Page 167 of The Black Witch

“She seems like she understands what we’re saying.” I gulp as I find my bearings.

The corner of Yvan’s mouth twitches. “Dragons are...very observant.”

“Sothisis where you go when you walk off by yourself?”

Yvan stares at me for a moment, then nods.

I take a deep breath, my heart slowly falling into a more normal rhythm.

“She’s been beaten,” I observe, my brow knitting as I take in the crisscrossing lash marks.

Yvan tenses, and he looks toward the dragon. “They’re trying to break her.” An anguished expression crosses his face.

“Will they keep beating her?” I ask.

He swallows, then glances back at the dragon, his eyes dark with worry. “They’ll place her with another dragon,” he says. “A young one. They’ll wait for her to become attached to the child...and then...they’ll torture it to death in front of her. I’ve seen it done. To another dragon here.”

He’s quiet for a moment. When he looks back at me, I can see the pain etched deep in his mind, his voice breaking. “I still have nightmares about it.” His brow tightens, and he looks away.

“I have nightmares, too,” I confide in him. “About Selkies.”

He glances back at me, surprised. “Selkies?”

“I saw one once. In a cage, in Valgard. She was screaming.” I wince at the memory. “It wasawful.I’ve dreamed about her almost every night since.”

For a long moment he just stares at me. “I’ve never seen one,” he finally says. “I’ve heard about them, though.” He turns back to the dragon, his eyes darting to every last part of the cage, like he’s trying to work out a complicated puzzle. “The bars,” he says absently, “they’re made of Elfin steel. She’s tried to melt it, but it’s not possible. And they don’t use keys to open the cage. They use wand magic.”

“You’ve given this a lot of thought, haven’t you?” I observe with dawning suspicion.

He doesn’t answer, his attention still riveted to the dragon’s cage.

My eyes fly open with stunned realization. “You want to rescue her, don’t you?”

His entire face constricts, as if suddenly caught in a vise.

“You do!” I marvel. “You want to steal a dragon. From a Gardnerian military base!”

Yvan shoots me an angry look, turns and starts back into the woods.

I run after him, struggling to keep up. “You’re going to get yourself shot—you know that?”

He doesn’t answer, only walks faster as if attempting to put as much distance between us as possible.

The dragon’s low, keening moan of despair resonates on the air, snagging my heart. Yvan and I both halt. Yvan’s back has gone rigidly straight, but he quickly gathers himself and resumes stalking rapidly away from me.

* * *

By the time we’re back on the Verpacian side of the border, the tension between us has become unbearably thick. It distracts me from keeping my footing, and I silently blame Yvan for every stubbed toe and scratched arm.

After a time a weathered cottage becomes visible through the trees. It’s unkempt, with tools scattered about, a weedy garden and unhealthy livestock in cramped pens.

“Who lives there?” I ask Yvan’s back as he walks well ahead of me, keeping the same unfriendly distance between us as he did on the walk out.

“The University’s groundskeeper,” he answers curtly as a flash of white darts through the trees.

A Watcher.

I follow its curving flight around the trees with my eyes. It lands on a branch just before the cottage’s clearing and turns to face me. And then it disappears.

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