I’d never asked for Kevin’s blood. I would never have done that to him, no matter how much it could have advanced my Grimoire. Others had tried, he’d told me in broad strokes. He’d been captured and hurt before managing to escape. It was where his distrust of wizards had come from. It’d taken me a long time to overcome that with him, and I’d never do anything to set us back.
But still. If this was real, if this dragon had awoken and created all that I could see in this interior, from the plants to the bees that flitted between the flowers to the birds that sang out from the trees, it was something beyond anything I’d ever dealt with before.
Kevin was a dragon. He had magic, we knew. We just didn’t know how it would manifest. Kevin said it was because he didn’t want to show us yet. I thought it was because he didn’t know, and Morgan and Randall were convinced that he was too young.
But this dragon did.
“Smells like home,” Tiggy said, brow furrowed.
“Like the castle? Or the woods?”
He shook his head. “Like before. Before you. Before Gary.”
Ah. The ever-vague before. I exchanged a quick glance with Ryan, who looked startled. Tiggy didn’t often speak of before Gary, and I thought it was because he didn’t like to think of a time before Gary. From the bits and pieces we’d been able to put together, we thought it sounded like Tiggy had been cast out with his parents at some point for being a half-breed, however unjust that was. Usually, such discrimination was found to be appalling (though, with my experience in Mashallaha, it apparently was more prevalent than I thought), but the giants hailed from outside of Verania, beyond the mountains to the north. Ti
ggy couldn’t remember much, but the last time we’d been within a week’s journey of the land of the giants (after an ill-advised trip to the elven realm in which I only found out later Gary had been tied up and spanked by a centaur—don’t ask, long story), he’d refused and made us travel south as quickly as our feet could carry us.
So the fact that he even mentioned a time before, much less unprovoked, was a big deal. I took in a great breath, trying to smell what my friend did, hoping for some understanding. It was different for me. All I smelled was the normal scent of a forest. Maybe it was tinged with the crisp burn of magic, but beyond that? It didn’t seem different than anything else I’d scented before. “It smells good,” I decided.
He nodded. “I like our home better. Smells like us. Like HaveHeart and Gary and Tiggy.”
“Me too, dude. I like home better too.”
“We gonna go home some day?”
“Yeah. Someday.”
“After the dragons.”
“Yeah. Soon. Won’t be forever. Gotta get those dragons first, you know?”
He frowned. “Dragons are scary.” He bared his teeth and snapped his jaw. “They bite. Kevin’s not scary.” He took in another deep breath. “This dragon doesn’t feel scary.”
I didn’t know what to do with that, but I thought he was right. I could remember what it’d felt like, the first time Kevin had crested that hill, chasing after the sheep. I’d been scared shitless, but then a flying lizard the size of a house had been rushing toward us. But even though this dragon was supposed to be some kind of large snake (which, ugh), it didn’t feel like we were in danger.
But I knew of poisons disguised in beauty. We couldn’t lower our guard.
Added to the fact that there was still a low hum in my head and that I was pretty sure my eyes were at the very least flickering red, we couldn’t risk anything.
“Yeah,” I said. “But you smash if you need to.”
“I always smash.”
“You fell from the sky, dude. All badass and everything. Saved my life, you know?”
His chest puffed out as he preened. “I am badass. Tiggy so badass.”
“Darn right, mothercracker,” Ryan said, holding out his fist, which Tiggy bumped with pleasure. I liked that these were my people.
We moved farther into the dome. I glanced back and could see Kevin and Gary peering at us from the entrance. I waved back at them, and they acknowledged me before Gary leaned over to say something to Kevin I couldn’t make out. I didn’t see Ruv anywhere, but I knew Gary wouldn’t let him get up to anything.
Without ever having been here before, I knew where I was going. Oh, I didn’t know the layout of the forest in the desert. I didn’t know the trees or the brush at my feet. But I knew where I was heading, where it was waiting for us. For how long we’d traveled, for how much was at stake, I felt woefully underprepared. All anyone knew of Jekhipe was apparently stories and drawings passed down. I didn’t know how to claim it as one of mine.
The forest became denser, and I was reminded fleetingly of Vadoma’s bad-touch, when she’d sent me… somehow into the Dark Woods and an audience with the Great White. There were beams of sunlight here, fat and warm, piercing through the thick canopy of the trees.
I needed a plan.
I could do this. I’d already done it once.