Page 93 of Dragon’s Rebel

Chapter 41

They walked across the lawn and down one of the garden paths. Rebel was surprised she remembered the way, but it was like the knowledge had been sleeping inside her all these years.

They pushed their way through the underbrush, heading closer to the center of the gardens, until they reached a door in the garden wall.

Thorne ran his hands over it. “There are more wards here,” he said. “I wonder if they were there then. Not that that would have stopped you.”

“Nothing would have stopped me. I was a very determined little girl.”

“You haven’t changed.”

Rebel opened the garden door the same way she had the gate, then took Thorne’s hand and led him through the wards. This time she didn’t drop his hand afterwards.

The walled garden was overgrown, just like everything else in the place, but Rebel could remember it perfectly, the way it had been. She kicked at the moss on the stone path, uncovering a mosaic showing a unicorn. There were others, she knew. Griffons, flying horses, dragons— every mythical creature you could think of.

The fountains were dry, of course, but there was still water in the central fish pond, with aquatic plants growing in it.

She said, “At night this place was like fairyland. There were tiny lights all up in the trees, and along the paths. They all led to the fish pond. I remember there was this fish in there that sparkled like silver in under the lights, darting in and out of the plants. I wanted to catch it so bad…”

Thorne smiled. “And did you?”

She shook her head. “No. Lucky for the fish, I got busted. I was lying down on the edge of the pond, right there, with my hand in the water, when I heard this grating sound. And then the Lady walked up from underneath the pond. I thought she was magic.”

Thorne snorted. “She was.”

Rebel started. “Fuck. I guess she was. Although that wasn’t how she suddenly appeared like that. There was a secret passage.”

Thorne looked interested in that. “Where?”

“Around the other side of the pond. The Lady looked at me very sternly, and told me to leave the fish alone, that I wasn’t old enough to take care of a fish.” She snorted. “Plenty of six-year-olds have goldfish.”

“They kill them, too,” Thorne said.

“They die naturally,” Rebel said with a wave of her hand. “And then she marched me through the tunnel to the house, gave me another lecture, and put me back in my room. And she told me I was too curious for my own good.”

“She’s not wrong,” Thorne murmured. “Where did the passage lead to, exactly?”

“To her private rooms,” Rebel said. “I think this was her personal garden, and she liked having it to herself. But after she caught me, I was scared to come back. I was afraid she’d turn me into a toad.”

“She’s probably the one and only thing in your life that’s ever scared you.”

Rebel knelt down by the side of the fish pond, parting the weeds and feeling for the catch. “I think it was… right… about…”

There was a grating sound, and a hole opened at the base of the fish pond, revealing a set of stone steps leading down.

“What do you think?” Rebel said. “Should we follow it?”

They decided to scan the garden first, Thorne looking for any magical emanations from the Seal, and Rebel walking around feeling like an idiot, using the spell Blaze had taught her but not knowing what it would feel like when she found something.

She had the feeling that if she were going to find the Seal, it would have to speak to her from under the flagstone walkways, or jump at her out of the bushes.

And she might not find it at all. She and Thorne weren’t really mates, although they were edging closer. She just hoped they didn’t run out of time before they figured out what was going to happen between them.

Oddly, there were no dolphin symbols in the garden, except for a rendition of the coven symbol and dolphin in mosaic, on the bottom of the fish pond. Rebel put her hand in and felt around, but it didn’t feel like anything special. Nothing spoke or jumped out at her.

The silver fish—or more likely, son of a son of a silver fish—darted behind the plants at her disturbance of his home.

Rebel got up again. She felt strange, and sense of time running out came back to her even more strongly.