It came back to me just as I was registering two unmoving lumps—human-sized—down the beach behind me.
“Dragon Mother…” My body was spattered in blood, sand caked onto it.
I touched my tongue to my lips: more blood and sand.A tang lingered.A bitter aftertaste.
A series of mouse-like squeaks had me swinging my head around to another quick swirl of my vision.I grimaced it away.
“What the…?”
Tiny legs stuck out from beneath a small chunk of driftwood on the ground.Were they … a bird’s?The squeaks, I realized with some surprise, were coming from the wood.
I rolled it off to reveal what I would have assumed was a doll if not for the fact that I held its blood under my thrall.
So not a doll.Something living.But what?
The not-doll was small and rigid, its arms and legs sticking straight out to its sides, with sand-dusted wings flat beneath its back.Its hair was a fuchsia so vibrant I’d only ever seen its like among flower petals.It was squeezed into tight, head-to-toe wompa leather I’d never don in this heat.Though no larger than grapeseeds, its eyes were condemning beneath fuchsia eyebrows thin as thread.From lips just as tiny emerged more squeaks I now recognized as infuriated.
I glanced around again.Something so small could not have yelled so loudly.I was missing something—someone.
I spotted no one else.Just the two lumps I suspected were the reason I was stronger.
I bent over the not-doll, and when my nose was within a handsbreadth of its little face, the thing spat at me.A single droplet of water rolled down my nose.
I snorted, and water dripped from both nostrils—my body still pushing out the water that had filled my lungs.
Those tiny eyebrows climbed its forehead as grapeseed eyes pinned on my face.
I didn’t have time for this shit, whatever it was.
Between forefinger and thumb, I grasped its waist and raised it to eye level.
“Mmm-mm-mmmm-mm-mmmm,” the thing whined.
By just a fraction, I released my hold on its blood.It exhaled through its mouth and nose—no water came out—its legs drew closed, and its arms slapped against either side of my hand.
It craned its head back to glare at me with those beady little eyes.“Put me down right this instant.”
An abrupt laugh bubbled out of me, surprising us both.
“Are youlaughingat me?”the thing accused in a high-pitched whine that made me wince, then scowl.
“You spat at my face.”My voice came out scratchy, as if I had rusted in the ocean.“I’ll be asking the questions.”
“You deserved it.No one commands my body but me.”
“I’ll do as I see fit.Who yelled at me?”
The little thing squirmed in my grip before glowering at me defiantly.“I did.You’re under arrest.Under the power?—”
“That wasn’t you.It couldn’t have been you.”
“It was.Under the power granted me by?—”
“How?”
She narrowed those minuscule eyes at me until they were mean, glittering slits.“I was maybe only gonna arrest you for murder, but this level of stupid should be treated as a danger to the realm too.”
“I’m not following.”
