Dragon Fires Everywhere, page 10
There are three different sounds of outrage, so I rush to explain. “I think the shock of it was more about the fact he was actually doing that, not that I was hurt.” That is actually true, though I hadn’t planned to advertise it. But now it feels like I don’t have a choice. I look at each of my friends in turn. “I didn’t love him. I tried to. I tried very hard to, but I didn’t. So it really isn’t a tragedy. I’m not hurt. I was surprised, maybe a little offended. But I’m fine.”
“Then why didn’t you tell us?” Rebekah asks.
I want to throw a tantrum or challenge a dragon to a duel, but instead I smile. Gently. “Because I know none of you liked him.”
They all exchange those usually-behind-my-back glances that make me want to scream. But I don’t.
Rebekah is eyeing me. “So that means you couldn’t tell us he’s a disgusting, cheating, lying worm?”
“Why does it matter?” And some of my frustration must leak through then, because Emerson moves from the end of the bed to sit next to me.
“Because it means we don’t have to be nice to him if he’s a lying cheater,” Rebekah says, as if that’s obvious.
“Because it means he’s not just boring, he’s slime,” Ellowyn adds.
Emerson reaches over and wraps her arm around my shoulders. “Because it happened to you.”
I have never once doubted my friends. I love them. I know they love me. But I don’t love the feeling of people . . . having feelings about what I do or how I do it. I don’t like them having reactions I have to deal with.
Azrael’s voice from earlier echoes in my head. Your mother really did a number on you.
And I hate that in this moment, it makes sense. Because I know my friends don’t judge me the way my mother does. But because she did, I don’t want any reaction to what I am or what I do.
It’s why I put up the mask and walls. Not because I don’t think they’ll react kindly, but because I want zero reactions.
“It doesn’t matter.” They start to protest, but I refuse to let them. “It really doesn’t. It sucks because it’s embarrassing, not because I lost some great love of my life.”
“Let’s come up with a curse.”
“Rebekah,” Emerson scolds, but she’s smiling.
“Just a tiny curse? Like on his penis,” Ellowyn says, then grins. “Get it? Tiny.”
And I’m able to smile a little at that. It’s not that I feel better. But they know, and they’re supporting me without piling on how much none of them liked Sage. How much they knew better. That’s preferable to waiting for them to find out on their own.
Not that this ever had to happen, much less because of an interfering dragon.
Still, it did.
And I’ve dealt with it.
The end.
“No curses. No rituals. None of that is necessary.” I give them all a stern look, and because I am never all that stern, they actually seem to listen. “It was a relationship. It ended. I’d like to focus on opening the archives at the Cold Moon Ceremony next week.”
Rebekah and Ellowyn look a little surly at that, and I feel certain there will be a round of Curse the Cheater teas at Tea & No Sympathy by morning, but eventually I get a promise from them that they won’t actually curse Sage.
Not that I want to protect him, but we are the ruling coven now. We can’t go around enacting revenge curses. That’s what the Joywood are famous for. We need to be different. We are different.
But when Ellowyn and Rebekah head off, back to their own lives, I can’t seem to dislodge Emerson.
She’s quiet for a few minutes, and that is worrisome. I know what she’s about to say is going to be heavy. Important.
“I have always given you space when you wanted it,” she tells me eventually. “Or I’ve tried to. You’re the only one I’ve ever managed to do that consistently for.”
I know she’s right, and it means more than I can express. So we just . . . lean into each other, there on my bed.
“But I don’t want you shutting me out on stuff that actually means something,” she says. “We don’t need a heart-to-heart every time you have an emotion, but you need to at least share.”
I stiffen a little at that, though I try not to. “I’m an only child, Em. I don’t like to share.”
“Don’t make me steamroll you. I hear it’s very painful.” She smiles again. “You’ve heard what people say about me. You know it’s true. Everyone should hate me, I’m a raging narcissist who bullies everyone, blah blah blah.”
I manage a laugh, because right now I wish any of that was true, so I could hate her and dismiss what she’s saying to me as the closest thing to a sister I have. “I don’t want to waste time talking about him, hating him,” I manage to get out. “He was a mistake. My mistake.”
Emerson sighs. “Sometimes we have to share our mistakes, you know. Just like we share our successes.”
I know this is new for our fearless leader—who very much preferred to succeed and fail on her own not that long ago. “You’re so evolved,” I tease her.
