Zann stuck the message moth in his pocket and then grabbed Zing.
The little dragon had snatched a glowberry muffin away from one of the people watching the protest. The man looked angry.
"Zing!" Zann wrenched the muffin out of Zing's mouth.
It had teeth marks and burns on it.
Zann looked at the man. "I'll conjure you another one, sir."
"You'd better!" the man grumbled. "There's a reason most people don't keep fire whistlers as pets, you know."
Suddenly his expression changed and he peered closely at Zann.
"Wait, a fire whistler—hold on. Are you the Red kid who saved Magica from Morb?"
Zann never knew what to say when people asked him questions like that.
He couldn't have saved anything without help from his friends and others.
So he said nothing. Instead he rubbed his hands together to create a new glowberry muffin.
But the man brushed it away. "I'm a reporter for the First City Flash.
I came here to cover this protest, but nothing much is happening."
With a snap of his fingers, he opened a note window in the air beside him.
"I'd love to get your opinion on all the recent protests in First City," the reporter went on.
"I'm sure everyone in Magica would love to know what their young Red hero thinks of the Void rights movement!"
Zann shrugged. "I haven't been paying much attention," he answered truthfully.
"I'm completely in favor of Void rights, of course.
Other than that, I'm not very interested in politics."
Zann's words appeared on the note window as he said them.
"But you must have heard what people are saying."
The reporter glanced at Zann's bright red hair.
"Some non-Reds think the Red Council is almost as greedy as Morb himself.
They say the Reds have too much power, and allowing them to control the relics Morb dug up is dangerous.
They say that Magica's ancient relics belong to all citizens, and that the people should have a say in what happens to them. Not the Red Council."
Zann had heard those comments. But he hadn't paid much attention to them.
The relics were dangerous—that much he knew.
They could have given Morb enough power to take over all of Magica.
But Zann trusted his parents and the others to handle the relics wisely now.
"I'm sure my parents are doing what they think is best," he said.
"But you’d have to ask them about the details."
The reporter frowned at the note window.
He seemed disappointed. Then he shrugged and brightened.
"All right, then," the reporter said. "What's going on with you these days, Zann?
I'm sure everyone would enjoy hearing an update on your life since Morb's, er, permanent departure."
Zann winced at the last two words.
Nobody ever came right out and said that Morb was dead.
But Zann suspected he was. Wyssa had been furious when she'd dragged the villain through the vortex.
But she'd never returned to Magica after that, so nobody knew for sure what she'd done with Morb.
"I really need to go," Zann said, glancing toward his parents' lab.
"This will only take a moment." The reporter smiled.
"How are those friends of yours doing?
I understand they returned to your old hometown."
"Yes." Zann slid a hand into his pocket to check on the message moth.
"We moved to First City. But their families are still in Swamp Bottom."
"Yes, yes." The reporter glanced at the note window to make sure it was recording everything Zann said.
"Speaking of family, I heard that your grandfather, Boz, came out of retirement to start working with the Red Council again.
Is he helping to catalog the relics?"
Zann bit his lip. "Um, I don't pay much attention to that kind of thing."
He hoped the reporter would get bored and end the interview.
But the reporter didn't look bored at all.
"What was it like traveling through the vortex?" he asked.
Zann hesitated, thinking back to those travels.
Traveling through the vortex had been scary. It had also been exciting.
But Zann didn't want to tell this stranger about that.
He gulped and tried to think of some way to escape.
"Excuse me!" A girl's voice came from behind Zann.
"Are you a reporter for the First City Flash?"
Turning, Zann saw a girl he recognized from school.
She was a year ahead of him, and he didn't know her name.
"Yes, I am," the reporter told her. "But I'm busy right now."
"Okay," the girl said. "But I just heard that Laddno is here.
He's speaking soon in the palace square."
"Laddno is here?" someone nearby exclaimed. "Is that true?"
The girl shrugged. "I don't know. It's just what I heard."
The reporter looked excited. "I'd better get over there!" he said. "Thanks, young lady!"
He snapped his fingers and zapped out of sight. Other people zapped away too.
"Who's Laddno?" Zann asked the girl.
She laughed. "I thought everybody had heard of him.
He's a super-successful businessman. He's also the new leader of the Void rights movement."
She rubbed her fingers together to conjure a dragon treat, which she tossed to Zing.
The dragon snapped it up eagerly and then whistled happily at the girl.
"Oh, right." Now Zann remembered hearing his parents mention the name. "Is Laddno a Void?"
"No. He's just interested in equal rights for everyone in Magica.
But listen, you should get out of here.
That reporter might come back once he finds out Laddno isn't really speaking to the crowd."
"Huh?" Zann was confused. "But you just said—"
The girl giggled. "I could tell that you wanted the reporter to stop bothering you, so I said the one thing I knew would get him to leave."