Page 102 of Fae Crown

“He did?” My disbelief translated into a high pitch. “Seriously?”

She and I looked at the goblin, who pretended not to notice our attention while he tied two torn pieces of said tunic into a knot.

“You’re a softy,” I breathed. “I can’t believe it.”

He whirled and pointed a knobby finger at me. “Watch what ye say. Ye too, Zafi.”

“Zafi?” I faced the little fairy who perched on a fallen branch that … shit, was the branchtwitching?

She smiled bitterly. “Yep. Named Zafira after the queen herself. Aren’t I the lucky one?”

“I’m off to fetch us water,” Edsel announced before pointing that finger at both of us. “Don’t ye move from here. Don’t ye do anything till I get back. And especially don’t do anything stupid.”

“Are we allowed to friggin’ breathe?” Zafi asked with all the snark common to a fourteen-year-old.

“Small breaths,” Edsel grunted, but was that mirth flittering across his dark eyes?

Wow. A softy indeed. Who would have guessed?

Edsel made it only a few steps before we heard an exasperated voice:

“Saffron! Saff! Slow down. Saffron.”

Before I’d managed to register what that might mean, a large, dark figure leapt from the surrounding trees and jumped straight at me.

24.THERE BUT NOT THERE, CLOSE BUT STILL FAR

ELOWYN

Zafi vanished from my side while Edsel drew a dagger and lurched toward my “attacker,” but by then, the figure with all its knobby, poking arms, legs, and claws was wrapped around me like it was a parasitic growth that would never leave me willingly.

“No!” I barked at Edsel as I hurried to clutch the dragonling to my chest and breathe him in. Smoldering embers and the faint tang of blood. “Don’t hurt him.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Edsel lower the dagger a moment before Hiroshi, Ryder, and West lumbered toward us. West held aloft a full-sized lumoon that illuminated the slim patch of flat ground we occupied between copses of trees.

The three men wore harried, pinched expressions I recognized. I’d worn a similar one many of my days in Nightguard, when the dragonlings in my care had done their best to disobey me at every turn, driving me nuts.

“I’m gonna kill ‘im,” West announced with a heaving exhale.

“You can’t kill him,” Hiroshi said. “He’s a dragon, and we swore to protect the dragons.”

“Un-unh. You and Rush did. Not me.”

“Plus…” Hiroshi said as I, wide-eyed with surprise, peered at them around Saffron’s big head, which was nestled into the crook of my shoulder. “…he led us to Elowyn, now didn’t he?” Hiroshi smiled amid a grimy face. “Hi, Elowyn.”

“Hi, guys,” I said. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

Saffron whimpered and whined against my neck. I ran a soothing hand along his back, between his wings, despite the fact that everywhere he clutched me stung like a motherfucker.

“Shhhh,” I cooed at him. “It’s alright now. We’re together again.”

“Yeah, thanks to him,” Ryder added as he stepped forward. His light hair was adorned by a mess of broken twigs and leaves. Many of its braids were loose, the long strands a halo of frizz backlit by West’s lumoon.

“It’s like he caught your scent or something,” Ryder added.

“Or something,” West said, stepping up next to him. “I swear, it was like he could sense you.”

I pulled my face away just enough to gaze down at the little dragon, but Saffron wasn’t having any separation. He burrowed more tightly into my embrace as I murmured, “Did you lead them to me, huh? Such a good boy…”

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