Page 4 of The Witch & the Dragon

A cold chill swept through him. “I wasn’t about to do anything. Go away. I want to be alone.” He walked past her, the coldness spreading, icing his thoughts.

Holy crap.

How did she…?

“Uh, wait a minute,” she said, determined not to leave him alone but rather spring into step beside him. “My intuition’s telling me you shouldn’t be left alone right now.”

“You…?” He stopped. He wanted to snap at her, tell her to screw off, go away, leave him alone, to spit words like arrows in her general direction. He almost did, too – but something in her expression – the way her brow furrowed in genuine concern – and the redness of her face from the sprint – stopped him from saying anything.

He swallowed. “You’re not kidding me? You can really sense that with your magic?”

She nodded. “I’m sorry. I know I must be interfering – no, wait – I should be interfering. You were going to throw yourself off that balcony.”

“I…”

“No,” she said, “don’t lie.”

Ugh.

How annoying. She refused to let it go. Even with her apologetic expression, her body language suggested she wasn’t planning on leaving anytime soon.

“Fine,” he said, throwing up his hands. “So, what if I was? Why should it matter to you?”

“Well, it doesn’t,” she admitted candidly, and again, he fumbled mentally, thrown off-kilter by her attitude. “But clearly, something’s going on with you, and I’m not comfortable ignoring what my magic’s telling me. So, assuming you have time – let’s go someplace safe. We’ll grab a drink or some food, and you can let me know what’s going on.”

Ugh!

He glared at her. What really irritated him right now was that a part of him wanted to talk to someone, to allow the power of a stranger to lead him out of his head and to explain the shit-uation.

And she knew, didn’t she? How irritating. How smug. Yet, for someone who said it didn’t matter – the way she looked at him suggested something else. Not pity, exactly, something unfathomable, but something that made him want to stay rather than turn back toward the balcony.

“What the hell kind of weird ass powers do you have? Intuition? How does that even work?”

She shrugged. “It just does. Look, I can’t really explain it. I’m an oracle – or, well, a sometimes oracle. That’s like seeing into the future. Sometimes, it expresses itself as visions – and sometimes with, like, this gut feeling – this tug toward something. It’s different from a vision, but… I know you were thinking of doing something drastic.”

He sagged. “Great. Trust me to bump into an oracle.”

He knew about oracles, people who saw into the future, who knew things that no ordinary mortal could. It was still annoying.

“So, shall we go somewhere?”

“Fine,” he muttered, stalking after her.

The long walk to the dining hall allowed him more time to settle his thoughts and make sense of the whole thing. The churning, cold horror in his mind of looking over the edge, picturing the plummet, the wind clawing at his clothes, the ground reaching up to embrace him, suppressing the instinct in his soul to give into transformation, to feel the inner dragon grow out of his skin and spread giant wings to arrest his flight.

I… I really was about to do that. He shivered and shivered. I was going to… and then she…

The shaking didn’t stop until they’d reached the dining hall, grabbed a basic lunch, and sat at the quiet end of one of the long tables along with a few other students.

“Food might be tough for you, so I advise just the drink,” Chloe said, smiling at him in that unfathomable way again. “And I’ll listen.”

He stared at the table for a moment, punching through the ice encrusting his thoughts. It took longer, much longer than he expected, to simply say, “My parents died in a caving accident four days ago. I only just found out… when my uncle called me into the office.”

“Damn,” Chloe said softly. After a short pause, in which he said nothing, she added, “Do you know… how?”

“The details aren’t clear. My uncle… he was warning me that my parents’ assets were legally bound to… my other uncle, from my father’s side of the family. The shit uncle.”

“So… just to clarify, Professor Umber from Dreadmor is not the shit uncle?”

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