded. “Like bladder ball,” she said.
“Right.” If Dad got worked up about something he thought Jan might be good at, then was disappointed, the mood in the house soured.
***
Plan Weaver, one of Jan’s friends from the collegium, took a taxi out to the house on the Day of Figs to share psalms, fruits and wine, then spend the day playing video games. _Ashes to Ashes_, _Sogon the Conqueror_, _Blades_, and then a turn-by-turn _Empire_ simulator Plan was fond of.
It was half the day before Plan hit pause and pointed at the cage with the towel thrown over it. “I don’t remember you having a bird for a pet,” he said.
“Oh.” Jan had kept the dragonet in there all week, feeding it meat scraps and bones. When he was back from work, he would take the little dragonet out of the cage and scratch its chin, which it adored. It would lean back up against his forearm and trill happily, finishing the sound with a little puff of sulfur.
“Yeah, oh,” Plan said. He stood up.
“No, leave it alone,” Jan said. He moved to stop Plan, but the skinny collegiate was faster than him. A bladder ball sprinter, always popular at the collegium. Jan was sure no one missed him when he’d left to go to the mines to help the family make ends meet. Why Plan kept their friendship, he wasn’t sure. He was afraid to ask, lest it break whatever hidden bond it was that kept them joining up on Holy Days to goof off together.
Plan yanked the towel off the cage and froze. “By the Hundred Prophets.”
“Yeah…” Jan wasn’t sure what to say next.
“It’s a dragon!” Plan staggered back, eyes wide and mouth open.
“Just a baby one,” Jan said.
“It doesn’t matter how baby or not it is,” Plan shouted. “It’s a trigger. It’ll change everything! You remember your combined history classes, don’t you?”
“Don’t shout,” Jan said. The dragonet had pushed itself up against the back of the cage and shook with anger. The tang of sulfur filled the room. “You’re freaking Tink out.”
“Tink?” Plan frowned. “You named your dragon Tink?”
“It’s the sound his claws make,” Jan said.
“You’ll have more to worry about than the sound of his claws if anyone ever finds out about this,” Plan hissed. “There are millions out there waiting for the Restoration. And they’re true believers, Jan. Some of them are willing to do crazy things for the Restoration.”
“We don’t even know if that is true,” Jan said. “Those things were written hundreds of years ago. Just because some prophet said that magic was bound to dragons and would return when they did doesn’t mean it is true.”
And just as he said that, Tink threw himself at the side of the cage and it vanished in a puff of blue smoke that swirled as the dragonet flew through it to perch on Jan’s shoulder. Tink hissed at Plan.
“That looked pretty damn magical to me,” Plan said, face pale.
Jan felt a tingling spreading down his arm. He flexed it and a ghost of pale blue energy ran up and down it.
*Caster*, he thought. And then his mind wandered to the historical novels he’d read about magicians riding out to save the land, doing battles for their sworn kings. Ancient fantasies…
“If Special Finds get wind of this, you’ll end up in the stocks. Or worse,” Plan said.
“That’s why I’m keeping him in a cage.”
“He’s a dragon. He’ll get larger. How long do you think that can last?”
“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.” Jan sighed. Then he looked at Plan imploringly. “Can you research it for me?”
“You want me to get involved?” Plan looked horrified.
“Please.”
“I’ll see what I can find. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Plan scurried out of the house to his older sister’s borrowed moped. Seval watched him go from the living room. “You told him, didn’t you?”
“He’s my best friend. Of course I did.”
“Idiot. He’s a Weaver.”
“What does his last name have to… oh.” Jan stopped.
“Oh yes,” Seval said. “He knows what might be coming. He’s going to go right to Special Finds and squeal.”
“We don’t know that.”
“You should tell Dad. If you’ll tell Plan Weaver, we tell Dad. He’s almost home.”
Jan had locked his room door, knowing that his father was almost home. It was also why Plan had ducked out. Plan knew that, although Jan’s father worked as a desk clerk for the city planning division, he did not want his Caster son hanging out with a Weaver, despite the fact that it was Plan who was working his way up through collegium and Jan who had struggled to find a path.
He watched out the window as his father passed Plan coming the other way. Dad shook his head as he pulled into their driveway and muttered angrily to himself as he walked up to the door.
“Hello, Father,” Seval said as the door opened.
Jan tried to stare at her, willing her not to betray his secret. But Seval had *that* smile on her face. She opened her mouth, but their father paid her no attention. He dropped his briefcase to the floor.
“By the Holy Prophets,” he said, eyes wide. “I always knew this day would come.”
He dropped to his knees. Jan and Seval turned about to see Tink sitting on the back of the couch, watching them. The door to Jan’s room was still locked.
Eyes brimming with tears, their father looked at them. “Where? How?”
Jan licked his lips, trying to think. Things were spiraling out of his control.
His father shook his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We have been preparing for this for so long. We always knew Restoration would come. I just… I could never have imagined it would be in my own house. There are people I have to call, things that need to be put in motion. Do not go to your job tomorrow, Jan. We will be taken care of. We are Casters. And we will cast again, damn it.”
***
Ordinator Weaver opened the door, blinking and wiping at her eyes. “Jan? Jan Caster? Why are you banging on the door in the middle of the night?”
“I need to talk to Plan. It’s an emergency.”
Lady Weaver returned to the darkness of their large, stately brick home. “Come on,” she shouted back at Jan. One of their servants also came out into the reception hall, blinking at the noise.
Jan followed them to Plan’s room.
“It’s my father,” Jan explained a moment later as Plan waved the servant and mother off.
“Where’s… you know?”
“In the car. Sleeping. The drive knocked him out.”
“Your Dad’s car?” Plan woke right up. “He’ll kill you.”
