Dragon Fires Everywhere, page 22
There’s a dull ache behind my eyes from reading page after page in one musty old tome after the next, but it’s a good ache. Whatever else it might signify—like that maybe I need glasses—it’s also a sign of work being done.
It’s the only sign of progress I really have.
I read a lot about black magic. Mostly treatises about why it’s against the law, dire accounts of its use and its effects, and example after example explaining why it’s subject to the harshest punishments in witchdom. And while I understand the historical context of St. Cyprian staples like our enchanted bricks, offering safety—and no black magic—to all, it’s not enough to move forward with anything that might help us now.
I keep the stalkery fairy-tale book—written by my grandmother, for me—with me the whole time, thinking it might give me a clue as to where I should look next and what might be coming.
But it doesn’t change.
I’m determined to stay in the archives until I figure everything out and can go back to my coven with spells and a plan, but Emerson starts sending me messages as the hours drag by. About brains without food.
So when I close up the archives, it’s dark and cold. A fully December sort of night, here in a river town in Missouri all decked out in holiday lights. A faint snow is falling as I head outside and shiver into my coat. I feel a pull to walk back to Wilde House, to wander down Main Street and soak in the lights set against the darkest time of the year—
But that pull reminds me a little too much of being sucked into the river, so I magic myself over to the front gate of Wilde House instead. I want to scratch the itch of holiday perfection by looking at one of the prettiest houses around, all done up in the snowy moonlight.
Instead of having a moment to breathe in the cold air and get right with the Cold Moon, I immediately notice that my father seems to have done the exact same thing.
Except he’s not my father, I remind myself. He’s Stanford Pendell, and he’s no relation to me. He never has been.
It makes my heart hurt.
We’re both standing in front of our respective gates, gazing up at the house I grew up in and the house I live in.
If we weren’t so close, I might have hurried in and pretended our paths hadn’t crossed, because I have no idea what to say. Or do. Or feel.
But there’s no hiding in the moonlight. Not with snow on my face and his gaze steady on mine from yards away.
He smiles that same sad smile from the Cold Moon Ball, illuminated only by the flickering streetlamp and the stars above. “Working late again, princess?”
I swallow at the lump that’s suddenly lodged deep in my throat. I realize that I’m staring at him. Because he’s so . . . familiar. He’s so dear to me.
Yet he’s not mine.
He’s always called me princess, even when my mother berated him for indulging me in my chronic daydreams. I walk over to him, propelled by something I can’t quite name.
Maybe I can fix the distance between me and somebody.
It’s a pull that feels far more elemental than a melody or a river. It seems to come from the depths of my own heart.
When I get up close, the only word I can manage is, “Why?”
He aims that smile toward the cold ground between us. “You could be asking a lot of different whys.”
The night is frigid and getting colder as we stand here. The snow is coming down harder, small flakes that speak of future snowdrifts and snow days. No one should be standing out here like this for too long, no matter how heartbroken we might feel.
We should go inside, I think. I should invite him in for tea, have a mature, adult conversation, and work through this in some kind of healthy way.
But I feel rooted to this spot, on a sidewalk with my nose growing colder by the second. And the lobes of my ears. They both sting. “I wasn’t yours. You knew I wasn’t yours.”
He studies me in that quiet, patient way of his. I used to find this annoying. I used to think that when he was deep in research mode, he only ever saw me as a problem to be solved.
But I wasn’t his problem. I never was, and he always had time for me anyway.
“I suppose, in a matter of blood and whatnot, that is true,” he says in that careful way of his that I have spent my life trying and failing to emulate. “And I did know it.”
“So,” I say, and I don’t sound as careful as he does. Or as careful as I should. “Why?”
“What I also knew was that you were here. A perfect little baby girl with all that red hair.” He shakes his head. “I knew that Desmond was not going to admit any involvement, and your mother was ashamed. Of her own actions. Of her own mistakes.” He smiles again, and it’s even sadder this time. “She’s never been good at making those and dealing with the consequences.”
He understands her better than I’ve given him credit for. Certainly better than I ever have.
I want to tell him that, but it’s like I can’t speak. Like this time, my own history has me in its grip, so hard around my throat that all I can do is stare at him through the snow.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen your mother really love anyone,” he tells me in that same quiet way. “Perhaps it’s not in her.” And then he shrugs, like that’s . . . just life. Some people don’t love. “It seemed to me, or it did when I saw an innocent baby, fresh and new and with old souls in her eyes, that someone should love her. And if it wasn’t going to be her father or her mother, it might as well be me, because I loved you from the moment I saw you, Georgie.”
He makes it sound so simple. A choice he made. Like that’s all love is, in the end. A choice.
Like he’s always known about old souls and never thought them foolish, or that I thought too highly of myself to imagine I might have an old soul myself.
He made that choice to love me, day after day. Maybe he never stood up to my mother in any real way, but much like with Lillian, I knew I would always find a soft spot to land with this man. He was who I ran to when I was little.
