Which meant she had no idea if Zain’s team had recovered all the encoded information from the password she'd provided or not, let alone if the doctors, security team, and even Stonefire’s clan leader would use it as she hoped. Everyone simply told her they couldn't share anything about that yet.
If that uncertainty wasn't enough, Ivy also hadn't had the chance to convince Zain of what her ultimate end goal was. No one else had come close to listening and believing her, let alone had been willing to get her a meeting with the two IT guys working on the encrypted data. Her gut said Zain was the key to her accomplishing anything.
Ivy resisted a sigh. It wasn't as if she could go seek him out on her own. Walking was weeks away—even with the mysterious shots Dr. Sid had administered to make her heal faster—and no one was going to put her in a wheelchair and roll her right over to Zain's house, either.
Which meant waiting for him to show up again was her only option. Of course, that could take bloody weeks for all she knew.
She desperately needed a distraction.
Crossing her arms over her chest, Ivy eyed the stack of books next to her bed and debated if she was finally prepared to read them. One of them had supposedly been written by one of the human women on Stonefire—Melanie Hall-MacLeod. The other book was a first-hand account of life with dragon-shifters in Canada.
But even if Dr. Sid and Dr. Lewis both claimed the books were factual and not fabricated, Ivy had trouble trusting any nonfiction book nowadays.
Which left her with two not-so-great choices to fill her time—more TV soap operas or books that may or may not be full of lies.
What she wouldn't give for a chemistry journal. At least with science, formulas didn't lie.
Just as Ivy reached for the book set in Canada—the foreign country would at least put some distance between her and who she was reading about—the door opened.
Ivy steeled herself for someone from the medical staff, but instead, two children raced inside and stopped at the foot of her bed.
The girl had flushed pale skin and curly blonde hair past her shoulders, which bounced as she hopped from foot to foot. The boy was calmer, with slightly lighter skin and short, dark hair.
The girl spoke first, her accent from somewhere in the North. "She doesn't look very dangerous."
The boy grunted and said with the same accent as almost everyone else on Stonefire, "She used to be a Dragon Knight. I told you what they do to dragon-shifters. They even shot Dr. Sid with a dart, which made her dragon go crazy."
The girl pointed toward her. "But she can't even get out of bed. Is that why your uncle finally said we could see her?"
Uncle? Wanting some answers, Ivy raised a hand, and both children fell silent. Ivy asked, "Who are you?"
The girl stood taller. "I'm Daisy, and that's my best friend, Freddie. We're putting on a play soon. Maybe if you get better, you can come watch. It's going to be brilliant."
Freddie frowned. "I don't want her to come. She'll ruin it."
Ivy opened her mouth, but Daisy beat her to it. "No, I don't think so. I mean, the worst she can do is shout. And maybe make noise. But she won't hurt us." The little girl looked right at Ivy. "Right? Freddie's older brother said you're trying to help Stonefire now. So I think that means you don't want to hurt dragons anymore. Which is good, because they're amazing."
> Ivy blinked. Were the boy and girl dragon-shifter children? If so, who had sent them? While she understood it was probably to try and rub in how awful she'd been in trying to take away the inner dragons of nameless children, right now she lacked the energy to deal with them. "Who's the uncle? And why are you here, exactly?"
Freddie motioned toward the door. "My Uncle Zain is in the hallway. I can get him if you want. I didn't even want to come, but Daisy kept asking, and asking, and asking. So I finally said fine."
So the boy was a dragon-shifter. Or, that was the logical deduction. The ability to shift into a dragon was dominant, and dragons didn't adopt human children or suddenly become uncles to them, either.
Just as she was about to ask the boy to fetch Zain, the little girl spoke up again. "Why did you hate dragons so much? I'm human, like you. And Freddie is not only a dragon-shifter, but my bestest friend in the world. We don't have to pick one or the other. We can all be friends."
Ah, how simple the world was for a child.
Although, as Ivy tried to think of how to explain it, words failed her.
How did one explain the videos, the books, the images of destruction and death to a child?
A small voice at the back of her mind whispered, If they're even true.
Zain strode into the room and said, "You want to be friends with everyone, Daisy. But not all people are that accepting."
Daisy frowned. "Not with everyone. I don't like mean people."
Before she could stop herself, Ivy smiled at the girl's tone.