Page 111 of Dragon Fires Everywhere
“Maybe our souls were meant to be in some other lifetime, but if you think I can be the woman who would turn her back on what she knows is right because it’s dangerous, becausethere might be suffering or sacrifice, you don’t know me at all. And you reallydon’tbelong in the Riverwood coven.”
Something flashes in his eyes, but he says nothing. And I’m not going to wait around and see if he will.
I walk out of the cemetery, realizing when I see my friends standing near that tree that they must have retreated outsidethe gates when Azrael and I started fighting.
But they didn’t leave me. They’re waiting for me.
I don’t look back at Azrael, because I know I’m right.
Thisis love. Right here. Standing up for one another, with each other, time and time again, no matter how things get tough. Nomatter how we disagree.
Because love is not aboutoutcomes. It is not a weapon or armor.
Love is the answer.
28
I throw everything I am into undoing the black magic Joywood curse on the magical creatures. They’re imprisoned, erased, hidden.So I research anything that might connect, spending long hours in the archives and up in my own library and room while everyoneelse comes in and out.
Sometimes it’s Frost or Jacob in the archives with me, as they both have a patience that the others don’t. Sometimes Ellowynand Rebekah sit with me on the top floor of Wilde House, playing with crystals, considering herbs. Sometimes Zander comesby with something new he remembers Zachariah telling him about the crows and we note it down, trying to build a full picture.
Just about every breakfast, Emerson sits with me, and we eat and discuss what I found—or didn’t find—the day before. She worriesover those last two votes to free Azrael that remain just outside her reach, though we pretend that is not a personal conversation.
We don’t see Gideon again. I steer clear of the cemetery.
I dive deeper into the witchlore archives and try to comeat the same questions in different ways. Instead of looking for evidence of what the Joywood changed, I look instead for the history of the Joywood coven themselves. Like... when did they come into power? What was their ascension like? When did this curse on fabulae actually happen?
Information that should be readily available, but isn’t.
The archives don’t seem to want to fork over much related to the Joywood. Is that a decision the enchanted archives have madeon their own? Is it another Joywood curse?
These are things I would love to be able to ask Azrael. Dragons might not keep to strict witch calendar years, but I bet hecould give me an idea of abeforeand anafter.
No matter how I look, I can’t seem to find anything. I begin to wonder if black magic has been woven into my clothes.
All the spells I cast to find out claim it hasn’t, but I still wonder.
Because anything and everything feels possible these days. Especially when I wake up every morning a little bit more unlikemyself: frustrated, impatient, and curt with those around me.
I decide I can lay that at Azrael’s feet too.
With only a few days before the solstice, our full ascension, or a total disaster to end all disasters, Emerson and I aresitting at the Wilde House kitchen table one morning. She is bright-eyed and talking a mile a minute. I am bleary-eyed andscowling into my coffee. Jacob is standing at the counter and lands somewhere in the middle. Awake and alert, but he doesn’teven try to get a word in.
“Maybe we need to go back to the beginning,” Emerson suggests, flipping through the fairy-tale book that hasn’t changed again,as far as I know. The cover is the cover from my childhood. The princess embodies all eight timelines in her dress. It’s alldepressingly the same.
Maybe booksaren’tthe answer, I think... and that’s how I know I need to shake myself out of this funk. Books arealwaysthe answer. If they’re not, you have the wrong books. “What beginning?”
Emerson holds up the book. “You read this aloud to a newel post, and a dragon was magically uncursed.”
“Yes, and we tried that with Gideon. It didn’t work, if you recall.”
“Maybe it wasn’t the book. Maybe it was the place,” Jacob says thoughtfully.
“The cemetery is sacred. Why wouldn’t it be the place?”
“Maybebecauseit’s sacred. A curse is the most unsacred thing there is, so...”
I don’t think that makes any sense, and I don’t think Emerson is on board either, because she’s frowning, still flipping throughthe pages. She gets to the last page, the page where I—where theprincessis wearing the dress that’s almost identical to the one Emerson has flagged for her bridesmaids.