And maybe I did let my mother get to me, finally. Maybe I had too much of her in my head as this year unfolded and it became clear that we were going to take on the Joywood. When it became obvious what that could mean for me personally.
Still, for a whole lot of years, I got to daydream as I pleased. I got to retreat into my fairy tales and enjoy them as I liked. Because of people like Lillian Wilde, Emerson and Rebekah and Ellowyn—all of my best friends.
But it started here. With him. All because Stanford Pendell thought someone should love the baby his wife gave birth to after an affair.
A few tears fall onto my cold cheeks, and he reaches out and brushes them away. Just like he always did, that achingly familiar brush of his gloves against my skin. “Nothing has changed for me, Georgie. It’s as I told you—facts aren’t the whole story. You of all people should know that you get to write your own as you go.”
It makes me think about past lives. New lives.
And the thread that moves through all of them, no matter the ending.
A thread that isn’t red and terribly painful.
Love.
Maybe none of us can choose who we love, but we can certainly change how we love. This man is living, breathing proof.
I move forward and envelop the only father I’ve ever known—and the only one I imagine I’ll ever acknowledge—in a hug. “Thank you for loving me . . . when you didn’t have to.”
He squeezes me back. Hard. “It’s no great sacrifice to love you, Georgie. I can’t think of a single reason why anyone would ever do anything but.”
I think I knew that, deep down under all the confusion that family tree kicked up, but I needed to hear it. I needed to do this. Maybe I still need to deal with my mother and Desmond at some point, but this is the person who matters the most to me.
Because this is the person who showed me what love is, every single day of my life.
How can I pretend I don’t love him in return? As wholly and completely as I always have?
“Dad,” I say, because he is my dad. Maybe he’s never been my biological father, but he is, and always will be, my dad. “I’d like you to come help me in the witchlore archives. I know I can’t officially deputize you yet, so it might mean a lot of sitting around being a wall I can bounce ideas off of until we get past Yule, but I think . . . I think that’s what we need.”
The people we love and who love us, no matter the circumstances.
No matter the difficulties.
Hasn’t that been the lesson we’ve learned over and over again this year? Love is magic.
Love is the antidote.
To everything.
“I’d be happy to,” my dad tells me. We release each other and smile at each other, wider than ever, maybe because now we both know that love is a choice. That this love is our choice. “Come in for tea, princess. I’ve got a new book I want to tell you about.”
And I might be hungry, I might be tired, but that’s just what I do. I follow him into my childhood home. I sit with my dad in the parlor and discuss books over tea while a fire crackles in the hearth. Octavius senses me over here and magicks himself into my lap. If my mother is somewhere, she doesn’t make an appearance, and that’s a good thing.
It’s just us. Just like before.
And it’s what I need to really believe what he said.
Facts aren’t the whole story.
After a while, my father falls asleep in his chair, and I head back outside. I walk through the snow, the porch lights of Wilde House beckoning to me. I carry Octavius cradled in my arms like a baby.
Inside, it’s dark and a little cold. It still feels like home, but it also feels emptier than it should when I’ve been living here alone more often than not these days. I look down at the snoozing orange cat in my arms.
I suppose him being here means I’m never really alone.
But there’s no dragon in the newel post, or in my bed. So all that new, wild warmth is just kind of dull and cold now. A big stone statue outside of town, in fact.
Love is the answer, I tell myself. It’s a voice that doesn’t sound like mine, though it comes from deep inside me. And I know it’s true.
A love that has existed between Azrael and me across lives.
Through too many deaths to count, and yet we always find each other again, following that red thread down through the ages.
Maybe it’s not so much reincarnation as a chance to get it right. In every other scenario, one of us died violently. Maybe we keep coming back until . . . until we don’t.
Until we find the answer.
23
The next morning we’re all up early at Wilde House before the Christmas Around the World parade. We all have our assigned, volun-told, and occasionally chosen roles.
I’m dressed up like Saint Lucia, complete with white dress, red sash, and wreath of candles on my head. I leave Azrael’s necklace that he gave me in my jewelry box and ignore the little pang it gives me.
When I get downstairs, Emerson is dressed up like a Victorian Mrs. Claus, and—in a surprising twist—somehow got Jacob to dress up like Victorian Santa.
I do not ask how. I suspect it involves very private promises.
He looks a little gray, and I have a bad feeling that means another black magic attack. When Emerson gives me a brief nod, I know I’m right. It’s a concern. There have always been hints, here and there, that black magic has reached out and swatted at people this way, but the continual attacks every few days feel like a ticking time bomb.
But what can be done if the archives won’t give me answers?
I try to push this disappointment away and focus on the happy festivities at hand.
Zander is dressed up like Scrooge, which took only a little pleading from Ellowyn—the kind he never would have succumbed to before this year, no matter how many secret Beltane trysts they shared. Ellowyn herself got excused from the usual costuming on account of pregnancy. This year she’ll just ride on our float, decked out in a dramatic cloak decorated with evergreen and berries, embodying Yule and the upcoming solstice while tossing candy to the watching kids.
