Page 73 of Dragon Fires Everywhere
“That isn’t fair, Emerson,” Corinne Martin says, a little too calmly for me to be able to dismiss her outright the way I’dlike to. “Carol doesn’t speak for me, but I have concerns about what I saw with my own two eyes. Fire-breathing. Huge claws.If he wanted to take us all out, he could.”
“He could burn down the whole town!” Joanne cries. “Who would stop him? Whocould?”
It’s all right. I’ll agree to another one of their prisons.Azrael’s voice is in our heads, and we all turn to look at him—except Emerson. She’s still gazing at Corinne. Not in betrayal,exactly, but certainly with some hurt, as I know she thought the other woman was a friend.
But then, things change when you’re the friend with all the power.
No.I say it firmly so everyone in my coven can hear it reverberate in their heads.We’re not bowing down to mob mentality. To the Joywood’s manipulations.What was the point in winning the election if we’re still genuflecting to them?
Azrael’s eyes are pure gold, and his voice is only in my head then.Trust me, Georgina.
It isn’t fair.
No, he agrees, and offers nothing else.
“I accept these conditions,” Azrael says to the crowd before Emerson has a chance, and he does it in that lazy way of histhat I’m sure riles up as many people as it comforts. “I won’t fight you. Lock me back into the newel post.”
“Oh, no, not in Wilde House,” Carol says at once, with a hint of her former titter. “We can’t trust these sympathizers witha dragon in their home. We’ll imprison him at my house.”
“We’re supposed to trustyouwith access to a dragon you want destroyed?” I demand of Carol. “I don’t think so.”
She smirks at me. “My, my, Georgie—we’re awfully touchyabout it, aren’t we? For a woman who was only moments ago very seriously entangled with one of our honorable high school teachers.”
I don’t look at Sage. I won’t give him or Carol the satisfaction.
“The cemetery,” Frost says, interrupting whatever Carol is trying to get at. “It’s across the river and safely apart fromSt. Cyprian. Off the bricks, yet sacred. No oneshouldbe able to do anything untoward there.” But he raises a brow at Carol, as if already accusing her of something.
“How could we possibly trust your spell?” Felicia asks, her canny gaze on the crowd, gauging their responses. She’s wearingan overlarge hat, and I find myself wondering if she has any hair under it.
“We’re supposed to allow you to do it?” Rebekah asks with a laugh.
“We’ll each choose three peoplenotin either one of our covens,” Emerson says. “Anyone here in the crowd can nominate and vote on a seventh. Then they’ll speakthe spell that imprisons the dragon across the river in the cemetery until we can prove to you all he is not a threat. Becausehe isn’t.”
“And how will you determine this, Emerson?” Carol asks, her voice a slithering thing I can feel down my spine. “With yourfeelings?”
“The way we intend to determine everything that matters to this town,” Emerson replies with that admirable calm whenmyblood pressure is skyrocketing by the second. “A vote where all voices can be heard. And tracked by everyone in witchdom.As the days go forward, we’ll endeavor to communicate all the reasons Azrael is not a threat to you. If your minds change,and you wish to see him freed, you only have to send me your change of vote. Once we have a majority, he’ll be freed.”
Felicia sniffs. “And if you never reach a majority?”
Emerson looks at Azrael, and her expression is hard to read. This is the leader she is, I know. Always fair—but fairness isn’talways easy. And being a good leader isn’t always doing the thing you feel is right the second you want to do it.
I hate it.
“If the tide has not changed by solstice and our full ascension,” Emerson tells the crowd in the same calm way, “we will havea meeting to determine his fate.”
Azrael does not have any reaction to this. Not like me. I want to tell Emerson she’s out of her mind, but I can’t do it herein front of a crowd. It’s never been harder to keep my mouth shut.
With everyone’s agreement, our two covens choose three people each to do the spell, with the crowd nominating the seventh.Emerson picks Jacob’s sister, Ellowyn’s mother, and my... well. The man I grew up thinking was my father.
Carol picks Joanne—no surprise there—then Dane Blanchard, andmymother.
I stare at her as she takes her place with the Joywood’s choices. She doesn’t look at me and I think,Okay then. I guess she has nothing to say to me now that I know the truth. Not just who my real father is, but whosheis.
Cadence Pendell isn’t as good and respectable as she wants the world to believe. I could ruin that for her, couldn’t I? Icould do it right here, right now.
There are a lot of lives I could ruin with a few words, I think, and the desire to do just that washes over me when I seethe smug way Sage is watching me from his little group of teacher friends I never liked.
But Azrael comes to stand beside me. He puts his hand on the nape of my neck in a way that is not likely to quell any rumorsabout us, but I love it. I lean into it. The heat, the strength, the certainty that all these lives have come and gone, butweremain.
