Page 36 of Sons of Sorrow
Luna cleared her throat. “Very cute hug-fest you have going on here and everything, but shouldn’t we be looking for the next guardian?”
“Absolutely not.” Bruna stamped her foot. “Wasn’t the phoenix harrowing enough? We stuck around to harvest multiple guardians in the Oriel of Water because we needed to empower the Wispwell. I’m all for good grades and passing projects, Luna, but this place is far too dangerous.”
Luna stamped her foot as well. Sisters, right? “You can go back to the Wispwood if you want. I am not failing just because you’re too cowardly to help me track down another guardian. I don’t care if the rest of you — ”
“Okay, okay,” I said, holding my hands up to placate the sisters. “I’m more than happy to stay and help. Looks like you’ll be needing a bunch of water to extinguish whatever guardian you find next, anyway. Hopefully not a dragon.”
Instead of saying something nice, Luna crossed her arms and lowered her head, hiding behind her bangs once more. “That first Heart of the Flame should have gone to me, anyway.”
“Ah, ah,” said Vanessica, tossing her hair as she trotted casually by. “To the victor go the spoils. The summoner earned his essence, iron witch. Slay the next guardian and earn its essence for yourself.”
Luna’s face screwed up even tighter, her expression going even darker, but she knew the unicorn was right.
“Thank you for your help,” I told Vanessica. “Will you stay for another fight?”
“I must go now,” she said, “but I believe my sister will be quite happy to join you.”
Vanessica stamped her foot — lots of stamping — and disappeared in a puff of rainbow glitter. That left Swimberly, who was deep in conversation with Sylvain. My eidolons were bonding. Interesting development, that.
“How curious,” Sylvain said, “that your talents are so different from your sisters. And yet it was your very specific magics that saved the day, friend Swimberly.”
Swimberly’s laughter reminded me of a dolphin, of whale-song stripped of its melancholy. “Isn’t it odd, Sylvain? It isn’t the blood that bonds family at the end of the day. I may be very different from my sisters, not even born of the same mother. But I love them still, knowing that something deeper and more meaningful connects us. Perhaps it is our magic, after all. Perhaps it is love.”
“Yes,” Sylvain said, addressing Swimberly, even though his gaze seemed like it was staring a thousand miles away. “Perhaps it is love.”
Something had clicked for him in that conversation, there among the smoke and fire. In my first days at the Wispwood, if someone had asked me whether I’d ever expect a magical narwhal to save my hide and answer my prayers? I would have laughed in their face. Turned out that magical narwhal had answered my fae prince’s prayers, too.
I decided to leave the two of them to wrap up their very important conversation, almost jumping out of my skin when I came face to face with a tiny man with burning hair. Ember stared me dead in the face. I blinked, unsure of what to say.
“You’re a powerful summoner,” he said, one eyebrow quirked.
I flustered. “Well, I don’t know about that.”
Satchel buzzed in from behind him, the two of them flitting side by side. “He is. Sort of. Well, he’s getting there.”
“Gee,” I said, giving him a smirk. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Satchel.”
Ember nodded determinedly, crossing his arms like he wasn’t about to take “No” for an answer, even though he hadn’t asked me anything yet.
And he didn’t ask me anything, in fact. He demanded.
“That settles it,” Ember said, his hair burning brighter than before. “I think I’ll have plenty to learn from you. I’m coming with you.”
“Well, that’s very kind of you, Ember,” I said. “We’ll be hanging around at least long enough to find and defeat another guardian, so — ”
“No. You don’t understand. I’m coming with you.”
Satchel’s jaw dropped, stunned into silence. I opened my mouth to answer, but found that I’d been taken by surprise myself. Apparently we’d made a new friend to bring home to the Wispwood.
And if a certain four-inch-tall familiar played his cards right, he might have a new boyfriend, too.
16
“And that’swhy the hydraling could grow so many heads,” I said, munching on an apple, sitting on the edge of Dr. Euclidea Fang’s desk. “I guess it was drawing on the phoenix’s power. I mean, the hydraling swallowed an entire phoenix egg. Can you believe that?”
Dr. Fang’s lips twisted as she gazed up at me. “I still can’t believe you worked up the gall to snatch that apple from my desk.”
I blinked at her, then at the apple, somehow managing to keep the swirl of despair and horror in my chest from spiraling out of control. It was the thrill of victory, of having finally completed the set of elemental gemstones on my medallion. Something must have taken over me, the way I swaggered into Fang’s office and swiped what might have been part of her lunch, or a sensible snack.
