Page 64 of Dragon Fires Everywhere
“My mother’s name was there.” I don’t mean to drag this out and make it more dramatic. But it’s so hard to find the words.“Stanford Pendell was not listed as my father.” I suck in a deep breath, then look at Azrael. He gives me a reassuring nod,all gold eyes, and that helps me say the thing I won’t be able to take back. “Desmond Wilde was.”
A heavy silence fills this room I know so well. This happy kitchen where Emerson and Rebekah’s grandmother used to putteraround, singing little songs to herself, always far more aware of what we were up to than we liked to believe.
Maybe I’m not the only one remembering Lillian Wilde and her brand of magic that sometimes wasn’tmagicat all, but love—and thinking about the fact that she wasmygrandmother too.
It all settles on us, hard and irrevocable and yes, ugly. I wish I could say something else, something to fix this and makeit less...huge.
I wouldn’t say Emerson looksdevastated, exactly, but she’s clearly thinking about her parents and their marriage. Maybe about thedetails, like what Desmond had to be up to that yearif he got three daughters out of it. About what it means that they all kept this liethislong. Wondering if everyone knows but us.
She looks at me, a little desperately. “Maybe the Joywood changed something and...” But she doesn’t finish the sentence.
“Em. I don’t think the Joywood can change what’s inside the archives. Hide it, maybe, but make actual changes to the lore?I don’t think so. Too much adds up. The way my father was acting, things the Joywood have said, the red hair, like your grandmother’s.”I can’t call Lillianmine.Not yet. Notout loud. No matter what that family tree said. I take a deep breath, hold her gaze and her hand. “I don’t think it’s wrong.”
“We can’t really be surprised that Dad’s an even bigger dick than we already thought he was, can we?” Rebekah asks darkly.
“I don’t know the details,” I tell her, with a great calm that must come from somewhere, though I have no idea where. “Azrael...observed some things, overheard some things, during that period.”
“Did our mom know?” Emerson asks him.
He lifts a shoulder. “I’m not sure. The only thing I saw or heard was Desmond and Cadence speaking. There was fighting betweenyour parents, but that was hardly new. I do not know if anyone else knew. If they did, it was not spoken of around me.”
Emerson nods, and then she looks back at me. Her smile blooms, even if it’s a little wobbly, and I can still see those worriesin her eyes. “That means you’re our sister.”
I feel my own eyes starting to tear up. I nod. “Yeah.”
“Georgie.” She shakes me by the shoulders, and even though a tear spills over that she quickly dashes away, she’s grinningfrom ear to ear. “We’resisters.”
It makes me laugh. And for the first time, I’m really able to feel thejoyat that. My best friend in the world is my sister. Mysister.
“Thank Hecate,” Rebekah says, and she’s smiling too, though there are no tears. And no darkness or bitterness when she reachesover to squeeze my hand too. “Now we can share the load of having to beEmerson Wilde’slittle sisters.”
“I amhonored,” I whisper back, past the knot in my throat.
“Did you find anything else out?” Frost asks. “Perhaps the next step in fully ascending?”
He’s trying to sound dry and like he doesn’t care, but I don’t believe that. I think maybe he’s protecting Rebekah’s feelings.
“I was a little distracted,” I say. But that’s not really the right word. “Upset. It’s not easy to accept that you’re notwho you thought you were.”
“Nothing aboutyouchanges, Georgie,” Emerson tells me fiercely. Her arm is still around my shoulders.
“I think maybe it does, but in a good way,” I assure her. “The whole last week—or year, or maybe my whole life—I’ve been tryingso hard to berealistic. Scholarly and rational. The perfect Pendell my mother wanted me to be. But I’m not a Pendell, and she’s not perfect herself.So maybe... maybe this is the last straw, and I can finally let all that go.”
Emerson squeezes me again. “You could have come and told me last night. You didn’t have to sleep on it.”
I glance at Azrael. I could lie. I could say it delicately. But why bother? I have my dragon, and he has me. “We were...not sleeping, Em. First we were not sleeping in the air. Then we came back here and continued to not sleep in my bed. Andthe shower. Or beneath my crystals in the trees in the back garden, which you might think would be cold, but not with a dragon.”
Zander puts his fork down and runs a hand over his face. “Why? Why would you say all that out loud?Ididn’t need to know that. Ineverneed to know that.”
Frost looks like a statue. Jacob looks like he’s exited his body.
I realize that I’m happy. Just... happy, despite everything. Or maybe because of it.
“I needed to knowallof that,” Ellowyn says emphatically. She leans toward me, grinning. “Details, please.”
But before I can offer any, just to see how all the men—including Azrael—will respond todetails, Emerson’s phone alarm starts trilling.
“That’s the five-minute warning before I have to leave for the store,” she says, glaring at her phone. “And the historic hometour starts in fifteen. Do you want me to call off the tour? I can.”
