I’d been proud then that my magic had bought this home. No one had asked me, but if my parents had, I would’ve willingly given that light inside away for their sake.
All it cost was the lifelong sense I was missing something, even though my memory of my magic was just a shadow.
Curi wrapped herself around my ankles one last time—apparently a rescued cat’s way of expressing gratitude is to quietly endanger their savior’s life over and over—and then slunk back to the sundial rock where she liked to sun in the garden. I closed the gate, latching it shut.
I ran my finger across the soft petals of one of the enormous bobbing pink roses that bloomed on the gate. “You make our life more beautiful, Lidi, do you know that?”
She smiled, faintly but sadly, and it tore at my heart.
“That’s a gift. That matters,” I told her, then took her hand.
The two of us walked down the lane. Green trees to either side arched over the road so that the sun shining through cast a lattice of light and shadow, and the scent of fresh, damp greenery would’ve told me it had rained overnight, even if I hadn’t listened to the rain patting against the rooftop last night, cozy next to Lidi in our little space just below the eaves but unable to sleep.
“The Dragon Trials start soon,” she said. “Have you ever seen a dragon shifter?”
“No, and I don’t want to.”
“Everyone wants to go. Gigi’s big brother is going to go watch,” she said wistfully. “You really don’t want to?”
“I’ve never been further than those mountains.” I pointed to them in the distance. Somewhere beyond that was the capital, and the queen’s gleaming castle, and the world of dragon shifters and Fae.
“And I don’t want to go any further.” I tickled her side. “I want to stay here with you.”
She giggled and pulled away.
“Tormenting you,” I added.
“But you were talking with Tay about going away,” she said.
“I’m just trying to figure things out. I’m trying to find answers to grown-up problems you don’t have to worry about.”
If I went away to work for the Fae, I doubted they would help me. But perhaps I couldsteala cure, and when I brought it back here, everyone would assume it was a gift. They sometimes helped the people who served them. Their unpredictable generosity was part of why mortals loved them.
Mortal loyalty was also based in the fantasy—which came true just barely often enough to keep it alive—that the Fae might raise a particularly deserving mortal into a Fae.
“I want to see Fae and dragon shifters and the Trials,” she said decisively. “Why does everyone think the dragons are so scary when they protect us?”
“Because they’re unpredictable.” I tickled her again, and she twisted away, laughing, but didn’t release my hand. “Just like me.”
She was still giggling, but I regretted the words. So far, no one had ever seen any resemblance between me and the dragon shifters. Mam had fretted about releasing my magic to the Fae, afraid it would have some different tinge that alerted them to the mark she made me hide.
At the time, I’d still thought Tay and I shared a father. Our father had loved me as well as he did Tay. Tay’s magic had bought him the extra years of life that brought us Lidi, and that had been a gift. Tay reminded me gently sometimes that we had traded away our magic for the things we loved most: the farm and our rambunctious little sister. I wouldn’t change anything, so why was I angry?
“Sometimes one nightmare can protect us from another,” I added, thinking about the dragon shifters I didn’t know, like the one who got my mother pregnant before she married a better mortal man. “Sometimes dragons can turn evil. That’s why people are afraid of them. But they keep us safe from the monsters.”
“I’m going over the mountains someday,” Lidi said.
She clearly hadn’t given a damn about anything I said about the dragon shifters. Even though she’d asked, she ignored my answer. Children do keep one humble.
“I hope you do. Just remember to come home.” We turned down the wide path to the school. The trees that dotted the field in front of the school had wide, spreading branches from which hung a dozen swings, and brightly colored strings of pennants fluttered in the breeze.
The trees were full of clambering children, and other red-cheeked little ones ran back and forth playing tag. The doors to the school must not be open yet. Miss Hex, who had taught Tay and me to read years before, drank tea alone right up until she had to ring the bell, and who could blame her?
I tried to ask Lidi who else had been bullying her, but she ran off with her braids bouncing to hug her best friend, as if they’d been apart for longer than the night. I lingered, watching them. There were plenty of chores waiting for me at home before work and little incentive to rush away.
A shadow crossed mine. Something soared low overhead, and I ducked instinctively.
I looked up, already smiling at my fear, ready to make a joke of the bird that had terrified me.