I expect her to laugh, but instead, she nods. “Weird thing is, Georgie, a really good, loving relationship will do that to you.”
She’s being too serious for my liking, but I smile. I let her hug me. And when she finally leaves too, I can admit that I feel a little better.
But there’s still a dragon-shaped pit of anger and frustration—and still that same scalding-hot recognition—in my stomach that isn’t going away anytime soon.
And maybe I don’t want it to.
11
I do not speak with Azrael for the next few days as we lead up to the Cold Moon Ceremony.
I pretend this is because I am just that busy. Which is not entirely untrue.
I spend my days at the museum, dealing with the transfer of my old duties to my replacement and going through what I can find of Happy Ambrose’s to figure out what my new role will be, since I can’t trust anything the Joywood tells us. And I spend my nights up in Frost’s library, researching fabulae and true covens, because if I fall asleep there in one of the big, cozy chairs, so what? That happens when pulling all-nighters.
And if I expect Azrael to come charging up the bluff or break through the block that I put up to keep him out of my head, well . . . that’s between me and my active fantasy life that I’ve been trying to suppress for the whole of my existence.
He was in the wrong. That’s all there is to it. I will not acknowledge his existence until he apologizes.
But I also avoid that existence, because somehow I get the feeling that dragons aren’t the sort to hang around, hoping to be acknowledged.
On the evening of the ball, all the members of the Riverwood get ready on our own, but we decide to meet at Wilde House to head to the Cold Moon Ceremony together. Because it’s always a good idea to show everyone that we’re a unit. And, bonus, we’re more powerful together.
There are two components to the Cold Moon Ceremony tonight. First, the town element, fit for witch and human alike. An actual ball with fancy dress and champagne and over-the-top Christmas decor and music—thanks to Emerson and her event committee, of course.
The second component happens at midnight and is the first ceremonial act of a new ruling coven—according to what little we’ve been able to find on what happens after the ascension trials. According to the lore, the voted-out coven is supposed to help and guide the new coven through the transfer of power. Hence the time between the trials and the solstice when we actually gain full power.
You can imagine how helpful the Joywood have been in that regard.
Nevertheless, we’ve managed. I’ve collected everything we need to open the archives—the first step toward our assumption of full power. Access to the full archives means knowledge. Not just of rules and law and coven matters, but everything. Family trees, as Azrael mentioned the other day. Histories that I know the Joywood have obscured from us, that they don’t want 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 warning fairy tale.
I have only encountered one other thing in this life that makes me as giddy as the prospect of finally knowing 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 childhood into 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. Face down. I don’t think so, I tell the universe and all the watchful goddesses, while that terrible ache inside me shifts to longing before settling low 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 any pulsing. 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’s all 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 was showy. This means that events like this are special. A reason to put on a fancy outfit, even if it does sparkle, because even a musty, 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 with a 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 that ache inside me is nothing more than longing. He holds up a hand, and a gold chain full of sparkling colorful jewels unfurls in a line that swings like a pendulum. It takes me a moment to recognize that it’s a necklace.
A gorgeous necklace.
He still says nothing.
I order myself not to think 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 attractive men 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. I really do. I like all rocks, but semiprecious and precious stones are a great personal weakness of mine. My hands itch to reach out and grab the necklace, but I have set a boundary and I will not cross it. I will not, 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 way running away from 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’s right there. “What is wrong with you?”
“I don’t understand why you’re angry.”
“I don’t understand how you’ve lived hundreds of years at least and can’t comprehend something so simple.”
I should probably take the necklace off. I don’t.
Azrael sighs, but impatiently. As if I’m the problem here. “You should tell your friends the things that happen to you. This is common knowledge. I solved this problem for you.”
“It isn’t up to you to tell anyone anything. Or to solve a problem I didn’t ask you to be involved in. It’s up to me.”
“But I am right, and you were wrong.”
I remind myself that smiting other beings is wrong, no matter the justification. “Forget it.”
“You admit I was right, though.”
It’s like arguing with a brick wall. I turn to walk away, but he appears in a puff of smoke in front of me, blocking my escape route.
He looks annoyed, but . . . indulgent? I don’t like it. No matter how it winds its way inside me, joining that hot, deep ache. “Very well, I am sorry for . . . doing the right thing that you did not want me to do.”
