Dragon Fires Everywhere, page 9
And then I forget about magic, because I hear a familiar piercing voice. “Rigsby!”
Because of course this is actually happening. Here. In a crowd containing a dragon.
“Put him down,” I say to Azrael. Firmly.
On a heavy sigh, he does just that as Cailee approaches. The offensive Rigsby runs right into her and throws his arms around his mother dramatically, sobbing and carrying on.
I can see Cailee is about to yell at us. Until her gaze finds mine.
Then she gets kind of . . . wide-eyed.
Satisfyingly wide-eyed, in fact, though the memory of her Daffy Duck tattoo is emblazoned on my mind, and it’s all I can think about for one dazed moment.
“G-Georgie. Hi. Hello.” She’s patting her son’s back as he wails into her side. Her eyes keep getting wider, and I don’t know that she looks ashamed, exactly, but there’s certainly embarrassment.
For the both of us. Even though I have nothing to be embarrassed about.
Except, I suppose, that a dragon was about to eat her child. I swallow my discomfort and summon a sunny smile.
“You’ll have to excuse my friend Pete. He doesn’t deal with children often.”
“Particularly ones with absolutely no manners.” Azrael affects a slight British accent. Then he places his arm over my shoulders, much the way Jacob did to Emerson last night.
Cailee stares at the both of us for a long, ticking sort of moment.
“You brought a friend home from England?” she says to me.
“Uh, well. Yes.”
She shakes her head, but she’s smiling now. She leans close to me, and I’m too stunned to react. “I told Sage there wasn’t any way you were off in England being faithful. So it’s okay. We’re all okay. And no one has to go . . . spreading any unfavorable stories around town.”
Cailee beams at me, as though with enough hope and cheer she can force me into agreement. But there’s something genuine about it. It’s not affected, it’s . . . her.
It occurs to me that this is how she views a relationship. Affairs and infidelity are of courses as long as we can keep the public embarrassment to a minimum. And maybe for her, that’s true. Maybe that’s a deal she and her husband have struck, and it’s absolutely none of my business.
But it was not the deal Sage and I had.
So, no, I don’t smile at Cailee. I don’t agree with her about anything. I just say a polite goodbye and turn back to Azrael.
Who is glaring at me like I’ve done something offensive.
“You can’t grab children like that,” I say beneath my breath. “They’re not snacks. They’re precious.”
“Why haven’t you told your friends?” Azrael looks thunderous. His words don’t make sense.
“Told them what?”
“That your little wheat cracker crumb of an ex was cheating on you.”
I blink at him. Children and parents—human and witch alike—are milling about, and he’s . . . just saying that. Out loud.
“I . . . It’s none of your business.” I look around, worried about who might have heard.
“I have spent the past year listening to you lot go on and on about working together. Trusting each other. And these scant few days of being back in my own body, what I see is you holding yourself apart. Why?”
“What you’re seeing is me third-wheeling it through coven life.” I don’t know where that comes from or why it sounds so raw. I point a bright, unconcerned smile at him to cover it.
To no avail. “Think better of yourself,” he growls.
I balk at that. “I think greatly of myself, thanks.”
“Then think better of them.”
“You have no idea what I think.”
No, Georgina? Because here I am in your thoughts.
You’re an impossible asshole, do you know that? I shoot right back at him on this channel we shouldn’t have open between us.
But before he can answer that, I turn away.
Dramatically, I can admit.
And I pay for it, because I nearly smack right into the horrible duo of Carol Simon and Maeve Mather, two of the Joywood’s most powerful and exceptionally vile witches.
10
“Georgie.” Carol’s voice, as always, makes my skin crawl. Particularly because she always smiles in that creepy way of hers. It’s almost as unnerving as Maeve’s bedraggled familiar, a moth-eaten-looking blind pigeon she carries around with her in a panda-shaped purse. “You’re back early from your travels.”
