He spread his wings and sailed straight at her like a hawk descending on a mouse.
There was a moment when all she knew was that she was not on her feet anymore, and then she was tumbling, head over heels, scrabbling for a grip that wasn’t there, on scales as smooth as water.Then she felt the ruffle of the stretchy dewlaps that ran down his spine and managed to seize hold of one, the weight of her own body wrenching at her shoulder brutally.
They were ascending now, rapidly—she could feel the obscure pull of the vanishing earth beneath.
Ignoring it, Violet wrestled herself into a sitting position and pulled herself closer to his neck.
She could now take stock of the situation.Thankfully, Violet had an excellent head for heights.
Elfed had taken her above Drake Hall.Una was far below on the grass, shielding her eyes against the sun and gazing up at her.
No one was screaming—not yet—and that was a good sign, Violet thought.
She leaned low, snaking her arms as far as they could go round Elfed’s neck.Violet’s heart beat fast, not with fear but uncertainty—she still didn’t know if he recognised her, if he would reject her, or if Una’s theory might be right.
“It’s me,Violedd,“ she said, using the Welsh name that Gwydion had called her.
Elfed threw her off.
Chapter thirty-eight
Ormdale
Unaranthroughthestable yard and garden and into Drake Hall, almost colliding with Simon who must have seen something out the window because he steadied her long enough to demand, “Where?”
“On the roof!”Una gasped, and they ran up together.
Una had felt something crack inside her as she watched her sister tumble out of the sky and disappear among the roofline of Drake Hall.
Since yesterday, Una had begun to think of Violet as a restless wind—it might knock off your hat and make you chase it through the heather, but it also brought the colour to your cheeks and blew away the clouds over the moor so the sun shone down on you.If the strong, vibrant person had been reduced to a broken thing on the ridgeline…
But upon reaching the roof of Drake Hall, they found Violet leaning against a chimney stack listlessly, for all the world as if she had missed a train.
“I’m all right,” Violet said in a flat voice.“Sliding down that sloping bit of roof broke my fall.I turned my ankle.That’s all.”
Una found something to hold onto blindly as Simon crouched down with Violet, and Hanna appeared with a roll of bandages, a pot of arnica, and a disapproving expression.
“One day it will be something that arnica cannot fix,” Hanna murmured as she examined Violet’s ankle, shaking her head.“Shalena!”
Una closed her eyes and hugged herself, waiting for the tightness in her chest to loosen so she could breathe fully again.But she kept seeing her sister falling, then broken and sightless like the doll Violet had given her once.
“Una?”Violet said, curious.“Are you all right?”
Una’s eyes flew open.
“Me?”Una asked.“I’m not the one who fell out of the sky five minutes ago!”
But Violet was looking at her as if she’d only just seen her for the first time.
“Right.Come in, both of you, and have some tea,” said Simon, and this time it was not a suggestion.
“It’s like Cariad was with me,” said Edith after Simon explained what had happened.She poured tea so excitedly that Una feared for everyone at the breakfast table—especially the plump two-year-old Baby Margaret on Edith’s lap.
Simon gently took the teapot from his wife.
“I was separated from my dragon, too, just after we bonded in Wales,” Edith continued, “and it made things much more difficult than it ought to have been.But we made it in the end.”
Violet stared at Edith.“He thew me off him.”
