The Deepest Night

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—

I struck the earth and went end over end, and my right wing got crushed and my tail hit something solid that squealed, and the next thing I knew I was on my back seeing stars—fake ones, woozy orange balls, up and down, up and down—and when I could focus again my brain was screaming, Breathe! So I did.

A human was running toward me. No, not a human.

Armand, his eyes gone an incredible, luminous blue.

I turned my head and looked at him, dazed and happy in some weird, detached way, despite the fact that I felt broken in about a dozen places.

Armand’s eyes could glow, just like mine.

Armand was just like—

“Lora!”

He fell to his knees beside me, his hands roaming frantically along my face.

“Lora! Are you hurt?”

I smiled. Well, I would have. It was more like I showed him my teeth, which didn’t have nearly the same effect. He scowled down at me, and his eyes reverted to normal.

“Eleanore, it’s me. Don’t you know me?”

I sighed, then Turned back to girl.

“Ouch,” I said.

“Oh!” He lurched away from me. “Oh, ah, you’re—you don’t have any—”

“Just toss me my coat, will you?”

I kept my eyes closed until I heard him return and the rough wool weight of the peacoat was draped over my torso. The ground was lumpy and there was a rock digging into my thigh, but I didn’t feel up to moving yet, so I ignored it.

“Mandy. Do you know what just happened?”

He settled down at my side, running a hand along my arm. “You managed to destroy my father’s favorite car?”

I sat up, clutching the coat to me. The motorcar had a series of long, gaping gashes angled down its side, all the way from the bonnet to the back door. The tears were as neat and clean as if someone had taken shears to the steel.

My tail, I realized. My barbed tail.

“Uh … ,” I said.

“Don’t worry. There are a dozen more you can go through before we have to start buying new ones.”

“No, not that. I mean, I’m sorry about that, of course—”

“As long as you’re not injured—”

“No, listen! Armand, you … your eyes. They were dragon eyes! Just now, when you came to me.”

He looked confused; I dug the rock out from beneath me and threw it toward the sea.

“Dragon eyes,” I emphasized, smiling. A real smile this time, one I couldn’t have stopped if I’d wanted. “And they were beautiful.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

And only then, with the wind whispering and the sea crashing and the mist rolling along the waves … only then did the stars come to life.

not alone, was their sudden chorus, a wily, sparkling tune. not alone, beast, not alone.

I rose to my knees and hugged him, the coat trapped between us. His arms came up and encircled me; he turned his face to my neck.

“A dragon,” Armand said against my skin, so soft and awed I barely caught it.

“Not alone,” I said back, but without sound, because I wasn’t ready for him to hear it yet.

After that, everything changed.

We still met at night, because it was obvious I needed all the practice I could get. The owls and herons were our witnesses as I shifted from one form to the next, over and over, mostly getting it right but sometimes not. Armand was always there for that.

During the day, however, he avoided me. I didn’t notice at first; I was busy with my vastly crucial duty of ensuring that long strips of woven cloth were rolled precisely to measure. I spent hours in what once was the reading room but now housed (according to the sign on the door) “Necessary Supplies.” The sage-green window treatments and white paneled walls had been hidden behind temporary metal cases holding everything from iodine to powdered gravy. My workstation was exactly in the middle of the room: one table, one chair, reams of cloth.

It wasn’t unpleasant. I didn’t have to see Chloe, and I didn’t have to deal with maggots or scrubbing up