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“Would you like to take a minute?”

“No, I know what I did. Give me another shot.”

She nodded and marked the page.

The next take was clean.

“There,” she said, looking pleased. “That’s the one.”

“Good. I was starting to think the dragon had forgotten how to speak.”

“Fortunately, your memory seems to have returned. Now we can get to the part where he finally makes a sensible decision.”

I took my place for the last scene.

The Heartwood had already shown Drake and Isadora that they were destined for each other, but the characters were still arguing about what that meant. Isadora didn’t want to build her life around a prophecy, and Drake was finally beginning to understand that she needed something more personal than a magical guarantee.

I’d thought the whole business was ridiculous when I first read it.

Now I could appreciate why Peyton liked the scene.

She played the preceding section of Isadora’s narration so I could hear the emotional lead-in, then positioned the script where I could read it comfortably.

“Don’t make this a grand declaration to the forest,” she reminded me. “Drake isn’t trying to impress anybody. He’s talking to the woman he loves, and he wants her to know he’s made his own decision.”

I looked at the highlighted paragraph.

“Got it.”

Peyton started the take.

I read the first passage, giving Drake time to acknowledge what Isadora had said before making his response.

“The Heartwood can tell us we’re meant for each other,” I read. “But it can’t decide what we’ll do tomorrow, or the day after that. Those choices belong to us.”

Peyton delivered Isadora’s next line, her voice warm and questioning.

“And what would you choose, Drake, if the Heartwood had never shown us anything?”

I looked at the words in front of me, then toward Peyton.

“I’d choose you, Isadora. I’d ask you to stay beside me because I want you there, and I’d keep asking for as long as you’d let me.”

Peyton answered in Isadora’s voice.

“Then you needn’t ask the trees again. I’ve already made my choice.”

We continued through the final exchange, letting the dialogue unfold at its own pace.

For once, Drake managed to avoid setting anything on fire or attempting a maneuver that would’ve gotten him banned from an actual logging site.

I considered that a substantial improvement.

Peyton stopped the recording after the last line.

She listened to the take, then played a short section back for me.

“That’s lovely, Hudson. I think we’ve got it.”