Ingrid’s eyes softened with wonder. “You remembered,” she said quietly. “That hasn’t happened before.”
Mallory shook her head but the movement made her dizzy. “I didn’t… not until now. It just came back. All of it.”
Ingrid pressed her lips together and emotion flickered across her face. “Memory returns when the heart is ready,” she murmured, then squeezed Mallory’s hand. “Rest. I’ll let you talk, but not for long.”
She stepped away to give Jakob space.
Mallory turned her head toward him, every movement an effort. His face was pale, jaw tight, and eyes rimmed red with something dangerously close to grief.
“I know,” she said.
Jakob stilled. “Know what?”
“The truth,” she whispered. “About you. About flying.”
She watched the fear in his eyes and it broke her heart. She reached up and cupped the side of his face. “I’m sorry I didn’t remember flying when you saved me from the cat. I should have remembered.”
He kissed her fingers. “There’s no way you could have, as accident prone as you are.”
She snorted. “Please don’t make me laugh.”
He brushed hair from her head. “Only royals are dragons. I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t have been able to survive it if you had rejected me.”
“So, Sven is a dragon, too?”
Jakob nodded.
“Is Bryn?”
“No, she’s just like you. Human with a twist of magic.”
“What does that mean?”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “It means there’s something very special about both of you ladies. Especially you, as far as I’m concerned.”
“I’ll bet Sven says that about Bryn, too.”
He grinned but instantly sobered. “I’m sorry about your sister.”
She turned away from him. The name cracked open her chest.
Jakob’s shoulders sagged slightly, as though he’d been carrying the weight of that moment for years. “Mallory—”
“She was my whole childhood,” Mallory said finally, her voice rougher than she meant it to be. She turned her head just enough to look at him. “Not in a dramatic way, just… literally. If you asked me who I was up until two-ish years ago, the answer would’ve been Meg’s little sister.”
Jakob’s mouth tilted into a small, careful smile. “That doesn’t sound like the worst thing.”
Mallory huffed softly. “It wasn’t. Not even a little.”
She shifted against the pillows. “She’s four years older, which when you’re a kid feels like a lifetime. But Meg never acted like I was annoying. She never told me to go away.” Mallory swallowed as memories assaulted her. “She taught me how to ride a bike but let go of the seat before I was ready. I still have the scar on my knee from when I wiped out and she cried harder than I did.”
Jakob’s gaze flicked to her knee under the blanket, then back to her face.
“We shared a room until I was fifteen,” Mallory went on. “Tiny thing. Twin beds pushed together because neither of us liked the space in between. We’d whisper after lights-out, make up stories about the people in town. Decide who was secretly in love with who. Plan our great escapes.”
She smiled despite herself.
“We were bad influences on each other,” she admitted. “Sneaking out, skipping school, stealing fries off strangers’ plates at the diner If one of us thought of something stupid, the other would say, ‘Okay, but hear me out.’”
