Restless by Scott Prussing

at her umbrella and smiled. “Fledgling wizard,” she reminded him. “Maybe if I could dry myself as quickly and easily as you, I wouldn’t use one either.”
    “There are other choices,” Dominic said. “At least, there are when you do not have to worry about drawing attention to yourself.”
    He pushed the door open and stepped out of the car, ignoring the rain. By the time he made it around to the passenger side he was half-soaked.
    Leesa closed her umbrella and quickly climbed behind the wheel. She looked over at Dominic. Already, his hair and shirt were beginning to dry. When she had first seen him perform this trick, she thought it took active magic to do it, but Dominic had explained that his “weather-proofing” was the result of a complicated spell enacted centuries before and so could not be detected by the black waziri. While she wouldn’t mind having a similar spell to keep herself dry—especially since Rave’s inner heat made him pretty much immune to any rain—she knew learning such magic was a very low priority. So for now, an umbrella would be her magic; or, if necessary, she would just get wet.
    “Where to today?” she asked.
    “A place I think you will be very happy to visit,” Dominic said, already completely dry. “How about we go see some volkaanes?”
    A big smile bloomed on Leesa’s face. This was a very nice surprise, indeed.
    “I think that’s a wonderful idea,” she said happily. “An absolutely wonderful idea.”
    She started the car and headed down the driveway, going perhaps a bit faster than she might have had they been heading for any other destination.
    The rain began pelting down, splashing hard against the windshield and forcing Leesa to switch the wipers to their highest speed. Even so, the reduced visibility demanded her full attention and forced her to slow down. She rarely had to drive in the rain back in San Diego and had only done it a couple of times since moving to Connecticut. She kept both hands tight on the wheel and maintained a speed that was a few miles per hour below the speed limit.
    The drive usually took about twenty minutes, but this morning the weather made it closer to thirty. By the time she spotted the dirt roadway to the volkaane settlement, her neck and shoulders were knotted with tension. She knew the cure for that was just a few moments away—Rave and his magic fingers.
    Pulling the SUV onto the shoulder, she edged the vehicle as far from the highway as possible and turned off the engine. She opened the door just a couple of inches and reached for her umbrella. Even with the door only cracked open, the wind blew the rain in on her. Luckily, it was a warm summer rain, but it was still plenty wet. She was getting ready to stick the umbrella out through the opening to pop it open when Dominic grabbed her arm.
    “ Leave the umbrella here,” he told her.
    Leesa twisted around to look at him. “Are you crazy? It’s raining cats and dogs out there. I think I may even have seen a cow or two.”
    Dominic smiled. “Remember how I said there were other choices if there were no worries about attracting attention?”
    “Yeah. So?”
    “Well, this is a place where you do not have to worry about being seen. The volkaanes already know you have magic, and if someone happens to drive by on the highway, I do not think they will notice.”
    Leesa p ushed the umbrella between her seat and the shift column.
    “Okay. What do you want me to do? Aside from getting soaked, that is.”
    “ Your air shield spell can be used to protect you from more than enemy attacks. I think this is a good time to give it some practice.”
    Leesa nodded, wondering why she hadn’t thought of that. The air shield had given her more trouble than any other spell so far, but with all her practice in the last few months, she had gotten reasonably good at it. She didn’t think any of her shields were ready to stand up against a magic attack yet—but she was pretty sure one would