I try to recalibrate. Quickly. Let my emotions go, or at least hide them while I play up the ditzy smile. I know it’s the only thing they see—and really, I prefer not to be noticed by any members of the Joywood. It’s safer that way.
“I came back for Thanksgiving,” I say dreamily, as if the holiday itself called me, personally, from across the ocean. “Was I supposed to stay away until the actual Cold Moon rises?”
I laugh merrily at that, though as I say it, I wonder. Did they plan to keep me away all this time? No one else had to go off on a quest, just me. Is this part of some new, horrible Joywood plot?
Or am I just trying to make myself feel better because that might make me a special target like the rest of my friends? You need to get over the idea that you are somehow special, I can hear my mother say.
Inside I feel nothing but a roiling sense of ick. And not just because of my train of thought or the fact of these two awful women standing right in front of me.
“I’m not surprised a Historian like you would be so quick,” Carol says, and anyone around us would believe she’s being kind and genuine, but I know better. “You always were a smart one, weren’t you?”
I am beyond creeped out. The last time I saw these people, they literally disappeared with a bang after assuring every voting witch they would see what a mistake they’d made in choosing the Riverwood over the Joywood.
“One of the smartest,” a smooth British accent says from behind me. And then Azrael’s arm is around my waist, pulling me to him. “Are you going to introduce me to your friends, babes?”
I have to put every last ounce of energy to work to keep from pulling a face or shoving his arm off me. Why is he purposefully engaging with the Joywood? Does he want us all to die?
And why did he call me babes, of all things?
I make myself smile, though it’s hard. “Carol. Maeve. This is my . . . friend. Peter. We met in England.”
He beams at them, then at me. “Once she described the beauty and charm of St. Cyprian, I couldn’t resist following her home.” I feel his eyes on me, and wonder how no one sees that dangerous thread of gold all but seething in his gaze. But he doesn’t sound angry. He sounds besotted. “Or maybe that was just . . . her.”
Carol studies Azrael with a frown. I notice that her trademark frizzy hair is looking a little more healthy and wavy while beside her, Maeve is standing there open-mouthed, and it appears she’s missing a few teeth. She’s gazing at Azrael like she can’t believe her eyes, and I think she’s figured it out—
But she hasn’t. “A human?” she whispers to Carol, but not quietly enough for us to miss it.
Azrael cocks his head. “Were you expecting a werewolf?”
Maeve blinks, and Carol’s expression grows tight. But only for a moment. Then she smiles, right at Peter.
“Welcome to St. Cyprian, Peter. I hope we’ll see you at the Cold Moon Ball.” She glances at me and delivers one of her pointed sniffs. “Georgie always likes to bring her little friends to our events.”
If he’s offended by little friend or the always—I think Carol is trying to say I’m a bed-hopping slut, as if that would offend me or him—Azrael doesn’t show it. He just keeps beaming like he’s a ray of British sunshine, and his arm around my waist tightens.
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
This is all beginning to feel like torture, so I try to remember the world outside this conversation. The bookstore. Small Business Saturday. The fact that I am in the ruling coven now, and they are a disgrace.
“Did you all come in for something specific?” I ask sweetly. I gesture toward the nearest table. “All the fairy tales are buy one, get one free. And there’s a fifty-percent-off sale on—”
“As usual, Emerson doesn’t carry what we were looking for,” Maeve says, clucking as if she’s deeply disappointed. From somewhere inside her purse, I hear an echoing gurgle. No doubt her poor pigeon.
I want to ask her why they’re here, but I don’t. I want to say all manner of things, but instead I just smile at them, bright and happy and as ditzy as possible, and offer no more conversation.
The silence stretches out. It’s uncomfortable. But nothing can compel me to act like I notice. I keep right on smiling at them. Azrael beams.
If they want to break the silence, they can.
“Well,” Carol says after an eternity. “It’s good to see you back, Georgie. We can’t wait to see what you can do.”
