“Hush, Tess,” Olin snapped. “Don’t be rude.”
“It’s true!” she insisted. “Nan says if a Quieter touches a beast, it forgets its name!”
“Superstitious rot, and that’s not how Nan used to say it, anyway,” Olin said. “She used to warn about forgetting faces. Or was it places?” Olin muttered to me, while he gripped his rake tighter. “But something’s broke in him, miss. It’s like …”
The drake screeched, a sound of uncharacteristic ferocity for such a tiny beast, and dropped from the rafter with speed.
He wasn’t aiming for the orchids, he was aiming for Tessaly’s face.
“Down!” I roared.
I threw myself forward, a reckless tackle that sent me sliding across the wet stone floor. I shoved Olin and Tessaly aside and twisted my body, putting myself between the child and the descending streak of red scales.
I caught him mid-air. It was madness, and it was stupid. It was exactly the kind of violent, physical contact I had been craving, god help me. Rusty slammed into my chest, talons raking wildly. Pain flared across my forearms as his claws tore through my linen shelves, drawing lines of blood. I grunted, rolling with theimpact, pinning the thrashing creature to the ground with my own weight.
The burn of his claws cut through the haze of confused lust that had been suffocating me for the last two days.
You want to be devoured,a dark voice whispered in my ear.
“Easy,” I said, ignoring the sting in my arms. My hands found the pulses of magic beneath the drake’s wings. “I’ve got you, you dramatic little tyrant.”
I pushed my power into him.Sleep.The silver light fared in my vision. Rusty froze. The frantic scrabbling of his claws against my skin ceased. His body went limp, the fade in his eyes clearing to a sleepy garnet. He let out a smallchirrupthat sounded like a hiccup.
I collapsed back onto the peaty floor, the sleeping drake sprawling across my chest. My sleeves were shredded, my arms were bleeding, and I was covered in potting soil.
“Right,” I panted. “Note to self: dragon-wrangling is not a substitute for therapy.”
Tessaly peeked over the potting bench, eyes wide. “Did you steal his soul, miss?”
“No,” I said, peeling a damp leaf off my forehead. “Just his nap time.”
I didn’t pull my magic back immediately. Normally, Quieting felt like sinking into a frozen lake. But this time, beneath the familiar chill, my senses snagged on something else. Hovering around Rusty’s scaled head was a faint, oscillating distortion. It looked like the oily sheen on a puddle in the rain, trembling witha frequency that didn’t match the drake’s frantic heartbeat. It felt disgusting, cloying and artificial, like cheap perfume masking something rotten. It wasn’t part of him.
“Get off him,” I said, not to the drake, but to the distortion.
I shoved a spike of my own power straight into that shimmering grease.Pop.
The sensation was visceral, like bursting a blister. The heat-haze distortion shattered into nothingness. Immediately, the tension drained out of Rusty’s body. He blinked his third eyelid rapidly, shook his head with a rattle of his crest, and looked up at me with clear, bright intelligence. He let out a queryingmrrp?and began to enthusiastically clean his eye with a purple tongue, unbothered by the fact that he was crushing my ribcage.
“Well,” a gruff voice rumbled from the doorway. “That’s one way to aerate the soil, I suppose.”
Thorven stood framed by the shattered entrance, shaking dirt from his heavy leather coat. He took in the devastation, the smashed pots, the cowering gardener, and me, flat on my back with a ruby drake cleaning itself on my chest—without so much as a blink.
“Thorven,” I wheezed, shoving Rusty gently aside so I could sit up. “Timely as ever.”
“I heard the screaming. Assumed it was Olin.” Thorven stepped over a pile of mulch, his boots crunching on pottery shards. He offered me a hand, his palm rough as bark, scarred and warm. “You alright, lady Stormgarde? You’re bleeding.”
I took his hand and hauled myself up, wincing as my shredded sleeves pulled against the scratches. “Rusty wasn’t himself. Literally. Something was... riding him.”
Olin peeked out from behind a large fern, looking sheepish. “Is he... is he gone? The soulless thing?”
“He’s not soulless, you daft turnip,” Thorven grunted, crouching to inspect the drake. Rusty nudged Thorven’s knee, looking for treats. “Look at him. He’s just woke up from a bad dream, haven’t you, mate?”
Tessaly crept forward, her eyes huge. “But Nan says—“
“Your Nan says a lot of things after her third sherry,” Thorven interrupted, though he reached into his pocket and produced a small, wooden frog, tossing it to the girl. She caught it, smiling widely. “People in the valley... they like their magic domestic, lady Stormgarde. Teapots that pour themselves, sweeping brooms, self-darning socks. Tidy stuff.”
“And I am none of those things,” I said, brushing potting soil off my trousers.
