“Do you miss her?”
“She’s not dead,” he muttered at the sheet. “If that’s what you’re really asking.”
“Would you like to talk to her? You are allowed to call home, you know.”
“She’s away.” Ignatius knocked the picture frame over, hiding the photo. “She has to go away a lot. Important clan business. For my uncle.”
“That must be lonely for you.”
Another shrug. He still hadn’t looked at her.
“You guessed before this, didn’t you?” he said abruptly.
“I had my suspicions,” she admitted. “I noticed you avoided shifting with the other kids. But I wasn’t certain. Does your uncle know?”
Ignatius’s mouth twisted bitterly. “Why do you think he made me come to this stupid camp? To learn how to make campfires and idiotic friendship bracelets?”
“I can understand his reasons for sending you here,” Honey said gently. “And I can understand why you didn’t want any of the other campers to know. What I don’t understand is why your uncle didn’t tell any of the staff that you hadn’t shifted yet.”
Ignatius’s shoulders hunched further. “I asked him not to.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Why?” Ignatius lifted his head at last to shoot her an incredulous look, as though this should be self-evident. “You think I wantanyoneto know I’m a weak, pathetic failure?”
“You aren’t any of those things. Does your uncle say that?”
“No.” Ignatius went back to his sullen huddle, chin on his knees. “He doesn’t have to. He’s never angry with me. Justdisappointed.”
“Plenty of people don’t shift until they’re much older than you are now.” She’d learned enough about shifters to know that was true. “It’s perfectly normal.”
“You sound like my mom,” Ignatius muttered. “That’s what she says. That I should stop worrying. She even didn’t want my uncle to send me here. She said that my dragon will emerge when it’s ready, and nothing would speed it up. They had a huge fight about it. But he’s the clan alpha, and he insisted.”
Privately, Honey was beginning to like Ignatius’s mom a lot more than his uncle. “Is that why you didn’t want to come here? You agree with your mom?”
“Oh, sure,” Ignatius said, dripping sarcasm. “The fact that I haven’t shifted yet is totally nothing to worry about. It’s not like Goldens always shift young. It’s not like my uncle could fly before he could walk. At my age, he was already winning dominance fights and claiming treasure for his hoard. I don’t even have a single coin that’s properly my own. Not that I won for myself, like a real dragon.”
“We all do things at our own pace, Ignatius. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. You’ll shift when you’re ready.”
“You don’tunderstand,” he said savagely. “You’re not a dragon. You don’t know what it’s like, always having to guard your territory and your treasure. I’m Ignatius Aurelium Golden! My uncle is relying on me to take over as alpha one day. If I show any sign of weakness, other dragon clans will take everything he fought to claim. I can’t let him down. Ican’t.”
Her heart bled for him. No kid should be under that much pressure. Maybe that was the real reason he’d asked his uncle not to reveal his secret. For all Ignatius’s arrogant ways, perhaps deep down, he’d wanted to be treated like any other kid. If only for a little while.
“I’ve already talked to the rest of the pack,” she said. “And to Moira and Ragvald’s campers. No one will tease you about this, I promise. They won’t even mention it, if you’d rather they didn’t.”
“They’d better not.” Ignatius straightened, some of his usual haughtiness returning. “Otherwise, this whole place will be in big trouble. My uncle only invested in this stupid camp to make sure it would be totally under his control if he had to send me here. If word of this gets out, he won’t be happy.”
“Everyone will respect your privacy, and not because of your uncle,” Honey said firmly. “But Ignatius, have you considered sharing some of what you’re going through with the other kids? They’d understand. You aren’t the only person here who can’t shift yet.”
Ignatius shook his head. “Estelle has her powers already, and she can talk mind-to-mind with other mythic shifters. She’ll probably shift any day now. It’s not the same.”
“I’m not saying it is. But she’s frustrated that she can’t transform yet, just like you. And although she acts like she doesn’t care, she’s still self-conscious about the fact that all her friends already can. I think you two might find you have more in common than you think.”
“She wouldn’t understand.” Ignatius wrapped his arms around his knees, drawing them closer to his chest. “No one understands.”
I understand, she wanted to tell him… but she couldn’t. No matter how much empathy she felt for him, how could she claim to know what he was going through? She wasn’t even a shifter.
Inspiration struck. “Well, if you won’t talk to Estelle, how about Buck?”