That sounds like a threat, I think, as Carol flicks a glance at Azrael. But she only turns and walks away, dodging the sea of customers as she goes. Maeve gives another little sniff, hoists her panda purse higher like her feeble pigeon is a shield, and then quickly scurries along in Carol’s wake. I swear a little chunk of hair falls off of her head as she goes.
I guess we know the spell worked, I say, and I wonder if Azrael heard that in his head, because when I turn to look at him, his expression is back to mad and disapproving, as if our run-in with the Joywood hadn’t occurred.
“When will you tell Emerson?”
“About what?”
“Don’t play dumb, Georgina. Nothing makes me angrier.”
Which pokes at my own anger. “Then you need more things to be angry about.”
“Why won’t you tell her? She is your best friend.”
Like I need a lecture on my best friend. I move away from him, around a small witch family who are staring a little too intently in my direction. I find a few more stray books, but Azrael is following, and I’m afraid if I don’t answer him, he’s going to make a scene.
“It’s embarrassing,” I say quietly. “Now, can we—”
“So what?”
My temper snaps. Just like that. I whirl on him—human and witch families around us be damned. “So what? I don’t want to be embarrassed. Who does?”
He crosses his arms over his chest and shakes his head. “Your mother really did a number on you.”
I feel a bit like I’ve been slapped. My mother? “What do you know about my mother?”
“Enough,” he says with a kind of dark menace that makes zero sense for a dragon who’s been cursed into a newel post for something like a century.
I remember myself enough to cast a quick spell to make sure no one can hear what I say to him, because there are already too many curious eyes in this store. “My mother hasn’t been alive long enough for you to have known her before you were cursed, Azrael. So how could you possibly have an opinion on her? Or her effect on me?”
His gaze gets a little shifty then. Some of the anger turns into that sly distance someone uses when they’re lying. “She used to make . . . Wilde House visits. And as established, I saw and heard plenty while in my post.”
“Visits?” That makes absolutely no sense. My mother likes to talk about the Wilde family’s prominence and position, but they live next door to each other and barely interact. “What? Why?”
He starts to walk away, down the stairs toward the front of the store where Emerson is checking people out. But he talks as he does it.
“There was a time, before you were born, that your parents were quite good friends with the Wildes,” he says, casually, like that’s well-known information. Like magical creatures and true covens.
But I have literally never heard this. Not that I ever thought that they were enemies. Just that there was always a careful and polite distance between Emerson and Rebekah’s parents and mine.
I trail after him. “Friends? What kind of friends?”
Azrael cuts through the crowd as if it’s a figment of my imagination, making his way to the front of a long line of people waiting to check out. He earns a few dirty looks and muttered remarks when he ignores all of them, leaning over the counter as if he’s one-hundred-percent cutting in line.
But he’s not. Or not to buy any books, anyway. He gets Emerson’s attention instead. “I believe it’s time your best friend tells you what actually happened between her and that Sage person.”
Emerson looks at him like he’s lost his mind. And I . . . have no words. Again.
Then Emerson’s gaze slides to mine. She looks confused. Hurt, even. But the customer behind Azrael is no longer muttering. He is loudly proclaiming the fact that he is a local author who has come to sign his books, and he could wait in line, so why some people are too good for that is a mystery—
I try to shoot an apologetic look Emerson’s way as I grab Azrael’s arm, then drag him away. Or, more factually, I grab his arm, he looks amused, and then he lets me drag him away.
But I immediately drop his arm once I can, once I’ve tugged him over to the door where we’re out of the line and no one is paying attention to us any longer. I tell myself that’s because it’s the smart thing to do and because I’m mad at him, not because touching him makes me feel so . . . shimmery. “Now that you’ve ruined, I don’t know, everything—will you just go back to Wilde House?”
Azrael scowls at me, his eyes glowing dragony gold, and I’m almost afraid he’ll shift right here, right now, and really ruin everything.
Instead, he says nothing. Not even inside my head. He doesn’t call me Georgina. What he does is turn and leave.
I’m relieved.
