She grins at me. That real smile that took me months to earn, the one that makes her whole face light up. “Not even a little bit.”
We’ve barely made it through the front door when a small black-winged blur shoots past us, followed by Hannah’s exasperated voice.
“Raven Morningstar! You get back here this instant!”
The blur—Raven, Abaddon and Hannah’s four-year-old daughter—does a complicated barrel roll in the air before landing on top of a marble bust of some long-dead Italian nobleman. She’s grown since the last time we saw her, her wings stronger and more controlled. Though clearly not her impulse control.
“I’m hiding!” she announces gleefully.
“That’s not how hiding works, sweetheart,” Hannah says, appearing in the doorway with flour in her hair and an apron tied around her waist. She spots us and her expression shifts from frazzled to delighted. “Phoenix! Layden! You made it!”
Phoenix moves forward to hug her while I try not to laugh at Raven, who is now making faces at her mother from her perch.
“How was the flight?” Hannah asks.
“Long,” Phoenix says. “But uneventful, which is basically a miracle when you’re traveling with him.” She jerks her thumb at me.
“I’m a perfectly competent traveler,” I protest.
“You tried to tip the flight attendant with runes,” Phoenix reminds me.
“They brought me extra peanuts! And who couldn’t use a little more fullness and satiation in their life?”
Hannah laughs. “Come on, everyone’s out in the courtyard. We’re just finishing setting up for dinner.”
As we follow Hannah through the villa, Raven swoops down and lands on my shoulder. Her little clawed feet dig into my shirt, but not enough to hurt.
“Uncle Layden!” she says directly into my ear. “Did you know that Daddy says I can’t have a baby dragon for my birthday? Can you make him change his mind?”
“Why would I do that?” I ask.
“Because you’re his favorite brother?”
“I’m definitely not his favorite brother.”
“Fine,” she huffs. “Then because I’ll love you forever and ever if you do?”
Phoenix is trying very hard not to laugh. I can tell by the way her shoulders are shaking.
“Raven,” I say seriously, “I cannot get you a dragon.”
“Why not?”
“Because dragons don’t exist.”
She gasps like I’ve personally betrayed her. “They do too! Daddy told me!”
“Your daddy was lying to you.”
“Layden,” Hannah says warningly.
“What? She should know the truth!”
Raven launches off my shoulder and flies in an angry circle around my head. “I’m telling Daddy you called him a liar!”
She zooms off toward the courtyard, presumably to tattle.
“That went well,” Phoenix says.
