Page 16 of Dragon Fires Everywhere
“I don’t know.” He sounds unconcerned. “Melisande was the only one I could see.”
I try a different tack. “What magical creatures were here in town with you before the killings? The curses?”
“Too many to name.” But he considers. “In St. Cyprian,specifically, there was a Fenrir, a handful of fairies, centaurs, basilisks, griffins, and so on.”
I think about all the things around town in the shape of these creatures. Sage’s spigot. A post on Main Street in the shapeof a griffin. There’s a little fairy trapped in stained glass in my childhood bedroom. I can see her from my window here inWilde House.
It’s so much to take in.
Because it’s not just another secret—I think if it wasonedragon inonenewel post, I’d be able to cope with it more easily. Even with all the ramifications.
But we’re not talking about a single act. We’re talking about the Joywood targeting all the magical creatures there were.Killing them outright. Cursing them into hiding, and then erasing them from history. Turning them into fairy tales or dinosaurs,little more than acts of imagination on the part of children before they grow up. Not just to gain immortality, but to ensurethey’re the only ones who can.
I already thought the Joywood were evil.
But this is next-level.
“When I go to Frost’s tomorrow to work on the spell for your glamour, I’ll see if he has any books about magical creatures.Perhaps that will help fill in some blanks.”
Azrael scowls at me. “You trust Frost. A murderer.”
I blow out a breath. “Frost has never pretended to be a good man. We all knew from the start that you don’t become an immortalfrom doing good things. Maybe that’s why I trust him. There’s no bluster, no pretension. Has your life been blameless, Azrael?”
Another scoffing sound. “Dragons don’t believe in blame.”
“But it sounds like you blame Frost when there’s the whole Joywood wandering around, ripe for a little blame of their own.They’re the ones who actually cursed you, aren’t they?”
“Dragons don’t blameourselves. Dragons, by definition, areblameless.” That grin of his is a weapon. I’m not sure he needs the smoke and flame, the claws and the tail. These things I can feel all around us, even though I can’t see them. “Witches, on the other hand, we can and do blame for everything. You deserve it.”
I roll my eyes. What ridiculousness.
And only after I finish the eye-rolling do I think to question what he might blame me for, since I’m the only witch in theroom.
“You said you were tired,” he reminds me, and then he smiles with a kindness I don’t trust for one second. “You should rest.”
I would love to agree, but there’s something about the way he says it. About the way he’s studying my window. “And what areyou going to do?”
He flicks a wrist and my window opens, though it is not an opening kind of window and shouldn’t have obeyed someone else’smagic anyway. I have wards to prevent that.
“I’m going to fly.” And he’s starting to change... scales and smoke and eyes of gold. “Are you coming with me?”
I think to myself that I have never wanted anything more in all my life.
And it sears through me like scalding heat.
I tell myself it’s irritation.
“Azrael, you cannot go aroundflyingin your dragon form. The Joywood will see it or sense it or—”
“Then I’ll go alone.”
I can’t let him do that, for reasons that feel like more of that scalding heat, but I rush forward anyway. With the idea thatI’ll reach out and somehow hold him in place, but he’s smoke.
But it’s notjustsmoke, because the smoke grabs me. Out the window I go, somehow, against my will. Or it would be against my will, surely,if I had access to anything that felt like will instead of that heat that is like a pulse in me, deep and wild.
And as we go, the smoke and scales come together to form that gigantic dragon I first saw erupt from the newel post.
I can feel him become corporeal. I can feel the strength of him, the heat. It meets that pulse in me and adds to it, likewe’re both a part of thathumming.