I tell myself I’m relieved. And if he gets into trouble out there, that’s his problem. Not mine. He’s a powerful being. An ancient myth. A dragon. He should be able to take care of himself, surely.
I go back to helping Emerson with the Confluence Books crowd. She’s watching me with too-close attention, despite the fact she’s got a store full of people, all din and demands. But once the crowd dwindles and I can leave Emerson without her feeling like I’ve ditched her in the middle of so much chaos, I do.
I can tell by the look she gives me that I’ll have to confess to her later.
And I don’t want to. I can’t believe Azrael has . . . betrayed me like this.
I don’t walk back to Wilde House. I just transport myself back, but my magic must be a little wonky from all my emotions, because I don’t land in my room like I wanted. I land in the foyer.
Azrael is sitting on the stair—next to the newel post now glamoured to look like there’s still a dragon in it—but immediately rises to his feet when I arrive.
He opens his mouth, but I am not about to let him say anything, because he still looks angry and has no right to. No right at all. None of this is his business.
Including me. Feelings are not facts.
“Don’t talk to me. Don’t come in my room. Don’t even look at me.” I shove past him on the stairs, ignoring the fact that he must have let me, because he certainly could have blocked me if he wanted to.
“Good thing I don’t want to do any of those things,” he returns at my retreating back.
We sound like children. I know this, and still I storm off to my room. I even slam my door, because why not? Maybe I am childish, and maybe that feels good.
I flop onto my bed. I stare at the ceiling. I want to cry, but no tears come out, and I feel tied up in a million knots. I reach out for my crystals, trying to organize them into some formation that will fix this.
But nothing happens. No magic. No hum. They might as well be gravel. I want to hurl them at the wall, but that is hardly a healthy expression of anger.
I set them down. Gently. I pull out my journal, deciding I will stream-of-consciousness journal my feelings. Then organize them. Process them, once and for all.
I put pen to paper, and then just . . . stare.
I try to write a word—any word—but none come out. The only thing I actually want to do is stab the pen to paper a few hundred times.
A bath, I think, maybe a little desperately. A good, cleansing spiritual bath. That’s what I need.
But before I can even sit up, there are suddenly three people in my turret room. Emerson sits at the end of my bed. Rebekah is sprawled out on the window seat between the turret windows. Ellowyn arranges herself on my chair, being careful with her belly.
I can see immediately that it’s time for a reckoning.
Damn you, Azrael. I hope he hears it. I hope he feels it.
I beam brightly at everyone. “So, what were our end-of-day Black Friday tallies? Record-breaking, I assume?”
No one takes the bait.
“Georgie, I am so confused,” Emerson says. “Why does Azrael know something about what happened with Sage that we don’t? What happened? You said it was mutual?” She’s searching my face for clues, and I hate that. “Did he hurt you?”
She seems so concerned. So worried. I don’t want her to be. I don’t want anyone concerned or worried over me. I am fine. Don’t I seem fine?
But now I have to drag out the corpse of something I was getting over—or would have been in the process of getting over once I had time to think about it—and rehash the whole thing. Maybe the dragon should have stayed cursed.
The wind chimes outside my window crash around, and I scowl at the noise. I don’t have to see the curl of his massive dragon tail to know he’s responding to that thought. But I don’t take it back.
“It’s not untrue that Sage and I grew apart,” I tell them. “There was just . . . an inciting incident when I got back.”
“Like?” Ellowyn demands.
Maybe I’ll come up with a dragon curse myself, I think, doubling down.
I swear I can feel that dragonish grin of his like he’s pressing it into my skin. I’d love for you to try.
With his voice in my head, I focus on it and use my magic to create a block. He won’t be able to talk in my head anymore until I let him in.
I hope.
“I came home early and went over to Sage’s to surprise him,” I tell my friends, trying to sound calm. Because I don’t want to explain that if I sound upset, it’s not Sage I’m upset with right now. That feels far more complicated. “Turns out the surprise was he was with someone else.”