“My father is an extreme Restorationist,” Jan said.
Plan leaned over the table. “How extreme?”
“He says that a dragon is like a pilot light for a boiler, that we’ll reignite the return of magic. He made calls to hidden Restorationists in government. They’re just waiting to take us back to the true old ways.”
The two friends looked at each other, and Jan could see that Plan also felt the tectonic shift about to happen.
“My family has come far in the last few generations,” Plan said. “We were artisans, but never were allowed to own property. You read about those great people in history doing great things, but we were invisible to those books. Mud.”
“It’s like the stainless-steel thing,” Jan said, frustrated.
“What?”
“Edward Majister the Great had a display case of his most prized possessions at Castle Dawnfire. One of our country’s greatest kings, and the most amazing thing that he treasured above his ability to lead and cast was a full set of stainless-steel cutlery. They couldn’t *make* stainless-steel a few hundred years ago, and it was a super rare naturally occurring thing. So next to gold and silver goblets was his full set of stainless steel flatware, like the crappy ones I just purchased at the mega store for my cousin moving into his first apartment.”
Despite the seriousness of everything, Plan smiled widely. “You *did* pay attention in combined history! And you’re right. Think of how Ed the Great died.”
“How did he die?”
“Dysentery.”
“He _shit_ himself to death?” Jan didn’t remember that in class.
“Oh yeah. Read any history of the Third Renaissance and the nobles all die pretty ignobly. Hope the Red dies while on campaign of dysentery. Egon got worms. A whole bunch of nobles died of the flu. None of them washed their hands. They didn’t know about germ theory. Didn’t matter how rich or powerful they were, they died with boils on their skin, vomiting or shitting themselves into painful graves. Pre-modern conditions were horrific.”
“Yeah. It gets easy to forget unless you study all that.” Jan slumped forward. “But, we know all that stuff now.”
“Sure, but if there’s a return to the good old days, a civil war, you’ve seen what it’s like in Lasoona. The services have collapsed there. They’re trying to deal with cholera outbreaks in the middle of a war with bombs.”
Jan groaned. “Did I already light things up? Was my Dad right?”
Plan shrugged. “I don’t know. I hope not.”
“What are you going to do? After I leave?” Jan looked at Plan closely.
His friend looked down into his hands. “I have to call the authorities. I have to.”
All this over a moment of weakness.
“Maybe I turn it over to Special Finds myself,” Jan said. Then he could avoid jail. Maybe scientists in the government could bring back magic for all, not just caster families.
“What will your family think?”
Jan shrugged. He’d be disowned. His Father would never talk to him again. Maybe the Casters would all refuse him his name. “Give me the rest of the night. Please.”
“If you do it yourself, I can talk my mother into letting you move into the pool guesthouse for a few months until you get your feet under you.”
“Thanks.” Jan gave him a strong hug.
But, he thought, if he turned the dragon over now, Jan had a feeling he would have a roof over his head, and bars for doors.
***
Jan sat in the yard on a stone bench and fed Tink strips of beef jerky. The dragonet flew in spirals around the tiny yard, threading through the small, red-leafed maple leaves.
His hands tingled again, and Jan looked down to see blue static filling the air around them. Some form of *potential* surged through his blood.
Magic.
What could he do with this power? He knew more about the world than his ancestors had. Knew more possible things. What could he do with magic as well?
He glimpsed a vision of the future. A possible future. Riding the back of a full-grown Tink, the land flowing beneath him. A plane swooping at them, the chatter of gunfire, Tink bellowing fire, and Jan throwing magic at his enemies. Magic that could leap through chaff, dodge missiles, and destroy a modern battle jet.
*You could rain fire down upon your enemies*.
“I have no enemies,” Jan said. “Just credit card debt, no car, and I’m living at home.”
His worst encounter every day was Mira in accounting, who double checked his timecards.
A world of magic and fire and Restoration…
…or late-night games of _Empire_ with Plan, drinking beer at the local tavern, and maybe someday a promotion and an apartment of his own like his cousin.
*Better a peasant today than a king yesterday*.
Jan threw the last piece of jerky into the air and, as Tink dropped to the grass for it, he smacked the back of the dragonet’s head with a shovel. The dragonet howled, but Jan did it again and again until the small creature finally stopped moving.
He buried Tink behind the orange tree, sobbing so hard he cracked a rib.
When he was done, mud stuck to his forearms where blue energy had crackled just an hour ago.
***
There were a few reporters in the yard when the sun rose and Jan got out of the shower. There was a man in sunglasses next to a black sedan.
Jan tapped one of them, a Caster that he recognized from one of the gatherings. “He’s getting old,” Jan said. “And he wishes really hard things weren’t what they were. Go easy on him. He said he saw a griffin near Easterly Pub late one night, too.”
Seval caught up to him at the end of the street, where Jan waited for a bus.
“There’s a filled in hole behind the orange tree,” she said, looking him over pointedly.
“Yeah.” It was a single, neutral word, but it served as both confirmation and confession.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
Jan hugged her. “First to quit my job, then to Plan’s for a while. Don’t tell Father.”
“He’ll know you’re there. But he won’t dare step on that property. More likely, he’ll be broken from grief. What are you going to do?”
Jan sighed. “We were always waiting for something to happen. How many generations has that been happening? I’m going to go back to collegium. And make something of the Caster name.”
Seval surprised him by giving him a big hug. “Don’t cut me out too, okay, brother?”
“I won’t.”
The bus squealed to a stop and Jan got aboard with all the other peasants. When the door closed, he waved goodbye to Seval.
Three years later, Seval gave him a basket of oranges as a gift on his graduation from the collegium with honors. They both cried, as the tart fruits tasted nearly divine.