Armand informed me that the German broadsheet had been giving an account of a dastardly new British weapon, a monstrous dragon apparatus recently employed to raze defenseless villages, incinerate vital food supplies, and slay sobbing children.
“How insulting,” I said. I was resting flat upon the bed, trying to relax as best I could before we had to journey on later that night.
“War propaganda is hardly ever true,” he noted. Instead of the bed, he’d chosen the chair by the door again. His voice sounded sleepy. Still … maybe I hadn’t been the only one shaken back at the bakery. There was lots of room left in the bed.
“Even so,” I persisted. “It doesn’t make any sense. How could such a contraption possibly work? And why design a machine meant to do those things as a dragon? Why not a—a lion or a hawk?”
“Because dragons are the most formidable creatures of all. Because we exist at the fringes of their imaginations, nefarious and bloodcurdling and never quite fully defined. We can be shaped however they wish, assigned any horrific trait they dare to invoke. We’re the accumulation of all that they fear, most of all themselves. Why not a dragon? It makes perfect sense to me.”
“Idiots,” I muttered.
“In any case, what’s the alternative? It had to be a mechanical weapon attacking those soldiers. Everyone knows that dragons aren’t real.”
I sat up to see him. “My eyes don’t look like that. Bulging like that. Do they?”
Mandy was slouched sideways against the leather, his head tipped back and his eyes closed. But he smiled. “Not in the least. Your eyes are gorgeous. You’d be the belle of the
“Are you mocking me?”
“Never.”
I remained as I was, unconvinced. He shifted to the other side of the chair.
“Your dragon eyes are nothing like what the paper showed. They’re almond-shaped, iridescent. The rest of your face is gold, but they’re ringed in purple.”
“Like a raccoon?” I’d seen a drawing of one once. It had looked like a rat with a sharp, pointed nose.
He laughed. “Not really. Just like … markings, I suppose. You’ve never seen your own face?”
“No. How could I have?” I’d barely noticed even my human face. Mirrors weren’t exactly a vital part of my existence. I used them to ensure that I was free of smudges and that my hair was pinned tightly enough to avoid Mrs. Westcliffe’s censure. That was about it.
“Belle of the ball,” he assured me. “No wonder the other girls at Iverson snipe at you.”
“Right. That’s why.”
I eased back down. Gradually the room melted into that greeny gray darkness, and Armand’s breathing slowed. I watched the air condense into night. I listened to the insects in the forest clicking their tiny dusk songs. Frogs. The water bird by the lake, piping alone.
“Are you going to marry me, Eleanore Jones?” Armand asked, his words barely breaching the dark.
How could I, and how could I not?
“Ask me again later,” I answered at last. “Ask me when this is all done, and we’re back in England, and the sun is shining.”
Chapter 27
Always she astounds me. Lora-of-the-moon, changing her fate yet again.
I can’t believe I never realized she’d do it. I’d thought I’d tested her depths, known her true heart. There can be no sound reason I never anticipated this future, except, perhaps, that I didn’t want to.
Her life for his.
And now all will be different. The path she was meant to forge ahead alone has been bent.
I am a furnace with the force of my desire, a fire so hot I melt my own limitations.
I need to reach them. I need to change the coming day.
But they’re so entwined now. Because of her sacrifice, they’re bonded in a way I never was with her, absorbed in each other’s songs. Mine becomes harder and harder to distinguish.
I watch from my impossible distance, knowing the sun will exhaust me before I see these next few hours through; that I’ll vanish from the sky before I know how it concludes. I spin a spell and sing the only song I need this dragon whelp to remember, the only command Armand must obey:
Chapter 28
Armand had discovered the name of the village by the lake, consulted his maps, and figured out where we needed to go next. I munched one of the apples (very tart) as he suited up: the leather coat and gloves, the compass, the knapsack and goggles. The pistol in its holster, which I was starting to think would be better off in my hands than his. But since I wouldn’t have actual hands for our flight, I let him keep it.
I took my dragon shape by the shore of the lake, the moon looming over us, a sharpened scythe imprisoned in rings of misty platinum and mauve.
Mandy climbed up and ran his hands down my neck before finding my mane. He felt too light to me. I knew it to be an illusion—he weighed the same as ever—but I wanted him to be heavier. Solid and substantial like a boulder. Like a mountain, so I’d never have to worry about anything harming him ever again.
I gazed at the stars and thought,
It would have to do.
We left the lake and lodge behind. I went up, up—the lambent lights from the village quite festive from here—making a wide, easy circle before heading in the right direction.
Northeast, toward Prussia.
Mandy had calculated that we could reach the prison camp by dawn. We weren’t going to attempt to infiltrate it yet; we’d wait a day, hide and rest up, assess our situation. See if we could figure out exactly where Aubrey was being held before charging in.
I flew as high as I dared. With the moon out and no ocean or heavy cloud cover to protect us, we slipped along the wind, silent but painfully visible. Our route wouldn’t take us over any major cities, but still I did my best to avoid any pockets of civilization below. I didn’t know enough about guns to know how high a bullet could be shot. Only that it hurt like the devil when they struck you.
A few hours in, I realized the land below me had changed from forest and roads to roads and clearings. But these clearings weren’t farmers’ pastures or plowed fields. They were too narrow for that, parallel strips that went on and on, bare of any vegetation. I puzzled over them, slowing some, and by the time I glanced ahead and noticed the aeroplanes stationed at their ends, Armand was already pressing his knees into me and wrenching at my mane.
It was an airfield. I’d never seen one before, of course, but it—
We’d been spotted. An alarm sounded; I heard it clear as the bell Mrs. Westcliffe liked to peal at Iverson to herd students from one room to another, only this was shrill and awful and went on and on and on. Figures of men spilled out from structures I hadn’t even noticed, swarming the aeroplanes. A searchlight flashed on and pinned us in white light.
Bad luck for me—I’d been looking at its tower when it lit. I was blinded. Armand was pulling me left,
