Page 133 of Dragon Fires Everywhere
Witches, ghosts, magical creatures, and crows all come together and say the words.
And the black, oozing representation of all Carol’s evil solidifies into a little gemstone. On the last word of the spell,it hovers in the air, then is sucked into the dragon statue.
We all stand in silence for a few beats, just staring at it. Something’s missing. I can feel it.
The sword will seal it.It will seal the black magic. It will be a sign, forever, that division and curses, greed and cruelty, cannot sustain a world.
I look down at my sword. What do I do? Shove it into a dragon statue’s hand? Get a little King Arthur with it?
“It will seal it,” Azrael agrees, even though I wasn’tspeaking. “But a dragon cannot wield the sword of unity.”
I feel something brush against my leg then. I look down, half expecting to see another tendril of black magic.
It’s my fairy tale. On the cover is a statue like the one before us. But instead of just the dragon, there’s a princess onthe dragon. Holding a sword up to the sky.
“Perfect,” my dragon rumbles.
Azrael waves a hand, and I don’t know how he has any energy left, except the magical creatures seem to have faredbetter than the witches and crows. Probably because they’ve had years upon years to store up magic and strength.
Now riding the fearsome dragon statue in real life is a stone woman that looks an awful lot like the princess in my book.
And me.
“Go on then,” he says, nudging me forward.
The stone princess is holding out her arm, and inside the fist is a hole made so that the sword’s hilt should go right in.
“Hope, love, unity,” I murmur, more to myself than to anything else.
As the sword goes in, a ripple of magic flings itself out like snow.
And in the actual snow is something else.
A lifting. A lightening.
The curse we’veallbeen under lifts. The Joywood’s mind control.
I remember Skip Simon attacking Emerson.
I hear people talking excitedly.
“Remember when the Joywood...”
“My entire family was made into a pack of plague-stricken rats for a whole winter!”
“One of my best friends was a crow!”
“Did Carol really turn her own son into a weasel? Or a weasel into her son?”
Frost is rubbing his temple, with Rebekah’s hand on his back. I can tell he’s remembering things he’s lost too.
I turn to Azrael, and justlean. I’m exhausted. But then Ellowyn starts doling out cups of her brew that will revive us.Allof us.
As I lift my cup to my mouth, I see the ring Azrael once gave me on my finger. I don’t recall him putting it there. I lookup at him, eyes narrowed. “It’s been there all along, hasn’t it?”
He shrugs. “Perhaps.”
But it has. I know it has. I’vefeltit, even though he hid itfrom me. I lean into him even more. “I always knew you’d come through. Even when I was afraid you wouldn’t.”
