With such a competent group of mages working on the task, the five sets of wings were assembled, tested, and covered in canvas in a matter of days. All that was left to do was to line them with flower petals and scales before the rest of the magic would be added.
Sky, Samheed, and Aaron were the most skilled at attaching the delicate petals and scales without damaging them. Once they finished each wing, Alex used the preserve spell on it, then added a shimmer spell he’d invented to make the wings as beautiful and iridescent as the bodies of the dragons. With a few final touches, the wings were perfect—lithe and beautiful and just the right dimensions.
At first Alex wasn’t sure how he was going to attach the wings to the dragons, but he had a few ideas. He asked Samheed to make up a new variation on scatterclips and stickyclips, called superclips, a permanent spell that would attach one thing to another thing without harming either one of them. But it was troublesome trying to get the wings to seal completely to anything, and it left the base joint stiff and unwieldy, so they gave up on that idea.
Lani came up with a melding spell by using a bit of soft eraser from Ms. Octavia’s cupboard as a component. She stretched and kneaded the eraser into a wonderfully pliable material, then instilled magic in it that would meld the wings to the dragon, making them appear continuous and leaving them perfectly flexible.
Alex tested Lani’s spell by melding a flowerpot to a large rock outside and moving it this way and that. Then he fired all sorts of elemental spells at it to make sure it could withstand fire, storms, salt water, heavy winds, and anything else he could think of that the dragons might come in contact with. When he was satisfied with the results, he asked Lani to make up a large batch of melding components for him to bring along to the Island of Dragons. Finally they were ready to test out a pair of wings to see if they would really work.
“Do you want to test it?” Alex asked Aaron.
“Me?” asked Aaron nervously. “Oh, no thank you. I’m—I’m just fine here on the ground. And besides, I have a cooking lesson in the kitchen to get to.”
Lani jumped up. “I’ll do it.”
“Sorry,” said Alex. “You’re not heavy enough. We have to simulate a real dragon.”
“Drat!” said Lani, sitting back down. “Foiled again. I never get to do anything fun.”
“I won’t remind you about driving the Quillitary vehicle,” said Alex.
“We agreed to never discuss that again, remember?” said Lani sweetly.
Samheed rolled his eyes and groaned. “Fine. I’ll do it,” he said.
“Thank you,” said Alex.
They went out onto the lawn with one pair of wings. Alex instructed Samheed to take his shirt off so the wings could adhere to Samheed’s back. Samheed shucked off his shirt, and Alex melded the wings to him.
“That feels really weird,” Samheed said. He shrugged his shoulders a few times.
“Does it hurt?” asked Alex. “Walk around a bit.”
“No, it doesn’t hurt. They’re not even all that heavy.” Samheed walked around and the wings, still folded, moved naturally with his stride. “It sort of feels like I have two extra arms.”
“Can you move them?” asked Alex. “Think about flying—they should be intuitive to you, at least a little.”
Samheed rotated his shoulders, experimenting with his new appendages and thinking about flying. After a minute he figured out the muscles he needed to move in order to make the wings unfold. He concentrated and flapped the wings in an awkward, jerky movement as he walked around. After several minutes, his motions grew smoother.
“Good,” said Alex. “Now take a running leap and start flying.”
“Yes, boss.” Samheed did as he was instructed. He ran toward the jungle as fast as he could, wings flapping, and jumped into the air.
He soared straight up two or three yards, his wings flapping wildly. Then he faltered and crashed to the ground.
“Ouch,” Samheed said. He spit grass from his mouth and pushed himself to his feet.
Alex frowned. “What did you do wrong?” he asked.
Samheed looked at Alex. “How should I know? You’re the head mage.” He noticed a grass stain on his knee and tried to wipe it clean.
Lani stood quietly, arms folded, and then she brought one hand to her chin as she studied Samheed. She tilted her head slightly, watching the wings move as he walked around. Samheed started running again, soared up into the air like before, and then spiraled down to the ground in another crash landing. “Oof,” he said.
Samheed lay there for a minute, winded, then rolled to his side and got up again. “You know, I’m not sure how many more times I want to do this,” he said.
Alex shook his head. “You’re flapping your wings. I don’t know why they won’t keep you up, unless they’re just not strong enough. In which case we’re in trouble.”
“They’re definitely strong enough,” said Lani. “I did all the equations. That’s not the problem.” She continued to study Samheed, and then a thought struck her, and she began digging around in her component vest pockets.