Page 11 of Dragon Fires Everywhere
The way he says that makes me think—but I shove images of dragons wrapped up with mermaids in a variety of acrobatic posesaside. Facts are what matter, not fantasies. Something I keep trying to learn.
Besides, there are far more important questions to ask him. “Why did they curse you in the first place?”
Azrael doesn’t spare me a glance. “For their own shitty and nefarious reasons, Georgina. Obviously.”
He turns to look at me then. Really look at me. I feel those dark gold eyes on every inch of my skin. And the strangest partis that it’s not all that different than when he was in the newel post, because he always felt real, no matter how much Itold myself he wasn’t.
Did I sleepwalk as much as I tell myself I did... or did I just like to sit with him? Withhim.
Night after night after night?
I know I should be thinking about the Joywood and the implications of magical creatures being cursed so that we all believed they were mythical or lost. But instead I’m thinking about all the ways I’ve unloaded my most private thoughts overthe years on what Ithoughtwas a charmed inanimate object that, sure, spoke every now and then. But charmed things do that.
My cheeks heat, embarrassment ripe.
His smile goes sharp and self-satisfied, like he knows why. “I was very cognizant of everything happening around me duringmy time as a post.”
I want to melt into the ground, but it’s frozen solid beneath my feet. “Ah.”
“He isn’t worth your tears, you know.”
I stiffen. This day really couldn’t get worse. A dragon saw me cry and thinks it was about my lame ex-boyfriend. “I do know,thank you,” I say, sounding prim to my own ears. “I wasn’t crying for him.”
“Good.” Azrael studies me for a moment, then looks out at the night again. A crow caws from somewhere up above, and Azrael’seyes sharpen. He takes a deep breath. When he exhales, the cold air turns into a big puff of smoke. “Perhaps you’re right.Going head-on at the Joywood is never the answer. It’s what got us into this mess in the first place. This calls for subterfuge.And them not knowing their curse can be broken.”
He breathes out another puff of smoke, a ring this time. He watches it disappear into the night as if fascinated. Hot airmeets cold and makes condensation. It’s simple science. Not magic. But Azrael seems delighted.
Then he turns to face me head-on again, and he has a kind of battle light in his eyes that reminds me of Emerson.
If Emerson were a large man who’s really a dragon.
“The truth is, Georgina Pendell, Riverwood Historian, you need me.” That jolts in me in a way I tell myself I don’t love,but he keeps going. “You all need me. We need to have one of those meetings your Wilde sister is so fond of. We have workto do.”
Then he strides back inside, like he was never going off toincineratethe Joywood at all.
Like he’s... one of us.
I’m left out in the cold once again, and unlike him, I’m shivering against it. And trying, furiously, to catch up with howthe past few hours have completely flipped every script there ever was.
I glance over at my childhood home next door. The lights are off. It’s late. No doubt my parents are asleep in their separaterooms, lost somewhere in their chilly life together.
Beyond the house, the holiday lights of St. Cyprian shine down on the bricks that are supposed to keep us all safe.
And dragons are real.
I might not understand how this is at all possible, or what it means for the Riverwood and our plans to take on our new positionswith as little drama as possible, but I laugh in spite of myself.
This man straight out of my daydreams is here. He’s reallyhere.
More importantly, the dragons I’ve always dreamed of arereal.
And somehow, the most unlikely person in the world—me—has gone and set one free.
5
When I make it back inside, my friends are still standing in the foyer, but Azrael isn’t with them. Frost is glaring towardthe archway that leads into the living room, while Rebekah is eyeing him like she expects an explosion. Zander and Ellowynare studying Emerson, who looks...
Thunderstruck.
