“Beau!” she squeals, sitting bolt upright and bouncing up and down on the mattress. “You’re back!”
Behind me, I hear Nurse Marion tut, and I close the door firmly in her face before going to sit on the edge of Arabella’s bed.
“I promised you I’d read you a bedtime story, didn’t I?”
“Yes,” she says, “but sometimes grown-ups make promises that they don’t keep.”
“Me?” I say, pointing to my chest. “Do I do that?”
Arabella thinks for a moment, hugging her teddy bear close to her chest. “No,” she says. “You don’t do that.”
“Exactly,” I tell her. “Now, what are we reading?” I turn, searching for the bookcase.
“Make one up,” she requests.
I groan. “You know I’m no good at that, Hells Bells.”
“Please,” she says, and then, with a twinkle in her eye that reminds me a lot of Dray (the shifter has had way too much influence on my little sister), adds, “Tell me a story about you and the pretty girl.”
“Briony?” I say. She nods. “You like her?”
“Yes,” she says. “She’s really pretty.”
“And kind,” I add. “And funny. And very brave.”
Arabella nods like this is obvious and rolls back down, her head sinking into the pillow as she pops her thumb into her mouth and sucks.
I sweep the hair back from her forehead. “Would you like to know the story of how I met Briony?” I ask.
“Is it boring?” she asks around her thumb.
“It was the very first day I arrived at the academy,” I tell her. “When you arrive, all the young people from the other Quarters–”
“Iron, Granite, and Slate?” Arabella says.
“That’s right,” I reply. “They all arrive by train from all over the realm, and we’re all made to gather on the train platform, waiting for the Empress to address us. I was standing on that platform, and I spotted this girl right at the very end of the other line.”
“Briony,” Arabella says.
“Briony,” I tell her. “And, apart from you, she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. And I knew I had to talk to her.”
I tell her how I chased Briony through the fog, leaving out some of the details. But Arabella’s not really interested in any of that – she wants to know about the dragon. So I tell her the story of the egg, and the very first time Briony rode the dragon up in the sky above the academy’s forest.
Arabella’s eyes start to drift closed, and her thumb slips from her mouth. I kiss her forehead, smooth the covers around her little body, and then tiptoe from the room.
Nurse Marion is sitting in one of the armchairs in the main room of the apartment, her knitting needles clicking together in the silence.
“She’s asleep,” I tell her.
“She’ll be demanding stories every night for the next week,” Marion says.
“Then read them to her,” I tell her, glaring at the old woman.
She lowers her knitting into her lap. “Who’s the girl?” she asks me.
“I’m sure you know, Marion.”
“Your thrall?” I nod. “And a lumomancer?” I nod again.
