“You’re special, Briony,” she says. “That’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“It is?” I say, as Fly gives me one of his unimpressed stares.
“Of course you are,” he says. “You have four powerful fated mates who are crazy in love with you and willing to sacrifice their lives to protect you.” He ticks this off on a finger, then ticks the next one. “You have a dragon.” He ticks another finger. “You have light magic that hasn’t been seen for hundreds of years?—”
“That’s what they tell us,” I interrupt. “Others may have had it, and others may have been killed.”
“And that brings me to my final point,” Fly says, ticking off his thumb. “You’re the only student that’s been targeted by the Empress and Bardin who’s actually escaped and is still walking around to tell the tale. That definitely makes you special.”
“Exactly,” Clare says, nodding and clearly happy that for once Fly is in agreement with her.
“Okay,” I say with a bit of a grin, “maybe I am special.”
“Which is why I think Professor Cornelius is right. You are the light wielder who will ignite magic in others. We’ve just got to find those others.”
“Which is obviously going to be harder than we imagined.” I sigh dramatically.
Clare tucks a loose piece of hair behind her ear and adjusts her glasses. “You didn’t seriously think this would be easy, did you, Briony?”
“No, I suppose not, but you can’t blame a girl for hoping.”
“Hope’s a dangerous thing,” Clare warns. “I prefer to stick to facts and reality.”
“How about visions of the future?” I ask her. Both my friends look at me. “Beaufort,” I explain. “He’s had one of his visions. And this time he saw firestones. Firestones in Slate Quarter.”
“You’re not thinking of going there, are you?” Clare asks.
“Well, yes.”
“But you’re safe here at the academy. It’ll protect you. We’ve made sure of that. If you step outside?—”
“We’re not going to win this battle with just us, though, are we?” I say. “Me, the Princes, Fox, a handful of shadow weavers and another handful of teachers.”
“Plus one fierce dragon,” Fly points out.
“Exactly. If we had more dragons, we’d have more of a chance.”
“Even if you found the stones and hatched them, dragons that teeny won’t be any use to you for months and months. The battle would be fought and lost or won by then.”
“But we can’t afford to let those dragons fall into the Empress’s hands either, can we?” Fly says. “Didn’t she question you about the firestone you found? I bet she’s already out there searching for more.”
“I don’t like it,” Clare says.
“I think Fate wants us to. I think that’s why she sent Beaufort this vision.”
“I dunno,” Fly says, shrugging one shoulder. “But I wouldn’t mind a trip to Slate. I’d kind of like to see the place.”
“Really?” Clare says, astonished.
“I’ve seen the best of the realm. Now I want to see the shittiest.”
“And what will your boyfriend say?” I ask teasingly.
“What? Oh, you mean Jack?” He grins.
“Yeah, is he going to be happy with you flying off into danger? I mean, he seemed pretty relieved when you escaped death at the hands of Sterling.”
“You know,” Fly says, still grinning, “I think it helped. The idea of losing me and all that shit, made him realize just how much he likes me. So this trip to Slate Quarter might make him realize that he really, really,reallylikes me.”
