“Let’s not lie anymore,” she whispers.
I tuck into her shoulder, not used to hugs. Her silver-threaded dress is so much scratchier than the pillow. A part of me wants to say, “You first.” But then she continues. “I’m so scared,” she confesses. She pulls away quickly like now that she’s let the truth be known there isn’t any time. “I talked with Aunt Roisin up in Hardsill. She’s willing to take you for the summer. After that—”
“No.” It’s automatic, panic outlining my true feelings. Hardsill is Toulin’s biggest and most illustrious city and where she grew up. I thought my mom might try to ship me across the country, so I already have an argument and possible solution at the ready. “I want to stay near Forsen. I need to stay near Hort.”
“James,” she breathes. “That dragon isn’t more important than your life.”
My life. As in, if I stay here, I might lose it. That’s how scared my mother is, that’s what she thinks might happen. A chill runs through me, and my arm throbs. There’s an entirely different fifteen minutes I’d rather have wiped from my memory.
“Hort is being treated on the Walsh Sanctuary. What if I stay there, with them?” Saying it aloud feels explosive, the tension in my heart a striking clock. I scan her face, needing to catch her reaction before she schools her features.
“The Walshes?” Her expression does change as she mentally calculates thehour-long drive out of town and to the rural sanctuary. Much better odds than the minute it takes my father to charge down the hallway.
“Dad will have me check in on Hort and the Walshes every week anyway. Instead, I’ll just ask to stay there, work for them on the sanctuary. I heard Dr. Walsh was looking for a summer hand. We can tell everyone I’m interning.”
“I’m not worried about what people will say.” That’s a first. Abigfirst. “Why would you ever want towork…?” A few strands of red hair fall from her bun as realization dawns across her face. “Is this about the all-around scholarship? You’re still hung up on that even after—?”
I go still as her eyes pin to my arm. Not my first sling or cast. But it feels like it. “I’ve told you I’ve already submitted my application.”
“I know,” she sighs. “But I wish you’d—”
“You said it was better than riding.”
“It is.” She sounds defeated. “It is better than riding.” I’ve only heard her admit that opinion here, in the quiet confines of my room. The first time, two years ago, still rings in memory. Those words brought me hope, a hope for a different future, a different path.
I can feel her agreeing with me. There’s only one piece of the puzzle I can’t do alone. “I need help convincing the Walshes to give me the job and take me in all summer.”
Her eyebrows knit. “The Walshes have worked for us for years.”
With, not for. Dr. Walsh is a veterinarian we hire, not someone my dad can boss around or throw sterlings at. That distinction is key. The Walshes aren’t swayed by money. Talent, real talent, can’t be swayed by money.
“We’ll persuade them,” she promises in that cold tone of hers, the one she learned growing up in Hardsill, where being neighborly meant something quite different. “In fact, it will be easy. We just don’t let them say no.”
CHAPTER THREEWHEN THE BOY YOU HATE COMES TO LIVE WITH YOU
FARREN
Idon’t know why, and I don’t know how, but for some reason after I saved James Murphy’s life, I’ve been able to sense when he’s staring at me. Probably because he’s never subtle about it.
So even though I’m in the vast fields of my family’s dragon sanctuary, dozens of miles outside of town, five feet off the ground atop Hort—that eerie feeling that I’m being judged from roots to boots creeps down my spine. I twist in the dragon saddle, already chastising myself.James Murphy didn’t come all the way out here. He’s not standing behind you critiquing your technique while you ride his dragon.
But I turn anyway, and lo and behold, heisstanding there, all good posture, windswept auburn hair, and freckles. He’s even sporting that smug closed-lip smile he refuses to leave home without.
I’m not the type to yell or even gasp. But I do flinch. In fact, I flinch so badly adrenaline-soaked fear pricks across my skin and Hort encases himself in silver.
Hort whips around, ready for whatever scared me. When he sees James, chaos reigns as the two-thousand-pound dragon beneath me recognizeshis rider. The silver recedes as swiftly as it came, leaving his natural bright orange scales in their wake.
Then I have all of two seconds to panic before I’m flung off Hort’s back in his pure excitement. Pain and dirt bite into my shoulder before training kicks in and I tuck and roll. Righting myself into a crouched position, I’m only ego bruised and embarrassed red. My glasses have fallen off though, and anything not ten feet in front of me blurs. Unfortunately, that means eight feet away I can still make out James staring, the smugness turning to a judgmental wince.
My stomach flops. There’s no denying it. He really is here. And he really just saw that. We remain staring at one another, me kind of glaring, as Hort leaps at James like a horse-sized puppy. There’s nuzzling, spinning, and even cute wing flapping.
James strokes Hort’s head and the dragon’s scales puff out in happiness. Shards of silver metal still flash over his orange scales, indicating Hort was truly frightened when I flinched. I forget how sensitive racing dragons are until I see them startle at their own shadow or sheathe in metal at being patted the wrong way. Sadness pings in my chest at the stinging memory of him fully silver plated when he fell through the air two weeks ago.
“Hey, buddy. How’s the wing?” James asks.
I jump to my feet, thinking of Hort’s injuries, how all that uncontrolled wing flapping is going to tear open the stitches my father and I spent hours on. “Not going to get better if we can’t calm him.”
James whistles, a sharp high note. Once he’s captured his dragon’s attention, all he needs are two words, “Hort. Calm,” and the creature bred for the brutality of racing halts all movement.
