“Which one is real?”
“Both. Neither.” I wrap my arms around my knees. “I don’t think even she knows anymore.”
Luke is quiet for a moment. Then: “What kind of stories did she tell you?”
I smile at that. “There were so many. Legends of ancient dragons… creatures who could fly higher than clouds and dive deeper than oceans. About witches who could make flowers bloom in winter and call down lightning from clear skies.”
As I speak, I think about the way she’d stroke my hair and promise me I was special. That my magic made me stronger, not weaker. That someday I’d understand why she kept me hidden.
“Sounds poetic.” Luke’s expression is too neutral to wonder if he’s being sarcastic. “Did you believe her?” he asks.
“I wanted to.” The admission feels raw. “But I kept asking questions she couldn’t answer. Like why I could never meet other dragon children. Why my fire felt different from hers. Why she looked at me sometimes like she was terrified of what I might become.”
“And when you finally got answers?”
“They weren’t the ones I wanted.” I rest my chin on my knees. “Learning you’re the thing your entire society thinks shouldn’t exist… that changes you.”
“You’re not a thing,” he says. The certainty in his voice makes me look up. “You’re Ember. And you exist. That’s enough.”
The words affect me unexpectedly. Tears prick the corners of my eyes, and I blink them back furiously.
“Is it? Enough?”
“Has to be. There’s no alternative.”
It’s not comfort. Not really. But it’s honest in a way that nothing else has been, and somehow that matters more.
I watch him in the torchlight. Really look at him for the first time since we stopped. The silver strands threaded through his sandy hair that catch the light. The thin scar along his jaw—pale and old, barely visible unless you know where to look. Details that make him seem less like the untouchable operative and more like someone who’s lived and bled and survived.
God, he’s good-looking.
The thought comes out of nowhere. But I can’t help myself.
Hard, honed, the lines of his face seem carved from granite. And yet again, I feel like a child.
He’s out of your league, little girl.
“How did you get that?” I gesture toward the scar, pulling my thoughts away from how broad his chest is beneath that vest.
His hand lifts unconsciously to touch it. “Knife fight. Venice, 1723. I was young and stupid and thought I was invincible.”
“What happened?”
“I learned I wasn’t.” His mouth curves slightly. “Cost me three broken ribs and a punctured lung. But I lived.”
“Must have hurt.”
“Everything hurts at some point. You just learn to keep moving anyway.”
The philosophy should sound cold. Harsh. But coming from him, in the darkness with exhaustion pulling at both of us, it just sounds true.
My eyelids feel like lead. Each blink lasts longer than the last.
“You should sleep,” he says, reading my body language with unsettling accuracy. “We’ve got a couple of hours before we need to move again.”
“You haven’t taken a break since the crash.”
“I’ll sleep when we’re out of here.”