He’s impossible. I tell him so, and not very nicely.
Azrael only shrugs. “I am a dragon.”
It shouldn’t be endearing. I shouldn’t want to smile. I certainly shouldn’t forgive him.
Then again, he did apologize. And he’s wearing a tuxedo. A very elegant, fashionable tuxedo. I thought it was bad enough when he was walking down the street in his casual clothes. No one who has ever lusted after a man in any form is going to be able to handle him like this.
I am not particularly able to handle him like this.
And it is clear from that hungry look on his face that he knows it. “We should go,” I tell him. Like a warning.
“Have you forgiven me?” he demands, clearly ready to keep barring the way. And we don’t have time for this.
That’s why I say, “Yes.”
Expediency, that’s all.
There’s that gleam in his gaze again. “Let me back in.”
I frown at him. I’ve already forgiven him, but that doesn’t mean I want him in my thoughts again. “Can’t you just break in, if you’re so mighty and powerful?”
He grins. “I could.”
There’s something about the fact that he could, but hasn’t, that I assure myself means he’s growing. Understanding boundaries better. I close my eyes and picture turning a key in a lock—essentially undoing the block I put up.
“Excellent,” he says, and then he puts his hand at the small of my back and leads me toward the stairs. As if nothing ever happened and we’re the best of friends.
Or something more than friends, maybe, a voice inside me whispers, but I’m not about to acknowledge what else we might look like, walking down the stairs in elegant clothes like this, his palm a shocking bolt of heat against that tender place on my back.
Wilde House is full-on decorated now—a product of both Emerson’s and my magic—for the historical home tours I’ll be giving this weekend. We went with a 1950s vintage look. Plenty of bright colors and tinsel and grinning Santas.
Everyone else is already waiting in the bright and sparkling foyer, even Jacob, who got a last-minute Healer call earlier to deal with a small, random attack that reeked of black magic.
“We clean up nice, don’t we?” Emerson beams at all of us like she dressed us herself—an offer she made that was declined.
I feel like everyone is staring at my necklace, but if so, they don’t mention it.
Emerson switches modes and starts instructing us on what’s to come as she herds us out of Wilde House and we head over to the ball. Zander and Ellowyn wave down one of the horse-drawn carriages that are out tonight, creating a nice vintage feel to the cobbled streets on such a cold evening. Zander shoos away three crows that have been perched on the back of the carriage as he helps Ellowyn climb inside. Rebekah and Frost flag down their own.
The rest of us walk, and we all arrive at the same time to go inside together. Emerson is waylaid by members of her committee almost immediately, and I look around at the winter holiday wonderland she’s created in the community center. It looks like half of St. Cyprian is here already, with more pouring in the doors by the minute. We know almost everyone, because small towns are like that. The difference is that these days, everyone wants to make sure they know us too.
As we make our way through the crowd, we notice the Joywood contingent, huddled together in one corner. They’re dressed up, but they don’t look . . . quite themselves. Festus has one pocket hanging inside out, which is just strange from a fastidious man like him. Maeve is wearing mismatched shoes and an overlarge hat, as if trying to hide her hair. Felicia Ipswitch has a bandage around her hand in a way that almost appears as though there’s no hand beneath it.
It’s creepy.
Creepier still, Carol is the only one who looks the same, if a little more shiny and resplendent than usual.
“I don’t like it,” Ellowyn says, and it’s what we’re all thinking.
Emerson catches up to me and looks at them while pretending not to, like all of us are doing right now. She leans in close. “I think their power is dwindling,” she says in my ear. “Their influence isn’t as strong. They’ve lost, and it’s showing.”
I want to believe she’s right, but I don’t like how pleased they seem, despite all the dishevelment.
They smell smug, Azrael says in my head. Unhelpfully.
“Stop staring,” Zander orders us all in a low tone while grinning at a group of humans as we pass. “They live for that.”
“Besides,” Frost says in his icy way, “it’s unseemly for the winners to appear to gloat.”
He’s not wrong, so we move as a group toward a table where we can set down our things and maybe grab a plate of the appetizers being passed around on trays. Emerson stops and talks to all the different people who flock to her, looking every inch the leader people respect and lean on—just as she always has. Even before we beat the Joywood.
Even when she thought she was human.
Before we can make another move, the Joywood descend upon us. Except they seem to be missing Felix.
