in the midst of a raging inferno. No longer face-to-face with a dragon that had her mother’s name. She was back at her old home, safe and sound, with Connor by her side. Had it all been some kind of dream? But no, a searing pain shot up her arm. She looked down to find blackened skin, blistering from where the wood had hit it.
She jerked away from Connor, staring down at her burnt hand, then up at him, fury and fear surging through her. “How could you do that?” she cried. “How could you send me there without even warning me first?”
It had been real. All of it. She could have died! She could have been burnt alive. How could he just stand there, knowing he’d put her life in danger like that?
Connor looked down at her hand, his face awash with confusion. “Wha—how did you get that?” he stammered.
“You tell me. You’re the one who sent me smack dab into the middle of Armageddon world,” she retorted, trying not to focus on her throbbing hand. If a little burn hurt this badly, what would it have been like to be engulfed in a sea of flames like the others? She held her stomach, this close to throwing up as her hand continued to pulse in pain.
“But it was just a vision,” Connor protested. “A recording of a past event. Not even first hand—it came from my history reader. It shouldn’t have been able to hurt you…”
“Tell that to my hand.”
Connor regarded her burn, looking confused and frightened. Then he squared his jaw, seeming to recover his inner soldier. “Hang on,” he said at last. “I have something that will help.”
Trinity watched as he reached into his bag and pulled out a small tin, prying open the top and scooping out a glob of grease. She obediently held out her hand and he smeared the stuff over her burn. The heat cooled immediately and she found herself able to breathe normally again.
“What is that stuff?” she asked.
“Burn salve,” he replied. “It’s a big seller where I’m from, as you can imagine. It’ll knock out your pain and prevent infection. Unfortunately, it may also make you a bit sleepy.”
Connor scooped out more goop and continued to apply it to her wound. His touch was warm, gentle. His strokes even and clean. Against her better judgment, Trinity felt herself start to relax, the apocalyptic nightmare fading from her consciousness. She was exhausted, she realized suddenly, and her head was pounding. Side effects from her trip through time and space?
Once he had finished, he led her back over to the couch. She collapsed in relief, leaning her head against a pillow, trying to will away the creeping nausea. “Tell me everything you saw,” he instructed, his voice filled with concern. “I need to figure out what’s going on here. Something’s got to be wrong. There’s no way you should have gotten hurt from a memory.”
And so she told him, starting with the burning town and the dying people, and ending with the small green dragon coming in for a landing.
“She said her name was Emberlyn—Emmy, just like my mother—and that I was the one to name her that. Which is ridiculous, right? I mean why on Earth would I be going around naming dragons? Naming dragons after my dead mother, I might add? And then she said something else weird. She said I was…” She trailed off, catching Connor’s grim expression. “What?”
“This is worse than I thought,” he declared. “The dragon is gaining strength and reaching out to you through your bond. She must have yanked you out of the vision I sent you—and dragged you into the Nether so she could talk to you.”
“The Nether?”
Connor bit his lower lip. “It’s a place beyond space and time, existing in the collective unconsciousness of all dragons.” He raked a frustrated hand through his hair. “This is all my fault—I should have never opened you up like that to receive my send. But I never imagined she would already be powerful enough to intervene.”
Trinity stared at him, more confused than ever. “So wait,” she said. “You’re saying that this dragon here, inside this egg, somehow hijacked your vision and dragged me into some magical dragon world so she and I could have a little meet and greet?”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that, but that’s the idea.”
“But why would she do that? What does she want with me?” She thought back to Emmy’s words and shivered.
“Most dragon eggs can hatch on their own without the aid of humans,” Connor explained. “But certain dragons—queen dragons, often—attempt to bond with a selected human before they’re born. It gives them an added level of protection from Hunters like me.” He looked down at his hands. “Your bond with Emmy began back at the museum, when you first pulled her from the exhibit case.”
She stared at him, unease crawling across her skin. “So that’s why you told me not to touch the egg.”
“I thought maybe I could save you from it all. Let you live a normal life. But now it’s too late. Emmy has touched you and the bond between you will only grow. She’ll use that bond to convince you to help her. To save her life.”
Trinity stared at the bag containing the egg, remembering how tempted she’d been to touch it. To hold it in her arms. To trace it with her fingertips. Had the dragon been silently luring her under its spell all along, hoping to convince her to help it hatch and destroy the world? The thought was revolting.
“Well, don’t worry,” she declared. “I’m not about to play mother to a dragon. Not after I saw what the beasts are capable of.” Her mind flashed to the town square, engulfed in flames. The children’s screams. The burning flesh. So much senseless death. The end of the world itself—all sparked by this one egg. There was absolutely no bond on Earth that was going to convince her to save this disgusting thing.
She turned to Connor. “I want to help,” she declared. “Whatever needs to be done to keep dragons extinct—I’m your girl.”
Connor didn’t answer, pulling the egg from his bag and turning it in his hands. Trin flexed her fingers uneasily, the compulsion to touch it once again burning through her like a fever. She wondered if she should mention the urge to Connor but decided against it. He might decide she was too far gone to help him and she didn’t want to be left out.
“Judging from its transparency, I’d say we have about a week before it hatches,” he told her. “We’ll need to find a way to destroy it by then. The sooner the better.”
She gave the egg a dubious look. “Couldn’t we just…I don’t know…smash it?”
“It’s not that simple. Dragon eggs are pretty much unbreakable,” he informed her. “Harder than diamonds. But we can try to burn it.” He looked up at her hopefully. “I don’t suppose you have any spare plutonium?”
“Um, no. Sorry. Not exactly something they stock at the local Wal-Mart.”
“Right.” He pressed his lips together. “Well, then we’re going to have to go with the alternative.”
“Which is?”
He seemed to consider this. “A volcano perhaps. If we can drop the egg into an active volcano, the lava should be hot enough to destroy it.”
“Oh-kay.” She considered this for a moment. “But wait,” she said, a thought coming to her.
Connor looked at her questioningly.
“If we destroy the egg,” she said, “won’t that…I don’t know… cancel out your own world? I mean I saw
She meant the question as a kind of half joke and was surprised at the uneasiness she felt after she voiced it. What if he
Thankfully, Connor shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that. My timeline has already been established. There’s no way to alter that. But by destroying the egg, we can set your world on an alternate timeline. One that doesn’t end in apocalypse.”
She furrowed her brow. The quantum mechanics were making her head hurt. “So you can’t go back then,” she realized aloud, “because in the new alternate future, you wouldn’t exist.”
He nodded.
“Dude, that’s rough,” she blurted out before she could stop herself.
He chuckled. “Don’t worry. I knew what I was getting myself into when I accepted the mission,” he assured
