Page 38 of Dragon Fires Everywhere
Nevertheless, we’ve managed. I’ve collected everything we need to open the archives—the first step toward our assumption offull power. Access to the full archives means knowledge. Not just of rules and law and coven matters, buteverything. Family trees, as Azrael mentioned the other day. Histories that I know the Joywood have obscured from us, that they don’twant us to know about. And no doubt all manner of things I don’t even know I don’t know.
Maybe I’ll even get to the bottom of Ellowyn’s ghost’s obsession with crows, and why they seem to show up in that warningfairy tale.
I have only encountered one other thing in this life that makes me as giddy as the prospect of finallyknowing all the things, and I’m not speaking to him.
I go to pull the dress I’m planning to wear out of the closet,but on my way, I catch sight of the fairy-tale book on the corner of my dresser, where it definitely wasn’t a few moments ago.
I pick it up and look at the cover. It no longer shows Azrael bleeding, or the sweeter cover I remember from my entire childhoodinto adulthood. Tonight the princess and the dragon are wrapped up together.
In what can only be described as a steamy embrace.
For a moment, I can only stare. Then, as if scalded from the outside and inside at once, I put it back on the dresser. Facedown.I don’t think so, I tell the universe and all the watchful goddesses, while that terrible ache inside me shifts to longing before settlinglow in my belly.
Then pulses with a whole new kind of heat.
I march to my closet, pull out my dress, and ignore the strange butterflies in my stomach and anypulsing. I remind myself that the last cover was Azrael bleeding and falling, and it hasn’t happened.
No reason at all to suppose the current cover will come to life either.
If I know anything about the universe—and any attendant goddesses—it’s that they love their little jokes. I decide that’sall this book is. Because what else could it be?
I force myself to concentrate on getting dressed instead, though my hands are shaky.
I have always loved to dress up, something that was frowned upon in the Pendell house because it wasshowy. This means that events like this are special. A reason to put on a fancy outfit, even if it does sparkle, because even amusty, dusty Historian should be in a pretty dress for a Christmas ball.
I study myself in the mirror. I look good. Maybe a bit more like the princess from the fairy-tale book than I find comfortable,considering my current standoff with Azrael, but hey, who doesn’t want to go to a ball looking like a princess? Complete witha tiara.
I turn to leave my room because we’re meeting up downstairs—
But Azrael is standing in my doorway. I stop short.
He says nothing. Just stands there, his dark gold eyes making me understand at last that all thatacheinside me is nothing more than longing. He holds up a hand, and a gold chain full of sparkling colorful jewels unfurls ina line that swings like a pendulum. It takes me a moment to recognize that it’s a necklace.
Agorgeousnecklace.
He still says nothing.
I order myself not tothink about that book cover. It is, therefore, all I can think about.
“Am I supposed to take that?” I try to sound cool and sophisticated, like I am proffered jewels from ridiculously attractivemen on the daily.
Those dark eyes gleam. “That is commonly what a person does with a gift, yes.”
I stand taller.Primmer.“You didn’t say who it’s for. Or who it’s from.”
He scowls at me. “Do you want the gift or no?”
I do. Ireallydo. I like all rocks, but semiprecious and precious stones are a great personal weakness of mine. My hands itch to reach outand grab the necklace, but I have set a boundary and I will not cross it. I willnot, no matter how pretty a bauble.
“No,” I say firmly, then make myself walk past him.
But as I’m charging down the hall—in no wayrunning awayfrom him, I try to assure myself—I suddenly feel a weight around my neck. I look down, and the jewels are fastened there.He magicked the necklace onto me.
I whirl back to face him and he’sright there. “What iswrongwith you?”
“I don’t understand why you’re angry.”
“I don’t understand how you’ve lived hundreds of yearsat leastand can’t comprehend something so simple.”
