The slop in the bowls slowly congeals as the hours pass. Our stomachs growl with hunger, and even though there’s a crust forming across the slop, it starts to look more and more appealing as our stomachs moan.
“Could be poisoned,” Thorne says as he sees me glance towards the food for a third time in a row.
“Why would they poison us,” I say, “when they could just leave us here to die?”
“Which is strange, isn’t it?” Thorne says. “Why haven’t they killed us already?”
I shake my head. “It’s not her style,” I answer. “And besides …” I peer up towards that gray sky, as if I half expect to see the golden dragon soaring through the clouds. “I think she’s using us as bait, just like Bardin used Fox.”
“Then we have to hope,” Thorne says, “that she doesn’t come.”
Chapter Three
Briony
There’s no way that Fox and I can displace Blaze without the help of the Princes. I’m still new at that aspect of magic, and Blaze is gigantic, heavy, and not exactly keen on the process. Which means the only way to return to the academy is to fly on his back. Of course, the problem with that – like Fox pointed out – is that Blaze isn’t exactly small or discreet.
Fox sends the Eros brothers into the house to search for a map, and they return ten minutes later with one folded in their arms. Fox spreads it on the lawn in front of the house and studies it as Blaze and I survey the skies and the landscape, half expecting those soldiers to displace and arrest us any second now.
“I think if we fly out south to the mountain range, to the Highlands,” Fox says, “we can fly low and sweep round to the academy that way.”
“Will they be watching the skies?” I ask.
“Probably,” he says, “but it’s a roundabout route, and the Highlands are pretty treacherous and uninhabited. If we fly lowto the ground, I don’t think they’ll spot us. We’ll have to leave Blaze at the edge of the Highlands, though, and find our way into the academy on foot.”
Fox folds the map up, tucking it into his blazer pocket, a blazer that is a little tight-fitting. I assume he’s taken it from the Eros house. Dirk shoves a bundle of food into my hands along with a bottle of water, and then we’re climbing onto Blaze’s back and heading off into the skies.
I peer over my shoulder as we set off across the prairie land, seeing the three figures of the Eros brothers shrink and shrink in size until I can no longer see them. We stick low to the river, avoiding the other shifter houses out here in the prairie lands, all three of us watching and alert the whole time.
By nightfall, we’ve reached the relative safety of the Highlands. Safe, because we’re less likely to be spotted out here, although the flying becomes much harder. The currents that swirl above the Highlands are fierce, bitter, and violent. They buffet and jolt and rock us, and Fox grips me to him even tighter than before, as the three of us square our faces to the onslaught and force our way onwards.
“I think we ought to land,” Fox yells above the turbulent wind. “Find somewhere to hunker down and rest. Start out again when this weather settles.”
“This weather may never settle! Besides, I think we’re less likely to be spotted flying in the dark, and I want to get to the academy and my friends as quickly as possible.”
“Always impatient,” he says, his arms wrapped around my waist as he nuzzles into my neck, scraping his fangs up and down that place where he’s fed on me.
It’s severely tempting – more tempting than I would ever admit or confess to him – to ask him to sink his fangs into my veins and to feed on me. He wasn’t lying when he said the act was addictive. It’s all I can think about with his breath warmon my neck. And then I jolt. Fox’s breath, unlike Beaufort’s and Dray’s, has never been warm on my skin. In fact, the Professor rarely has any breath at all. I shift in my seat and peer over my shoulder at him. That strange blue still swims in his eyes, that color in his skin. I must be imagining it. Maybe his breath has always been a little warm. Maybe I’m just freezing cold, sitting on top of the dragon in the frigid air of the Highlands.
Although, maybe I’m not. Maybe there is something different about the Professor. I’m just not sure what it is or what it can mean.
I’m guessing Blaze is not keen on the idea of the Professor and me getting frisky on his back because he makes his disapproval clear by jostling us about.
“What’s going on?” Fox says.
“He wants us to behave,” I say, lying down flat against Blaze’s neck and running my palm softly across his scales, and shushing him.
Before long, the landscape below us, even in the dark, starts to look familiar.
“This was the place we came for the last trial,” I tell Fox.
“There was a tunnel,” he says, “to a grotto?”
“Uh-huh,” I say. “It was somewhere over there.”
We’re low to the ground, and it’s easy to spot the entrance to the tunnel.
“Let’s see,” he says. “Can you tell Blaze to land?”
