I gave her a look that the question deserved. Was she really implying she’d look at the clock if she heard her boys screaming? I was pretty sure anything that attacked her kids would have their asses drop-kicked to Antarctica and back.
Taliyah held up one hand in surrender. “I get it, Poppy, but details like this are important. Can you ballpark it for me? It’s almost three in the morning, and you’ve been here for a few hours.”
And I was pretty sure I’d only caught an hour of sleep before the thing struck. Which meant...
“Midnight, maybe?” I shook my head to say I wasn’t sure. “Half-past, even.”
Taliyah offered me a smile. It wasn’t warm, per se, but it did seem genuine. “Good. And Finn is safe, I’m assuming?”
I swallowed thickly and could only nod. When I finally found my voice, it came out tight with the fear I’d been suppressing. If I hadn’t come in at the right time, Finn might have been the one who needed stitches, not me. The cuts in my back still stung, but not as much as my pride. And my head still throbbed, but I was dealing with it. Yes, the nurses had wanted to check out my own wounds, but I wasn’t interested. I’d shooed them away from meand said they were just surface, even if I wasn’t sure I was right. But I didn’t matter at the moment. All that did was Andre getting better.
“Astrid’s going to take Finn home.”
“Right after she takes a sloshed Priss back to my house and tucks her in,” Tally said with a bite of temper. “That girl, I swear...”
She trailed off into furious mutters, but they were easy to ignore. They were meant for Princess Aprecity, not me. Besides, it was kind of reassuring to watch a literal ice queen suffer the same slings and arrows of parenthood as the rest of us.
“What did you see when you entered Finn’s room?” Maverick asked, yanking the conversation back on task with a pointed cough in Taliyah’s direction. She scowled, but some of the tension in her shoulders eased when they exchanged a look.
I hesitated, turning over the memories in my head. I wasn’t quite sure what I’d seen. Whatever the thing was that had destroyed Finn’s room, it had looked reptilian, but who was I to judge exactly what a monster looked like? It hadn’t stayed visible long enough to give me an eyeful.
“I think it’s some kind of dragon,” I said at last. “But like the smallest dragon you’ve ever seen.”
Tally frowned at me. “Aren’t dragons huge?”
I cocked my head to the side. “I guess. You’d have to ask Smith.”
“Why do you think it was a dragon, Poppy?” Maverick asked.
I shrugged. “Well, it had scales and it could pop in and out of the visible spectrum. It had wings and it just looked kind of amphibian.” Were dragons amphibians? I had no idea. “I mean, I’m just guessing it was a dragon. I didn’t get a good look at it unless Andre was on the offensive. It couldn’t hold onto its invisibility when he was fighting with it. That’s when it picked up a baseball bat and...”
“That’s when he got whacked. Because the thing decided to use the bat,” Maverick said, turning that knowing look on me. It was more intense than it had a right to be. “Not because you actively tried to hurt him. The bat was going to end up hitting someone. I’m pretty sure Andre is okay with it hitting him instead of you—that he prefers that outcome. He went in to fight the thing, right?”
He had. It had been one of the bravest, most foolish things I’d ever seen someone do. And it had gotten him hurt.
Not your fault, Poppy. Maverick has a point.
But my guilty conscience wasn’t convinced. The sick feeling in my gut wasn’t going to disappear until Andre was safe at home, back to his normal cheery self.
“Still,” I said after a moment.
Maverick sighed, clearly frustrated with my mule-headedness. The sound was reminiscent enough of Andre’s knowing sighs that it made my heart clench tight.
“You said it was a dragon, right?” Taliyah asked.
“No, I said itlookedlike a dragon.”
“Give me another description,” Tally said, pen pointed on her pad.
“It looked like a lizard. Kind of dragon-esque, but it was pretty small. But, if I’ve learned anything from my time in Haven Hollow, it’s not to underestimate how big a shifter can get.”
“True,” she nodded, scribbling in her pad. “As far as I know, there’s only one dragon left in residence. Ivan left after his encounter with the Grave Eater.”
Maverick nodded. “Well, with Ivan gone, it just leaves the new guy from Misty Hollow.” Then he looked at me.
“You mean Smith.”
He nodded. “Do you know him?”
