It had a heat to it, a coppery tang, which felt to me like urgency.
I flew first to the last place I’d seen him, that anonymous spot in the woods where we’d run into the women, but of course he wasn’t there. So I floated around until I felt him again: a dull tugging to the west. That ominous sensation that I needed to hurry.
Ash settled upon the crowns of the trees twitched upward as I passed, an acrid dry flurry. I dropped down lower, into the heart of the forest, weaving swiftly around trunks and boughs, because he was down there somewhere and I was getting closer, closer—
I found him. He was slumped against a log, head down, along with a pair of girls with messy braids and patterned skirts. One was holding his face. The other rifled through the knapsack, half its contents strewn along the ground.
Blood stained his forehead, his cheek. Blood made a scarlet river down his neck.
The sight of it did something to me—and that scent, that dreadful scent, so copper-hot. Rational Eleanore vanished; animal Eleanore swelled with rage.
He was hurt. He was bleeding. They were hurting him—
I became a person at his side and backhanded the girl nearest me, the one holding him. She sprawled flat, red palms to the sky.
“Stay away from him,” I hissed, and lunged for the second girl.
She squealed and dropped the knapsack, clambering backward on her hands and heels like a stranded crab, but before I could reach her my ankle was caught.
“Lora! No! They’re helping!”
I was snared, hopping in place. When his hand fell away I stumbled forward to my knees, catching myself with both hands. I glanced back at him with my hair in eyes; he’d collapsed against the log again. He was breathing hard, watching me. The blood was flowing from a gash above his left eyebrow.
“They’re helping,” he repeated, making certain I understood.
I got up, pushed the hair from my face. I brushed the leaves from my body, then walked over to the girl I’d hit and pulled her to her feet. She was younger than Armand and I. Both of them were. I’d guess they were around twelve or thirteen, bony thin and fragile like the pleading woman had been.
Her cheek was pink. I hadn’t struck her as hard as I could have, but I’d still meant it. She stared up at me with her lips compressed and something that might have been hatred in her eyes. Or terror. Or awe.
“Sorry,” I tried. “Er … je m’excuse.”
“Pardon,” she answered, short, and pushed by me to return to Armand.
“What happened?” I asked Armand, following her. The second girl slunk cautiously closer, picking up the knapsack again. “Who did this?”
“Do you remember, once upon a time, telling me never to let anyone see me as a dragon?”
I stopped probing at the gash, shocked. “You Turned?”
Without me? Without me being there or knowing it or feeling it—
“No. But I told them what we are.” His lips smiled; it looked ghastly. “They didn’t appreciate it much. Bit of a riot ensued. Somebody has rather good aim with a rock.”
“You told them we’re dragons. Come to help. And they stoned you.”
“Dragon,” sighed the red-palmed girl, as deeply and irrevocably besotted as only a twelve-year-old could be. She stroked her hand down his cheek and smudged the blood to his chin. “Un prince de dragons.”
“Well, my prince, it looks like you made at least one friend. Good thing you haven’t lost your touch with the ladies.” My voice sounded harsh even to me. The skin around his wound was shiny hard and swollen. Beneath all that gore, it was turning a nasty shade of beet.
If he lost too much blood, if the blow had injured his brain—
I kept talking so my fear wouldn’t show.
“Why’d they even believe you?”
“My eyes.”
“Oh. And then you … what? You fought them off?”
“Then,” he said dryly, “I ran.”
“You still have the pistol. Why didn’t you shoot them?”
He gave me an incredulous look. “Because I’m not like those soldiers. I am a nobleman. I don’t shoot unarmed people.”
I rolled my eyes. “Right gallant of you, your grand magnificence! Do be sure next time to remind them of how principled you are as they beat you to death—”
“Ici,” interrupted the girl with the knapsack. She lifted up the cotton wool, along with a roll of bandage, and trotted over. I took them from her with blood-sticky fingers and realized a few things at once: that I was the eldest and presumably most responsible person here unharmed; that despite my exasperation with Armand, my body was sapped and my reason gone to mush; that I had no clue what to do next.
Bind the wound, my mind instructed. That’s what I’d seen Deirdre do over and over, wasn’t it? Bind the wound, stop the bleeding.
I pressed the pad of cotton in place, seized the besotted girl’s hand, and made her hold it there while I wrapped the linen bandage tight around his head.
As I worked I felt something soft settle over my own shoulders and back. Jesse’s shirt, the one I’d slept in. The knapsack girl had crept up and draped it over me. I’d completely forgotten I was nude.
“Merci,” I grunted, not looking away from what I was doing.
“Vous êtes une princesse dragon?” she whispered.
A princess. Hardly.
“No.” I met Armand’s gaze, finishing up. “Paysan.”
I would have shot those stoning bastards for certain.
“You’re not a peasant,” he protested, but it was weak. If I’d thought him pale before, it was ten times worse now. The red on his face stood out like war paint.
“Nothing wrong with being from the gutter. At least we’re raised to know the odds.” And when to keep our bloomin’ mouths shut about monsters in our midst. I stood. “The odds are now well stacked against us, I’d say. So I’m the peasant who’s going to get us out of here.”
We’d have to fly. Somehow he was going to have to hang on to me and we’d fly, because if the people here had been willing to stone him once, they’d do it again. Now that I listened carefully, I actually heard them. Footsteps not that far off, the forest floor crunching. Voices calling names—Bibiane! Yseult!—edged with frenzy.
I gathered everything back into the knapsack as quickly as I could, then shrugged out of the shirt and stuffed that in, too.
“Think you can still carry this?”
“Yes.”
He climbed to his feet, supported instantly by either Bibiane or Yseult. Whichever was the moony one.
“Get ready,” I said to him, assessing the girls. They reminded me far too much of the paper skeleton boy from Moor Gate, but I hoped they were more resilient than they looked. “It’s one thing to imagine a dragon, and quite another to see one. They might come undone.”
“Lora.” His fingers were tracing the bandage across his brow. “Give them something.”
“Like what? Money? They can’t spend pounds out here.”
“Food. Give them some tins.”
I wanted to protest, then bit back the words. No matter what trouble swept these woods next, we were going to leave. These girls would be trapped here for a while to come. Maybe months. Maybe years.
I stuck my hand into the knapsack and dug around until I found the tins. I grabbed a few without looking to see what they were and passed them to the whispery girl.