“Go,” he urged her gently. “Go and rest. We’ll be fine.”
And she did. Leaving him with Tomás, who glared up at him with the naked suspicion he was used to dealing with from other dragons.
Not ones who were this small, however.
“Hello, Tomás,” he said.
Tomás blew a raspberry at him. Then, with a look in his eyes that was far too calculating for a human child this young—he assumed—but absolutely perfect for a dragon—he also assumed—Tomás blew out his cheeks.
“Not working quite like you’d hoped, is it?” Corin found, to his surprise, that he was smiling.
“Awawahoo!” Tomás puffed, then stuffed his fingers into his mouth, looking disgruntled.
“Hoo! Hoo!”
Old memories nudged their way up. Corin’s own dragon was peering out through his eyes, fascinated.
“No wonder you couldn’t sleep.”
He was going to need backup for this. Or at least, he needed to warn the town’s guardian what was coming.
He sent a brief telepathic message to the shimmering gold bubble that was Apollo Jenkins’s mind, then quirked one eyebrow at Tomás.
Tomás blew discontented bubbles, his mind a firestorm of frustrated power.
*Whozzat … Blackburn? You’d better have a good reason for getting Felicity and me out of bed this early. Or are you hoping for a fast exit from town?*
*There is a situation that requires your help. Can you and Felicity meet me at Maya’s house?*He frowned as Tomás puffed his cheeks out again. *Bring a fire extinguisher.*
17
Maya
Maya rolled over.Time to get up, she thought. The light coming through her eyelids was warm and bright, so Tomás must have slept in. A miracle. She should take the chance to catch up on chores. Put some laundry away. Open some of those endless boxes from her old apartment…
…Why did that thought feel familiar? Like she’d thought it before, and recently? She’d forgotten something. Something … important, and annoying, and scary…
Corin.
She launched herself out of bed before her eyes were even open. Her feet skidded on the floor. Corin.Tomás. She’d left them together? What was she thinking? Corin was a dragon shifter, but he didn’t know kids. He didn’t knowTomás.And—
And the idea of Corin and Tomás playing together was almost disturbingly adorable.
She was sure the reality would be far less cute.
She ran down the stairs, calling their names. Someone shouted from the back garden.
“We’re out here, Maya!”
Felicity?
She caught her breath, head still spinning. Was this … was everything … maybe … fine?
She pulled a light coat over her pajamas and went outside to find a scene that had never before featured in any of her definitions of the word ‘fine’.
“Fee,” she said awkwardly. “What’s going on? Why is Tomás in the firepit?”
“Because he keeps spitting fire!” her friend responded chirpily.