Frost refused any and all costumes as a matter of course and dignity, as he put it—but that only means he and Rebekah got put in charge of walking next to the float and handing out pamphlets.
Emerson, Rebekah and I worked hard on them. My historical knowledge, citations, and ability to translate both into simpler, more straightforward explanations work well with Emerson’s uncanny ability to know just what kind of questions people might have. And Rebekah makes everything visually pretty with her graphic design wizardry.
Humans who get their hands on a pamphlet will only see a sweet rundown of the different floats and Santa Clauses—or comparable winter solstice figures—from different countries and traditions.
Witches will see a thorough explanation of fabulae, true covens, and how we intend to proceed with this knowledge. Freeing Azrael, yes, but also finding and freeing other magical creatures. Working together.
It’s been the Riverwood promise since we were nothing but a group of friends.
Emerson was keeping me updated on the votes about Azrael’s fate on an hourly basis until I asked her to stop. Last time she told me it was close, but still in favor of keeping him imprisoned. I told her to just let me know when he’s free.
When, not if. I’ll deal with him then.
Today, I’m focusing on St. Cyprian. On a festival. I always love this time of year and all the different holiday festivals Emerson manages to pack into a few short weeks. How no matter the weather, people come out and support this little town of ours. How the Yule season—regardless how a person or witch or magical creature might celebrate it—is one of togetherness. Of braving the dark winter march toward the light together.
Emerson grabs me before we all head out for the parade. “Where’s your sash?”
I look down. I could have sworn I put it on, but it is indeed missing. I try to magic it into my hands, but it doesn’t appear. I frown a little, but quickly give Emerson a bright smile. She’s on edge for a lot of reasons, hyped up on caffeine and what she always calls festival adrenaline. Best not to worry her.
“I’ll be right back,” I assure her, and magick myself upstairs to my bedroom. The sash is on my bed, tucked under a book.
The fairy tale.
Always the fairy tale.
“Do you have something to tell me, finally?” I mutter at it. I snatch it up and see that the cover has changed, but no matter how I stare at it, I can’t make sense of it.
The princess is still in the foreground. The dragon is off in the back. Still there, still clearly watching, but not a part of the narrative.
“I’m not a fan of that,” I tell the book, but I focus on the princess. And the parts I can’t make sense of.
There are now crows everywhere around the princess. A circle of violet-eyed ones surround her, and it looks like a few of them are putting a necklace over her head.
I peer closer, at the princess and the necklace in one crow’s beak. I blink, because it’s . . . familiar.
I think—I know—I have a necklace like that. A swirling mix of purple, blue, and green in one teardrop-shaped crystal.
I drop the book and walk over to my jewelry box. Since time is limited, I mutter a quick spell to reveal the necklace to me. It lifts up out of all the other crystals and jewelry, so I grab it and slide it over my head.
The book has not led me astray yet, and this necklace has been in my collection so long I don’t even remember how it got there—if someone gave it to me, if I bought it, if I found it somewhere, the way I sometimes do. It’s just . . . always been here.
I decide—I hope—that means it’s only made of good magic and supportive energy. Even though I’m a little leery about trusting in my crystals again.
I hurry up and tie the red sash around my waist, then transport myself downstairs so Emerson doesn’t become totally unglued. She immediately grabs my hand. “We’ll magic ourselves over to the assembly area.”
She doesn’t even give me a chance to help. Propelled by her own magic and one of Ellowyn’s energy teas, she’s got us all to the courtyard, where the parade people are assembling and getting ready to start.
Emerson immediately marches away, but I stay where I am, facing the river. It’s a bright, sunny day, making you think the sun might just fight off the frigid air. The snow from last night’s storm clings to the trees and rooftops, and there are lingering patches of snow and ice on the bricks. Across the icy river, I can just barely see the archway of the cemetery. And the new dragon statue that glints in the light, like a threat.
That pokes at some of my cheer. Something about what the Joywood did to him that day has changed everything, and I hate it. If he wasn’t imprisoned, he’d be with us. Though he’d have to be pretending to be a human still. Pete from London.
I wish he was part of this, but really a part of it. Not as a dragon hiding in a human spell, but as himself. Dragon or man form.
Free, and safe to be who he pleases.
But I don’t want to be mad at him, worrying about him, pining over him today. I want to enjoy this damn parade.
“Where’s Gil?” I hear Emerson ask.
I turn to look at the Joywood contingent. They’ve got their own float, a whole Charles Dickens thing, though several of them are missing. Not just Gil Redd, who normally helps at things like this. And I recoil a little bit as I look at them, because every single one of them except Carol looks like they should be residents of the cemetery.
As in six feet under.
“Gil isn’t feeling well,” Carol says tersely. Her hair is a honey shade of blond in a beautiful, wavy twist—instead of its usual frizz ball, but considering the rest of the Joywood all look like dressed-up zombies, I wonder if that means both Gil’s legs disintegrated or something equally problematic they can’t magic their way out of.
I make a mental note to see if black magic can rot a witch from the inside out. It seems not just plausible, but more and more possible. Especially considering they’re now missing three of their coven members.
