His red eyes glow in the night; his scaled skin ripples with every breath. When he sees me, his lips draw back, baring razor-sharp teeth. “Who’s a good boy?” I say, patting his neck. I grab onto his mane and swing myself over the bridge of his neck. Then I lean down so I can help pull Seraphima up behind me.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” she asks. “He isn’t trained.”
“Worse comes to worst, you fall off . . . and gently land on the ground.” I grin at her. “Aren’t you the one who taught me how to jump out a window?”
She smiles and wraps her arms around my waist, screaming with delight as I kick a heel into Pyro’s side and he shoots into the sky.
We climb at a crazy speed, wind rushing past my ears. Squinting, I search for the words at the top edge of the page.ONCE UPON A TIME. I lean down over Pyro’s neck, guiding him like an arrow through the O.
The O catches around Pyro’s middle, like an inner tube, and then shatters, dusting us with black powder. Suddenly we areamong the stars. They hang in front of us, brush our shoulders, tangle in our hair as Pyro swoops and dives in figure eights. Delighted, Seraphima giggles behind me.
I steer Pyro toward the constellation Seraphima pointed out from the beach. Holding the dragon steady, we pull up beside the brightest star. Seraphima reaches out, brushing it with her hand. The star tinkles, making a chime that sounds just like the tags on Frump’s collar.
She lets the weight of the star rest in her palm, where it glows so brightly it’s hard to look at. Then she snatches her hand away, wincing. She examines her palm. The outline of a heart is burned onto her skin.
Seraphima closes her fingers around it, like it’s something she could hold on to forever. “Thank you, Edgar,” she says. She’s crying again, but this time it’s different. This time, she’s happy.
Pyro gently rides a downdraft back to Timble Tower so we can drop Seraphima off at her window. She climbs gingerly onto the ledge. “Maybe we can go again sometime,” she suggests.
“That would be great,” I say, smiling. I wave goodbye, about to turn Pyro toward the castle, but Seraphima calls me back.
She’s silhouetted in the window, her silver hair as bright as the moon. “Edgar,” she says. “It’s good to have a friend in here.”
It isn’t until the middle of the night, after Pyro’s back in his cave and my mother’s been settled in her chambers, her hands still dotted with ink, that I let myself think of Jules.
In the minutes before I left, I pulled her into the tiny mudroom in Delilah’s house. It was pitch-black, because no candles had been set there, but I didn’t need to see Jules’s face to know what she was thinking, what she was feeling.
“Jules,” I started, but she cut me off, putting her fingers against my mouth. It was everything I could do not to kiss them.
“Don’t talk,” she interrupted. “I have to tell you something. Remember when I said it wasn’t real? Everything that happened between us in the book? I was lying to you. Ihadto, because I was lying to myself too. It just seemed soDisneyto finally find a guy who didn’t go running for the hills when I said that a human head stays conscious for fifteen seconds after it’s cut off.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure our relationship is the plot of the next Pixar short,” I told her.
Jules had laughed. “Jeez. Just my luck. What’s that saying? All the good guys are either taken, gay, or stuck in a children’s fairy tale.”
I knew she’d told me not to, but I framed her face with my hands and kissed her. Like,reallykissed her. Inthisworld, at a high school party, I made out with the hottest girl. It was a good note to leave on.
Jules leaned her forehead against mine. “You justhadto make me love you, didn’t you?”
“You crash-landed in my story. What else was I supposed to do?”
In the dark, I saw the shine of her eyes. I thought she might have been crying, but she never would have admitted it. “Don’t forget me.”
“Jules, you’re pretty unforgettable.”
“Well,” she said, “forever’s damn long.”
There was so much I wanted to say to her. There was so much more about her I wanted to know. But then, from the other room, we heard Delilah’s voice:Where’s the birthday boy?
And just like that, I ran out of time.
I toss and turn for so long that night I’m pretty sure I never fall asleep, but that can’t be true, because I wake up to find Queen Maureen sitting on the edge of my bed.
I bolt upright, panicked.
But then my vision focuses and I realize that it’s my mother, her red hair twisted in a tight bun beneath a jeweled crown. She’s wearing one of Maureen’s gowns. Tears stream down her face.
“Mom, are you all right?” I ask.
