She frowned. “Why—”
“Why is my magic so cruel?” His mouth twisted. “Why do dragons hunt out gold? Why do we make enemies, and feud, and waste our lives stealing from and fighting one another? Because we are dragons. Power is all that is important to us.”
She opened her mouth to protest that couldn’t be true, that Apollo wasn’t a power-hungry dragon—then closed it. Apollo was the guardian of their entire town. That was power, wasn’t it?
Just not a power so great and destructive it only brought misery to those who wielded it.
Corin seemed about to say something else when his gaze flicked away. “Someone’s calling us.”
“I can’t hear them?”
“Telepathically.” He frowned. “It doesn’t sound urgent; Tomás is almost ready for his nap.”
“Thatisurgent, actually.” How could she have lost track of time so badly?
“We haven’t talked through everything we needed to.”
Her heart sank.
No. They hadn’t. Despite everything, they had avoided the one topic they really should have focused on from the start: Tomás’s missing father, and how he might be the dragon shifter who’d apparently been snooping around the town. But not actuallyinsidethe town—Apollo and Felicity hadn’t noticed any strangers other than the people Corin brought with him.
Corin seemed to read her mind. “If the dragon the children were talking about is real, he’s made no direct move yet,” he said gently. “And you are surrounded by friends here. Whatever happens, they are on your side. And so am I.” He hesitated. “If it would help—give me a name. I can at least find out his current location. Then you would know for sure whether it is him or not.”
She looked away. “I can’t.”
“I won’t—” He broke off. “I understand.”
No, he didn’t, because she hadn’t told him! Exasperated, she turned back to him.
He’d already shifted into dragon form.
She stared up at him, eyes wide.
His dragon form was magnificent. If his duskfire wings were ghostly, this was his power in vibrant life—gleaming black scales, the hints of brilliant green-like flashes of unearthly lightning.
He flew her back into town, landing in front of Jacqueline and Arlo’s house. But he didn’t stay. He had work to do. But he would see her in the morning.
Her mouth said yes before her brain got a thought in edge-wise.
Tomás was full of excitement from his morning with the seal shifter kids. He hummed and cackled to himself as Maya did her best to keep on top of the chores that somehow multiplied when she wasn’t looking. At one point he shifted into his dragon form and wiggled around the floor on his tummy, wings wrapped tight to his back.
Maya laughed. “Are you being a seal, little love?”
“Arf! Arf!” Tomás wriggled enthusiastically, then exploded into her arms in a burst of flame-colored wings.
She hugged him tightly. “I’m glad you had fun.”
“Arf!” He wriggled again, transforming into a human toddler in a shower of gentle sparks. Maya closed her eyes as he snuggled against her, his chubby cheek resting on her shoulder, one hand stroking her cheek. “Mama.”
“Sleepy?”
“Mama mama mama…”
She made a bottle and padded up the stairs with him alternating between drinking it and petting her face. It was the sort of sweetness that kept surprising her in her new life: adorable, filling her heart and her soul with happiness, but also involving little toddler fingers poking up her nose.
“Hoo!” he said, and grumbled wordlessly to himself.
Tomás fell asleep clinging to the necklace Corin said came from Troy. Her little dragon. There was so much she had to learn about him.
