Kay’s mother took the man—the regional bureau director, her boss—aside and spoke in a low voice. Kay waited, feeling like she was going to be sick. Maybe this situation—the jets, the news, the fire—wasn’t inevitable after all; maybe she had caused it. After she and Artegal met, the world started falling apart. It was still falling. The more Kay thought about it, the dizzier she felt. She kept thinking that she should have told Dad about her and Artegal. She shouldn’t have kept secrets from him. If she’d told, maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe, maybe, maybe…
The temporary bureau had commandeered a classroom and turned it into a conference room, pushing desks together in the middle and lining chairs around them. The director guided Kay and her mother there and told them to sit, which they did, side by side in the cold, silent room. He kept giving Kay odd, sideways glances, as if he were trying to believe the story her mother had told him. Trying to imagine her with a dragon.
None of these people knew anything about dragons.
“It’s better this way,” Mom was saying. She’d been talking for a while, but Kay hadn’t been listening. The sound of her mother’s voice startled her. “You’ll only have to explain everything once. I’ll be with you the whole time. Just tell them the truth. Don’t leave anything out.”
Now Kay understood. The director had sent them there to wait. He needed to contact others, a whole group of people who had a stake in this. Kay didn’t know who else or how many. The police, probably. They’d lock her up, and she’d never see the outside of a jail again.
Somehow, she was as numb to this thought as she had been to everything since the fire. Nothing mattered. She’d done something amazing, done the impossible, and now she was paying for it. And none of it mattered. She imagined her father, remembered the look on his face when he’d pulled her over for speeding. That wry look. Why did she even think he’d be wearing that expression now, when this was so much worse? Because maybe he’d have understood. Quickly, she wiped her eyes to keep from crying.
Mom was studying her. Both of them had the same glassy stare, Kay thought. Surely no one would be mean to them, after what had happened. Her stomach clenched.
“Your dad was worried about you,” Mom said softly. “We talked about it. You were spending so much time by yourself, going off to do who knew what. But he wouldn’t let me search your room. He said, ‘Give her a little more time. I bet she’ll come clean about whatever it is. She’s a good kid.’ That’s what he said.”
Kay wanted to tell her mother to stop. Just stop talking. This was going to make her cry and she didn’t want to cry, not when she was going to have to talk to the police.
Mom smiled a grieved, wincing smile. “He was right. He was always right. I’m just trying to figure out what he’d say about this.” She wiped tears away with the heel of her hand.
Kay bit her lips and looked away. “I’m sorry.” Her voice was a whisper.
Then they didn’t say anything.
When the door to the classroom opened again, Kay flinched, startled. She didn’t think she could get any more scared, but her heart raced. A half dozen people in air force and army uniforms filed in, along with another half dozen in suits. One of them brought in an armload of stuff, a stack of poster board, and a dozen file folders. Mom stood and put her hand on Kay’s shoulder.
Kay recognized two of the military men: the air force general from TV, General Branigan, and Captain Conner.
One of the guys in a suit arranged the sheets of poster board on the table. They showed blown-up copies of the photos of Kay riding Artegal, the ones taken by the jet that had seen them. Maybe they won’t believe me, Kay thought. She’d tell them it was her, and they wouldn’t believe a kid could do that. Then she could go home.
Wearing a stern, serious expression, the general took his hat off and approached Kay’s mother. He radiated authority and demanded respect. But Kay felt herself growing angry. He was probably the one who ordered those fighters over the border, and that was the reason the dragons attacked. So was it the dragons’ fault? Was it the general’s?
Was it hers?
“Mrs. Wyatt, I’m extremely sorry for your loss.” He spared Kay a quick glance.
“Thank you,” Mom said. Kay marveled at how calm her mother was.
Between them, the general and Mom’s boss introduced everyone, but the names went right past Kay. She couldn’t process. They all nodded respectfully and murmured words of sympathy. But the blood was rushing in Kay’s ears. They were going to ask why she did it, why she and Artegal were even friends. And she didn’t have a good answer.
General Branigan started by saying, “Miss Wyatt, is this you in these photographs?”
Kay wanted to laugh because she didn’t think of herself as Miss Wyatt. She didn’t know how to be formal back at him. She was wearing jeans and a thick wool sweater, not a suit or skirt.
Her voice scratched when she answered, “Yes.”
He stared at her for a long moment, and the other men—they were all men—followed his lead, letting the silence grow heavy, weighing on her.
Conner shifted then, clearing his throat and throwing a look at Branigan, who scowled. The spell broke. Conner was the only person there who didn’t seem as if he were studying an insect when he looked at her.
“Would you like to tell us how this happened?” General Branigan nodded at the picture.
“It was an accident,” she said, her voice small. Mom squeezed her hand. “We weren’t hurting anything.”
The general put on a fake easygoing smile and spoke in a condescending voice. “Now, nobody says you were. We just want to understand what you’ve been doing.”
Kay decided she hated the guy. That gave her confidence. She sat up a little straighter. “We just talked—”
“You talked to it? It talks?” Branigan said.
Mom spoke up. “General, we know from the Silver River Treaty negotiations sixty years ago that some of the dragons will talk to people.”
The general settled back, but his expression was sour.
“Go on,” Mom prompted her.
“We got this idea about flying.” Kay was a little vague on that. She wasn’t ready to give up the book. “I do a lot of rock climbing. I used some of the gear. It worked.” She shrugged. Maybe if she played out the sullen teenager thing they’d leave her alone.
“But what was it doing that close to the border?” Branigan asked.
It took her a moment to realize he was talking about Artegal. “He was curious. He wanted to find someone to talk to.” She made sure to emphasize the he.
“So it was spying?”
“No—” But she realized she didn’t know that for sure. Maybe Artegal had been sent to spy. “If he was spying, I’m pretty sure he didn’t find out a whole lot from me. I don’t know anything.”
Then they started talking as if she weren’t there.
“Maybe it thought it could use her to gather information—”
“Or it misjudged how much access she had—”
“If it could trick her into flying away with it, they’d have a hostage—”
“So did they think she was a source of information or a hostage?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. She knew she was right; they were wrong. “He was just curious. He just wanted to talk. We’re just friends.”
The group of men stared, disbelieving and speechless.
If she told them about the book, would they believe her? Would they believe a girl and a dragon could be friends then? Or would they take it away and keep ignoring her? She thought of Dracopolis as hers, and she didn’t want anyone to find it.
She especially didn’t want them to find the page with the map and coordinates slipped inside it. They’d go looking for whatever was there, and she wanted to keep that secret safe. She wanted to be the one to find it. She and Artegal should be the ones to look for it.