That was his mistake,the opalescent dragon said.He saw hunger as a thing to feed, not a thing to end by satisfying.
“And you…?” I looked between them. “You know how this ends, don’t you? You see threads I can’t.”
The smoke-gray dragon exhaled, sending a curl of mist drifting over my hands. It felt cool, soothing, like someone laying a cloth over fevered skin.
We see many endings,it said.They are like scales on our bodies. Some are hard. Some are soft. Some shimmer. Some flake away.
“That’s very poetic,” I said. “And entirely unhelpful.”
The silver-blue dragon huffed what might have been laughter.If we told you the precise steps, you would not take them the same way.
I frowned. “That’s not how instructions work.”
With dragons, it is,the opalescent one said, amused.
And I realized their sense of humor was relaxing around me.
I scrubbed my hands over my face. “Fine. No spoilers. Can you at least tell me if closing the circle will weaken the high priestess? Or if she’s just going to throw a bigger tantrum?”
The bronze-and-emerald dragon shifted, scales clinking softly. Its gaze went far beyond the chamber, beyond the Academy, beyond Stonewick.When a river is dammed,it said,the water does not disappear. It presses against the barrier. It finds new routes. It carves stone. The hunger path is like that. You are not… erasing it. You are closing an easy channel.
“So we’re… redirecting,” I said slowly. “Making it harder for her to use.”
Yes, it said.Harder. Not impossible.
I chewed on that. “So she’ll be weaker, but not gone. Which means she’ll adapt. Which means we’re buying time, not winning outright.”
The silver-blue dragon’s tail curled around my ankles, a strangely comforting gesture.Time is not nothing,it said.Forbeings who live such brief spans, you do not appreciate it enough.
“I appreciate it just fine,” I said. “I’d like a lot more of it. Preferably with my daughter alive and un-cursed.”
The child,the smoke-gray dragon murmured.She walks closer to the seam than she knows.
My chest tightened. “Celeste has already had one too-close dance with Shadowick. I’m not letting my grandmother use her as a bargaining chip.”
Then do not, the opalescent dragon said simply.
“That simple,” I said softly.
The silver-blue dragon lowered its head so that its snout pressed lightly against my butterfly mark. The contact sparked—not burning, exactly, but bright. A pulse of energy traveled from the mark down my spine, then out, like a circuit being completed.
You are not powerless,it said.You are a junction.
“Between what?” I asked.
Lines,it said.Fae. Wards. Blood. Stone. Fire. Dragons. Shifters. Goblin.
“Gideon?” I asked.
There was a pause.
Shadow, it said finally.Knife-boy walks in shadows. He thinks he is one. He is not.
“Okay,” I said. “Cryptic, but intriguing.”
I hesitated. “Can I trust him?”
All four dragons focused on me then, the weight of their attention so intense I almost flinched.
