Mez's Magic

# Blurb

Caldera has forever been divided into those animals who walk by night and those who walk by day. Nightwalker panthers, like young Mez and her beloved sister, Chumba, have always feared Daywalkers as creatures of myth and legend. Until The Eclipse. Now Mez has discovered that she can cross the Veil and enter the daylight world. Her magical powers has unknown depths, but she must rush to discover it after a mysterious stranger arrives at her family’s den, bearing warnings of a reawakened evil. Saving Caldera means Mez must leave her sister behind and unite an unlikely group of animal friends to unravel an ancient mystery and protect their rainforest home.

# Plot

Mez lives with her Aunt Usha, her sister (Chumba), her little bit older cousin (Mist), and his three younger siblings (Yerlo, Jerlo, and Derli). Mez is unable to sleep in the day like nightwalkers should. Curious about the emerald tree boa who spies on her den during the day instead of sleeping like her, she goes daywalking for the first time to find it. After a brief standoff between them, Mez runs back home to find an eagle trying to make off with her sister, Chumba, who is still trapped in daycoma. The emerald tree boa is there to save them and explains to Mez that his name is Auriel, a shadowwalker like herself with the ability to communicate with ants (how he found her), and that she must come with him to join the other shadowwalkers at the Ziggurat of the Sun and Moon to stop the Ant Queen, who is imprisoned beneath the Ziggurat and breaking free. Mez refuses but is soon forced to confess to her family, otherwise the blame falls on Chumba for her talon wounds. (Not before Mist tries to claim he defeated the eagle they found dead to seem brave.) So Mez is exiled, as is customary for those who cross the Veil.

Having nowhere else to go, Mez accepts Auriel's invitation. They pick up a couple more shadowwalkers, Lima the bat and Rumi the frog. After some more traveling, Auriel leaves Mez, Rumi, and Lima with directions to the Ziggurat and goes off to find more shadowwalkers. The rest of the journey isn't easy. The trio get attacked by howler monkeys and owls on two different occasions for being shadowwalkers, believing them to be unnatural and threats who will aid the Ant Queen. Lima discovers her power to heal along the way.

The group make it across their last obstacle, a bridge above Agony Canyon, with the help of Gogi, a monkey shadowwalker with fire abilities. Mez, Rumi, and Lima make it to the Ziggurat and the other shadowwalkers, where Auriel has already arrived ahead of them. The boa gathers them all together to plan, and Sky, a scarlet macaw, arrives in the middle of it, whom Auriel introduces as his second-in-command. Sky is willing to help those who don't know with discovering their powers using his divination ability. After a volunteer comes forth, Auriel leaves again to fetch one more shadowwalker.

Mez joins Rumi in studying the carvings on the Ziggurat to see if there's anything useful in defeating the Ant Queen. They discover that two-legged creatures dealt with the Ant Queen and her armies in the past, but the carving explaining how the two-legs imprisoned her is lower on the Ziggurat, where it's buried in the ground. The next day, Mez, Lima, and Rumi meet Niko, a sorubim catfish and the newest shadowwalker at the Ziggurat, aside from the trio (he is transported around in a water gourd). They find out he has powers over the earth, which is useful in their quest below the ground. Gogi joins them to light the way.

Mez gets briefly separated from everyone else during their cavern exploration. On her own, she finds the drawings answering the solution to their problem. Two removable carvings shaped like the sun and moon are to be held up at dawn or dusk on top of the ziggurat in order to renew the Ant Queen's prison. Mez reunites with Rumi, and they find Gogi, who is dragged into a whirlpool. Rumi rescues him using his newly revealed wind powers (that he has been hiding). Rumi, who had been below the water, saw that the Ant Queen was down there, and her minions were eating Niko. They hear Niko's screams which are then cut off. A cave-in starts, revealing a way out which they escape through.

Mez, Lima, Rumi, and Gogi return to the other shadowwalkers to find two have left out of fear in their absence. Sky is open to help another shadowwalker discover their power, so Mez, while they wait for the right time to renew the Ant Queen's prison, steps up. With the macaw's help, Mez now knows she has invisibility. She returns to the top of the Ziggurat to panic amongst the shadowwalkers due to the discovery that the two who have left are now dead. Niko's body is alongside them, which is strange because he was supposed to have been eaten far below. The group decides to wait until Auriel is back before they do anything. The sun and moon carvings are found in the meantime.

Mez is awoken by Auriel in the night. He lures her away from the Ziggurat and reveals that his real ability is to steal powers from others, he is an ally of the Ant Queen, and he was the one who killed Niko and the two shadowwalkers. The boa intends to take Mez's invisibility and attempts to constrict her to death. Thwarted by Lima, Rumi, and Gogi, Auriel then decides to capture the rest of the shadowwalkers, opening up the Ziggurat and sucking them all inside. Mez, the only one to escape through her invisibility, is aimless for the next day and night, unable to get into the Ziggurat and the sun and moon carvings having gone missing in the tumult.

To her shock, Chumba and the rest of her family have arrived, her sister's vision from Mez's session with Sky having led them to the Ziggurat. Mist's face is now disfisgured from a run-in with boars looking for the daywalking panther, believing him to be that due to his lie about killing the eagle. Aunt Usha agrees to help rescue the shadowwalkers and stop Auriel and the Ant Queen. After some planning, she leads the three oldest cubs to the Ziggurat, leaving the triplets in their makeshift den. The panthers lose the element of surprise when Sky spots them and warns Auriel. Usha grapples with the snake. Even while dealing with both her and Mist, Auriel manages to drag Chumba through the opening in the Ziggurat using gravity magic. Mez drops down after her, and together they discover the other shadowwalkers' prison. The sisters find the Ant Queen having already fed on one of the prisoners. Invisible Mez attempts to ambush her, but her mind is transported to a void. The Ant Queen gives Mez an offer to join her and to convince her friends to join as well. Mez awakens and, with both her and Chumba facing the threat of being stung to death by the ants, agrees to the Ant Queen's demands. But once the other shadowwalkers are freed, Mez betrays the Ant Queen when she commands Rumi and Gogi to make a fiery tornado. it takes out a portion of the ant army, but at the same time the Ziggurat is coming apart. Everyone makes it out, including the Ant Queen who escapes into the night. Everyone except Auriel, crushed underneath the stone. Mez is later told that Mist disappeared during the fight.

The remaining animals gather in the dawn. They decide to go home but will keep an eye out for the Ant Queen and meet back at the Ziggurat ruins in a year to share what they know. A hidden Mist and Sky watch the group go their separate ways.