Free Magic Born by Caethes Faron

he’ll want to see me.”
    “I’m sorry, but I can’t call Mr. Rothian any time a couple of kids try to get in here.”
    “I can prove it.” I pulled up the email on my phone that showed I was a winner and turned it so he could see. Security guard Rick—based on the name tag I had just noticed—took the phone from me and read over the email.
    “These kind of things are always arranged in advance. No one’s told me about it.”
    I waved my hand in dismissal. “It was all really last minute. I only won last night, as you can see from the email, but Mr. Rothian said he was traveling on business soon, so he wouldn’t be able to meet me for months if I didn’t come this weekend. I told him I didn’t know if I could make it for sure, and he promised me that if I made the effort to get here today, that he’d see me. Just call him, and he’ll confirm.”
    When Rick handed me back my phone, the wariness had left his face. “It is true that Mr. Rothian is traveling a lot. But still, he would’ve had a secretary leave your name with me.”
    Alex spoke up. “I’m sure one little call isn’t going to hurt anything. If it turns out we’re not telling the truth, you have my word that we’ll turn around and head right back in the direction we came from.”
    Rick still seemed unconvinced. Time to take matters in a more drastic direction. I pulled out my phone and navigated to The Codex, the largest fan site for Wizards and Fae . Typing furiously with my thumbs, I didn’t even look up as I spoke. “Fine, I’ll just take to the forums. I’m sure the rest of the players will love to find out how this contest is just a scam. And Rick is R-I-C-K, right? Let me ask you Rick, have you ever been the target of an angry online mob? But don’t worry, most of the ire will come down on Casper. You know how us Internet folk love to find out what our online heroes are really like. Turns out Casper likes to put on a good face for the cameras and at conventions while treating the players who made him wealthy like crap. I get that. In fact, I’m pretty sure one of my guild mates is a reporter. I’ll make sure to send him the link to my post.”
    Rick held up his hands in defeat, shaking them as if to alert me to stop. “All right, all right, just hold on a sec. Let me go make a call so we can figure this out.”
    I smiled and looked up from my phone. “That sounds like a good idea, Rick. And if I were you, I’d make sure that I didn’t accidentally call the police instead of Casper. Nothing like the image of a fan in handcuffs to really get the online mob frothing.”
    Rick retreated into his hut and picked up the phone.
    “Impressive,” Alex whispered to me. “His face paled rather quickly once you got going.”
    “Just showing some of my good old human ingenuity.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alex smile for a fraction of a second.
    Rick quickly emerged from the hut, this time holding two guest badges. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Thomas. Please accept my apologies. Mr. Rothian is very eager to see you and asked that I go ahead and take you up to reception myself.” He handed Alex and me each a badge, then led us to a waiting golf cart.

Chapter 8
    T he golf cart hummed along around the corner of the main office building. Apparently, the parking lot entrance was not the front of the campus. Before us stood an enormous fountain with statues of giants, elves, and wizards, perfectly recreating the login screen of the game. My inner geek emerged, and all thoughts of the talisman and assassins fled. Without even thinking, I turned to Alex, holding out my phone to ask him to take a picture of me with it, and stopped at the sight of his yellow eyes staring at me in amusement. Even if he knew how to work a camera phone, I doubted he’d take kindly to my request. I put my phone away, but not before surreptitiously snapping my own blurry picture of the fountain.
    Rick stopped the golf cart right outside the front doors. The