He’d motored us here, guided by nothing more than the hazy starlight (the stars themselves oddly, stubbornly silent behind the haze) and the blurred cream half smile of the moon. Armand had refused to turn on the headlamps. I’d prayed the whole drive that his night vision was significantly better than mine.
He’d brought a blanket, a basket, and me.
The blanket was spread upon the grass, the basket was emptied of its bread and ham and cheese, and I was the one eating and listening and biting my tongue, because he’d made me promise not to interrupt until he was done explaining.
I’d agreed. The honey-smoky fragrance of the ham had been too much to resist.
But now the food was gone and he was done, and I had resorted to staring down at my clenched fingers in my lap.
“That,” I said to my fingers, “is an abysmal plan.”
“What?” He sounded indignant. “No, it isn’t. Which part?”
“All of it, Mandy. You can’t come along, and that’s that. There’s no safe way to keep you with me when I fly—”
“I explained to you about the saddle—”
I straightened. “I am not a horse! And anyway, every time I go to smoke, then what? I’ll tell you: you and the saddle—” I made a plunging motion with my hand. “Straight down to earth. Splat.”
“So you won’t go to smoke while I’m on you. You can take off and land as a dragon, can’t you?”
“No! I mean, I don’t know. I’ve never tried.”
“Aaaand … that’s why we’re here, far from prying eyes. Practice.”
I groaned and flopped back upon the blanket, covering my face with both hands. “You don’t understand!”
He didn’t speak right away, but I felt his gaze. I felt the warmth of him though my new cotton dress and old battered peacoat, though he sat feet away. “Explain it to me, then.”
“I’m not good at it. You know that I’m not.”
“At what?”
I threw my hands back to my sides. The stars shivered in the misty black sky, distant as unspoken wishes.
She’s just so hopeless …
Eleanore, you’re useless …
A slip of a child …
“I’m not good at any of it yet. Half the time I think I’ll be smoke, but I Turn to girl instead. I’ve only managed to be a dragon a handful of times, at best.”
“A glorious handful,” he said quietly. “A damned brilliant handful.”
“But—”
His voice took on a harsher note. “Don’t be dense, Lora. If I could do this for you, don’t you think I would? I can’t even manage smoke. There’s no hope of me Turning into a dragon to fly halfway across Europe. It has to be you.”
I glanced up at him, hard edges and burning blue eyes, that absolute focus it seemed he had whenever I caught him looking at me. Like I was something shimmering right at the brink of his understanding. A mirage, bright and unbelievable.
“Mandy, I’m saying … that you can’t be with me. This idea of yours, to ride on my back, it can’t happen. If I lose control—if I Turn to smoke or girl in midair—”
“You’ll Turn back and catch me,” he said, calm.
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“Not really. Frankly, I feel queasy just thinking about it. I’ve never liked heights.”
“This isn’t funny!”
“I should say not. I rather enjoy myself all in one piece. But …” He sighed and pushed his hands through his hair. “Look, waif. This is the way it’s going to be. This is the way it’s meant to be. The two of us together. Besides, do you even speak German?”
I averted my eyes, then gave in. “No,” I confessed. “French. Very bad French. I’ve only had a couple of months of it.”
“Das habe ich mir gedacht, mein Liebling. You need me. I need you.” His lips curved, although it wasn’t quite a smile. “I think fate and the stars would agree. We’re a pair. It’s time we acted like one.”
A salt breeze skated up the cliff and pushed hard against us; the blanket flipped back, covering the empty plates and our feet. He went to his knees to resmooth it.
“That’s not all,” I said, following his hands, his back and arms, pale sleeves rolled up, an economy of grace even in these brisk movements.
“What else?”
It killed me to admit this. “I’m not entirely well yet. Dr. Hembry says I lost a good deal of blood. I still get weak.”
“I know,” he said, and sat back, cross-legged. “Did you think I hadn’t noticed?” He sent me a sidelong look, then knocked his knee against mine. “It’s one of the reasons I’m always feeding you.”
I laughed unhappily. “Nice to know it’s not merely that you think I’m insatiable.”
“No,” Armand said, and turned his gaze out to the mist-clotted sea. “You’re not the insatiable one.”
The surf crashed against the shore, a hard tinny sound. I hoped that it covered the noise of my heartbeat, how it had stuttered and started again, one tiny instant of betrayal.
“Practice,” I said brightly, and leapt to my feet. “Watch my clothes, eh?”
His brows raised.
I Turned to smoke. I swirled up above the tips of the trees, thought about it, then flowed out past the cliff, over the open water.
I couldn’t yet swim, true. But if I accidentally Turned back into a girl while floating in the sky, I thought the Channel might be a softer landing than oak trees and birches.
The mist drifted below me. I could see flashes of sea beneath it, dark waters sprinkled with faint silver coins.
Dragon, I thought, intent. You are a dragon. Not a person, not smoke, dragon, dragon, you’re a—
I Turned, and it worked.
Right side up this time, wings out, diving down a steep, invisible slope. I flew so low that my tail scratched a line though the mist, dividing it into parts.
It felt cool and wet. It whipped up in a riot of curls behind me, marking my passage like an ovation of raised and dissolving hands.
I glanced down at my feet, golden scales a tarnished glimmer, my claws reassuringly wicked and sharp.
The stars had called me Fireheart. I liked that. A being with a name like that could surely handle something so basic as flight and landing.
Right?
Higher, lower, testing my wings. It was easier to soar as a friend to the wind, so I faced the other way and tried it like that for a while, until the crenulated outline of Iverson looked less like a chess piece and more like a real castle. There were lights shining from some of the windows, and I wondered who had to stay on for the summer, rattling around that cold hollow place.
Not the headmistress, apparently. Maybe Almeda, the housekeeper. The always-charming Gladys.
Mr. Hastings, the groundskeeper—and Jesse’s great-uncle. He lived alone above the stables; from here I could nearly see it, nearly make out the smudge of light peeking out past the doors …
I turned about, telling myself I had to before someone caught sight of me.
I circled up and back and found the cliff with Armand motionless at its edge. There was the blanket behind him, the motorcar, and a small clearing behind that. Not much, but it would have to do.
I sailed closer, concentrating on the scrap of land I wanted, feeling my wings adapt to my target, shorter beats, a higher arch.
Closer. Closer …
I passed over Armand, ruffling his hair and shirt and trousers. I was by him in a breath, past the auto, sinking to the clearing—
Too fast. My body realized it before my brain did. My legs stiffened and my wings tried to reverse but they couldn’t, and the ground rose up so quickly that all I could see were blades of grass and—