Page 9 of Dragon Fires Everywhere
“And byusyou mean... dragons?” Jacob asks from where he stands, solid and strong, next to Emerson.
“I mean magical creatures of all kinds.” Azrael gestures upward, and we all look at the grand foyer’s mermaid chandelier.A chandelier I have seen just about every day my whole life and have never paid that much attention to. Lights, crystals,a vaguely nautical vibe, sure. But that’s not magical. Is it?
“You’re telling me there’s an actual mermaid trapped in that chandelier?” Zander asks, peering up with interest. Maybe toomuch interest. When Ellowyn elbows him in the stomach, the chandelier seems to dance.
Azrael only shrugs. “Naturally. Though in Melisande’s case, maybe that’s for the best. She can be so melodramatic.”
As we watch, the crystals on the chandelier... shimmer.
“So someone cursed you into our newel post?” Rebekah asks, not as interested in the shimmering. Likely because Azrael was making threats toward her beloved, however vague. “And a mermaid into our chandelier?”
“Notsomeone. The Joywood. They wiped out who they could, including their own.” Azrael looks pointedly at Frost. “Then they cursed therest of us. They couldn’t actually exterminate the most powerful among us, but they could trap us in place. So they did.”Another shrug, though there’s nothing lazy about it this time. “Assholes.”
The Joywood. Of course, the Joywood. I try to sift through everything I learned about dragons, mermaids, unicorns, and allthe rest of the various magical creatures that supposedly once populated witchdom. The things I learned when I was young andcould sneak such tales under my mother’s nose. She thought it was pointless to worry about extinct beings—and suggested thatmaybe they had never existed at all, that these were just more fantasy stories that people told children.
Ithought I remembered them. Which I didn’t. I couldn’t.
Most witches accept that magical creatures once lived side by side with witches, but long ago. Maybe back when Byzantium wasa thing, not recently enough that the Joywood could have killed and cursed them and installed them in various artistic flourishesaround a house.
But when did the Joywood actually start their reign of terror? They’ve made sure to obscure our understanding. Once I unlockall of the witchlore archives, I’ll know. I’ll finally know all the Joywood’s dirty secrets, because the archives aren’t likehuman history that changes with the victor of every war. They are many things, but one of those things is a neutral collectionof every lastfact.
“How did this curse break, exactly?” Emerson asks, studying the broken newel post again.
Azrael turns his gaze to me, his eyes direct and rimmed in that gold while otherwise black like onyx. “You tell me,” he says.
“How would I know?”
He doesn’t break that intense stare. “You’re the one who did it.”
Ididn’t do anything. I was just sitting there feeling pathetic and... “All I did was...” I glance back at the stairs.At the newel post that’s now in smithereens.
“What did you do?” Emerson presses when I don’t immediately explain. But I don’t want to tell them the whole story. It’s embarrassing,and they’ll get thatpoor Georgielook that has been ramping up since I started dating Sage.
Who I’m no longer dating. A topic we can broach later. Much later.
You know, once we figure out how there’s adragonin the foyer.
“I was reading that book.” I point at it, because it’s still sitting there on the stairs where I dropped it.
“I thoughtIhad that book,” Ellowyn says, tilting her head slightly, like she expects the book to rush at her.
“I did too,” I tell her. “But it was sitting there, and I just...” I don’t want to tell them, but I remember that I’m GeorgiePendell, who has been known to chase moonbeams and dance skyclad in the back garden, because I long ago decided that if Icouldn’t be perfect then I might as well embrace the weird. Before I tried to grow up, anyway. And still I use that fantasygirl as a weapon or deflection when I need to.
It’s better than touching that live-wire thing inside me that keeps reminding meit’s him.
I smile. “It wanted me to read it. Out loud. I think maybe it was lonely.”
I hope they think about that, a lonely book, rather than why ditzy, airy me was wafting about by myself in Wilde House onThanksgiving.
Meanwhile, I think about what I actually said out loud. Words about love. Promises. No spell. Nothing magical. Just the oldwords of some fairy tale.
And I’m pretty sure I said them all with as much disdain as I could manage.
I push on, keeping ahead of any potentially embarrassing questions or my own traitorously pounding heart and giddy head. “Then everything started to shake.” I explain Azrael’s sudden appearance in detail, because I know Emerson will demand it if I don’t. “I don’t think I actually did anything. Reading the book out loud has to be a coincidence.”
“A book is a spell even a human can cast,” Azrael says, as if it’s simple enough. And as if he’s chiding me a little whilehe says it. “A universal magic.”
“I...” I say that all the time. Exactly that, and especially to witches who get sniffy about humans.
