“Eee-oo!” Maggie whipped her head around to the north again.
Holy shit.“And they’re—they’re okay?”
“Crroooar?” Maggie croaked, tilting her head to one side and staring at her in confusion. Her scaly face screwed up and Carol saw…
The only word she had for it wasstars.Clusters of light and warmth and joy. It was like looking at beating hearts through her own electrosenses, except it wasn’t heartbeats she was seeing, it was… whole lives. Soul and mind and everything that made Maggie’s loved ones themselves.
MINE, the little dragon announced, then peeped sadly. They were all hers, but they weresofar away.
Carol pulled away from the vision, her breath shaky. She rubbed her face, and her hands came away wet. “That was—you found them. They’re alive. They made it out.”
“That wasLance MacInnis.” Moss sounded like Carol had felt, so often these last few weeks. Like a wall had caved in on his perception of reality. “Iknowhim. He was best man ata wedding I catered. He—you’re working for LanceMacInnis?” Emotions warred on his face. “Hell—were Grant and Irina on the plane, too? Are they—?”
“Grant and Irina Diaz?” She stared at him. The puzzle pieces that hadn’t lined up before were even more misplaced now. And the puzzle was a lot bigger. “No? I don’t know them very well, but—Mrs. Diaz is pregnant. She isn’t travelling. And they don’t even work for Lance, why would they—?”
“You work for him. He was at the wedding. If we’d met there…”
Moss sounded dazed. She wasn’t sure he’d even heard her garbled response.
“I wasn’t at the wedding,” she said quietly. “I wasn’t—I don’t get out much.”
He shook himself. “That’s crazy, though, isn’t it? It takes something like this to bring us together, but all the time we were only separated by a few acquaintances. It’s a small world.” He looked as though he was going to say something else, then his eyes dropped to Maggie, and he frowned. “How long has MacInnis had a baby dragon around?”
“Not so long.”
Moss breathed a curse and sat back, running one hand through his hair. “This is… a lot to take in.”
Carol sat back, too, steeling herself. “It’s more to take in than me falling out of the sky with a baby dragon in my arms?”
He went still. A shadow passed over him, but it wasn’t a cloud going over the sun—the shadow washed over him like water, then faded back into his skin. She shivered.
Definitely not an octopus.
“Admit it,” she said, her voice soft and unaccusing. “You must have thoughtsomethingwas up. And—” She fretted her lower lip over her teeth, not quite hard enough to break the skin. “I’ve seen a lot of shifters see Maggie for the first time recently. Youwere surprised to seeher,but you weren’t surprised to find out that dragons exist.”
He shook his head. “You got me.”
“You already knew dragon shifters were real? How?”
“The same way you and your family know about other shifters in your hometown, or—stories your grandparents tell, maybe, about how much more magical and mysterious the world was back in the old days.” His smile was crooked. “I grew up on Te Waipounamu, the South Island of Aotearoa, New Zealand. Just a short, chilly swim from our neighbors the shadow dragons. Well. Maybe a long swim. Never made it that far myself.”
“You… youallknow about them?” Lance was going to flip his lid. The discovery that dragon shifters existed had overturned everything they all thought they knew about shifters—but everyone in New Zealand just already knew about them?
“Don’t get me wrong. I never met a dragon before the marvelous Maggie. So maybe they’re more like the neighbors who live in that old, boarded-up house at the end of the creepy path you dare each other to go down, but you never actually get to knocking on their door.” He shook his head. “I knew the shadow dragons existed as some far-off thing, hidden from the world by their magic. But seeing one in person? I never thought that day would—anyway,” he added quickly, “you seemed cool with her, so, y’know. I didn’t want to act like the only one who had no idea what’s going on.”
LikeIhave any idea what’s going on?She licked her lips. Maybe she could give away a little of the truth, without blurting out all her secrets.
“We’re taking her back to her uncle. Takingthem, I should say. The other eggs haven’t shown any signs of hatching, but if they’re anything like Maggie, it’ll come out of nowhere.”
“Their uncle. Not their parents?”
She shook her head. “They only have their uncle.”
Moss looked weary. “At least they have someone.”
“And we know where to find him. You saw Maggie just now. She’s been tugging at the leash since she first sensed him, halfway across the state. Whatever power tells her where he is must have an incredible range, if she can locate him across an entireoceannow.”
“And MacInnis and—what was the woman’s name?”
