Page 26 of Dragon Fires Everywhere
“Better to get it done now than wait for a special time,” Frost says. “Every moment he’s unshrouded is a ticking time bomb.Much like the dragon himself.”
I feel Azrael’s impressive biceps tense underneath my hand, which is distracting enough. Then he turns that dark, hot gazeon me.I trustyou, Georgina. Only you.
My heart does thatthingthat only Azrael brings out in me. It’s like panic and fear mixed with hope and joy, all of it wrapped up ingriefandyesand that recognition I still want to deny. I don’t like it at all. Too many complicated emotions when I prefer them to bestraightforward. I can be sad or mad or happy or nervous, but I don’t want to beall of them.
At the same time.
Though the way Azrael looks at me, it’s hard not to think that complication might not be so bad...
I hear Emerson clear her throat. She’s looking at me meaningfully, like we’re going to have a talk later.
But not yet.
“I think we need to put a bubble around the room,” I tell the coven, as if I’ve been thinking of nothing else. Certainly nothow complicated I might need to get with Azrael, purely for research purposes. To see how much I dislike it... or don’t.“Not just the normal protections around Wilde House, but a specific, obscuring bubble around this room to make sure no onecan catch the slightest hint of what we’re doing. Or why.”
Everyone offers their agreement. Frost, who agreed with me on this earlier, nods. “The familiars will hold it for us.”
As if they’ve been listening, they begin to appear. Not necessarilyinthis room, but around Wilde House. We can feel them out there—layers of protection against anything that might wish us ill,anyone that might betray us.
We arrange ourselves in our normal circle, then all kind of stop... because we need to make room for a new member. A verylarge member.
Which reminds me of the most amazing thing we learned today.
“Let’s arrange ourselves like the table. The book.” I flick a wrist toward the hearth and act like I’m Emerson, projectinga witch PowerPoint of sorts above the fire. The image is the same as the one I saw in the book in Frost’s library and thediagram I drew Emerson in the kitchen, with all the Old High German labels translated into English.
“The spell said a circle,” Frost points out.
The way he did all afternoon.
I nod because, in the normal way of things, he’s right. A circle is balance. It’s power. It’sprotection. We’ve done so much in a circle this past year because it is the most centered way to use our magic.
But this is what I told him, so this is what I tell everyone elsenow. “I think this is an adjustment we have to make. We’re a true coven now. We need to behave as a true coven.”
I could be wrong. Frost didn’t offer me his opinion on that. All he said was that we should put it to a coven-wide vote. Isuspect because he’s oversensitive to any faint hint that he might be acting outside of the lines. And good for him on that.
Still, I don’t think I’m wrong on this. And if there’s anything that being Emerson’s best friend since we were small has taughtme, it’s that doubting yourself never gets you where you need to go. Belief has a power all its own.
“It makes sense,” Emerson agrees with a nod, and looks around to make sure everyone’s on board. When they all indicate thatthey are, she turns back. “Do we need a table?”
“No, I think the floor is fine,” I say, moving more into the center of the room. “Think of the rug like a table. Emerson,you’re at the head.”
She takes a seat on the hardwood floor at the edge of the rug.
A rug that I only now realize, all these years after staring at it and not seeing its pattern, depicts anachtkrapp, an old German fairy-tale creature that looks like a raven, but without eyes and with holes in its wings. I glance at Azrael.Could this be...?
He shrugs negligently, neither affirming nor denying that this rug could be yet another cursed magical creature.
I suppose it doesn’t matter. Not until we know how to free them all.
Everyone else has taken their place, even Azrael. I’m still standing, though, and now everyone is looking at me, so I hurryto my spot.
Emerson starts off by taking Jacob’s and Rebekah’s hands on either side of her, starting the chain. It moves on, Jacob toZander. Rebekah to Ellowyn. Zander to Frost. Ellowyn to me. Me to Azrael. Azrael to—
Frost’s hand is outstretched, but Azrael is only scowling at it.
I squeeze his hand and try to speak to him in his head.I’ve never tried before. I’ve always talked out loud to him as a newel post. But if he can be in my head, if he can be real, I can be in his.
Please.
