Page 21 of Dragon Fires Everywhere
I thought that would have been obvious, but Rebekah takes her time nodding. “Wewon’t hold it against him. But your dragon will. He already does.”
It feels a bit unfair, this ownership. I didn’tmeanto free him, even if it was somehow me and that damn book. I ignore that growing feeling ofbelonginginside me when I think of him. I concentrate onreality. “He’s notmydragon.”
Rebekah’s eyebrows rise, her expression going carefully bland. “I’m sure it was someone else riding on his back last night,then.”
I can only stare at her. I have no quick lies. No ditzy smile. She... saw?
“Coronis,” she offers, with a slight smile.
Frost’s familiar. I don’t know how I didn’t see a giant, ancientraven trolling about the heavens, but I guess I was a little busy being wildly joyful that Azrael was wheeling me around and around the night sky.
Rebekah sets her tablet aside and comes to stand beside me. She puts her hand on my shoulder and looks down at me, her facenot blank anymore.
I think what I see is compassion. I’m afraid it might be pity.
“Be careful, Georgie,” she says quietly. “We don’t know enough about dragons, and Nicholas certainly doesn’t trust this one.”
I try not to frown. “I’m always careful.” Isn’t the fact that I’m here poring over old tomes a case in point? The dragon ridewas just... Azrael.
I tell myself that, stoutly. And then keep going. What am I supposed to do? Refuse a dragon? I tried, didn’t I?
No one has to know about that pulse in me.Us.No one has to get the faintest hint that this all feels as familiar to me as if I’ve known him all my life. As if his appearancemade all my years make sense at last.
Facts, I tell myself.Not fiction and fairy tales.
I open the next book, wanting to get back to where I’m comfortable. The text is written in very old German script, and yearsof going through old books mean I don’t even have to mutter a translation spell to understand it. But still, it’s very dryand boring.
I place my hands on the ancient pages, and let myselffeel. The history, the power, the magic. I internally say the words that tend to help me find what I need.
Words of old, knowledge told, lead me to what must be exposed.
I let my eyes drift closed, the magic within me humming. And this feelsfamiliarin a way that doesn’t make me ache.Goodwhen the past day has been so weird. For a moment, I feel the way I usually do.Carefulandrooted. Once again—at last—I know exactly what and who I am, and have been.Especially when my hands lift and pages turn of their own accord, then settle.
I open my eyes and survey the page the book wishes to show me. It’s a drawing or a diagram of sorts. A rectangle that almostlooks like it’s meant to represent a table. In a very old language, it announces that this is the shape of a true coven.
For a second, I think of that Thanksgiving table I saw from outside. A full and happy table without me. How adding myselffelt like an imbalance. I’m half afraid to look at the list of designations at each place along the table, for fear I won’tbe represented in anytrue coven.
But there areeightmeticulously labeled places at this table, not the proper seven that I was always taught a coven needed, or even the sixI was afraid were all that were really needed last night.
I stare at the page, feeling my pulse pick up as I try to take in what I’m seeing.
A Warrior is at the head. That’s no surprise. On either side sit a Healer and a Diviner. Then a Guardian and a Revelare arethe next two, seated across from each other in the middle seats. Then a Praeceptor and a Historian in the last two seats.On the end is afabulae. A very,veryold witch word for a magical creature.
Now whatever’s happening with my pulse is making my heart slam against my ribs.
I scan down to the paragraph beneath the diagram.A true coven is made up of its leader at the head and a fabulae at the end. They’re buttressed on one side by hope: the future,the past, and the connection to both in the middle. On the other side, practicality: knowledge, healing, protection.
I feel like I can hardly breathe. It’s proof that Azrael is right. But more than that, it’s a different understanding of whata coven is than we’ve ever had.
Because,a voice in me says with great authority,they didn’t want you to know. They didn’t want anyone to know.
Before I can beckon Rebekah over, Frost appears. He’s holding a giant, ancient book that looks like it hasn’t been opened in centuries, and might have been produced by hand. He drops it on the table in a way that makes the archivist in me wince.
“I think I’ve found a spell in this one that should work to shroud a magical creature’s power,” he says. “Should your dragondeign to trust us.”
He’s not my dragon.But I won’t protest too much. I refuse.
And besides, there’s that achingthingin me that makes a protest feel like a betrayal.
