27. Maya

27

Maya

Maya woke, ready to approach the day as a carefully choreographed adventure. Gabriela joined them for breakfast, and Maya announced the plan to visit her friends up on Lighthouse Hill.

They were just heading out when disaster struck.

Corin cocked his head. “Apollo is asking if we’re still planning to visit the Galways this morning.”

Maya froze. “Oh no. What’s happened?”

“It sounds like they had a rough night. Harrison asked him to pass on a request to rain-check until later in the day.” A brief smile flitted around his mouth. “And I’m reduced to messenger. What a novelty.”

“If Lainie didn’t feel up to calling or messaging me, it must have been bad.” Maya took a deep breath. “This is okay. This is fine.”

“Your carefully laid plans being wrenched from beneath your feet is fine?”

“It’s fine ,” she repeated through gritted teeth.

She looked back to where her mom was walking with Tomás. He was tiptoeing carefully along the wide stone balustrade that separated the waterfront sidewalk from the water below, one hand in Gabriela’s, the other stretched out straight and not-wing-like at all.

Her mother’s eyes were shining.

Corin stifled a curse. She raised her eyebrows. “Another problem?”

“My mother wants me to come up to the house and sort out something to do with the Dans,” he said, almost managing to sound like he wasn’t grumbling. “Something about more stolen treasure.”

“Don’t tell me they mislaid some of the treasure they took from the vault for Tomás?”

He stared at her. “How did you guess?”

“I don’t know. Must be magic. Or long, painful experience.” She smiled and nudged him. “Go on. I can handle this.”

She told her mom about the change in plans and suggested they walk along the beach. “That way, when we head inside to the warm, we’ll appreciate it more.”

“I’m glad to have some time alone with you.” Her mom hesitated, then looped her arm around Maya’s, her other hand still in Tomás’s. “Your life here seems so busy.”

Because she’d scheduled every minute her mom had been around, to stop her seeing anything she shouldn’t. Maya winced internally. “A few days ago I would have said I’m far less busy than I was before I moved here, but there’s been a lot going on this week.”

“And I’ve interrupted in the middle of it. I should have let you know about my change of plans, but…” Gabriela shrugged awkwardly. “It started to feel as though I was relying on not getting through to you on the phone, so that I wouldn’t have to talk to you about—”

“Morning, Maya! Hey, kiddo!” someone called from across the street.

“Oh—hi, Jules! Sorry, Mom, what were you saying?”

Gabriela paused, pursing her lips. “You know my friend Lori from my spin class did all that research into her family history online? And she found so much old gossip, oh my goodness.”

“Why would you go looking for family gossip?” Maya wondered out loud, doing a quick scan of the street. It was a quiet morning and, apart from the woman who’d called out to her, everyone seemed busy with their own conversations or concentrating on getting out of the cold. The change in the weather had the added benefit of nobody wanting to be out in animal form, too, she decided. That was good.

She winced silently, caught between relief and guilt. Relief because this was her mom, the woman who’d brought her up alone, and made so many sacrifices to ensure Maya had a good life. Guilt because Maya had practically ghosted her since she moved to Hideaway Cove, even after her mom had helped so much with moving stuff from her own apartment, because after all her mom’s sacrifices, here she was, a single mom as well and without even a dead ex-husband to give her the gloss of respectability all her church friends thought was necessary, and because, oh yeah, the reason for the ghosting was she’d never actually told her mom that her baby could turn into a dragon…

She told Corin she needed time to come up with a plan, but she hadn’t even started. And every moment she delayed, the wall between them seemed to get higher.

They approached the concrete steps that led down to the beach.

“Well,” her mom said slowly, at the same time as she said, “Mom, I think—”

And Tomás shouted, “Tally!”

Too late, Maya caught sight of Jacqueline and her kids playing down on the beach. Jacqueline was bundled up in her winter coat as the wind whipped icy spray from the waves. The three children with her—Kenna, Dylan, and little Tally—didn’t seem bothered by the cold.

They were eating ice creams as happily as though it was a hot midsummer day.

Tally heard Tomás shout and looked up. Her ice cream fell to the ground and her expression of delight vanished.

“No!” she shouted tragically. “My ice eem!”

“It’s okay!” Jacqueline said at once. She waved up at Maya. “Hi! Nice day for it, huh? Oh, no, Tally, don’t do that!”

Maya watched in horror as Tally transformed into a tiny, spotted baby seal and dived face-first into her fallen ice cream in one action.

Oh god.

She didn’t dare look at her mom. Had she seen?

“Sweetheart,” her mother said carefully. “This thing I wanted to talk to you about…”

“Let’s go get something warm to drink at Tess’s,” Maya said wildly, grabbing up Tomás and swinging them both around to face the ice cream parlor. “Or go back to my place! I think I forgot something.”

She only made it a few steps before a car squealed up beside them.

“Or we could go to Caro’s? Is it almost lunch time? She does amazing sandwiches and I—Corin, you’re back already?”

Corin got out of the car that had just pulled up and ran to her side. His expression was thunderous.

Her heart thudded. One emergency wasn’t enough, huh?

“What did the Dans do?” she asked in an undertone.

“My mother isn’t saying.”

“The same way she didn’t tell you she knew they were messing with your hoard—with the other stuff?” she asked.

“Exactly. And another dragon has just arrived. I want you by my side when we go meet them.”

Her heart thumped. “Another dragon?”

Her mother hissed in a breath. “What—”

Oh no.

“Please excuse us,” Corin said. “I’ll return Maya to you and Tomás in a few minutes.”

There was no time for explanations. He rushed her into the car.

“But my Mom and Tomás—” Maya worried out loud.

“So long as she keeps telling him how wonderful his human form is, I doubt he’ll transform,” Corin said. He sounded distracted. Which meant whatever they were heading for was worth being distracted by.

Shit.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“A Montfort.”

Maya’s blood chilled.

The Montforts were the Blackburns’ most hated rivals. And Hideaway had good reason to mistrust them, too—Saint-John Montfort had literally attacked the town in his dragon form when his plot to take it over had fallen through. “Is it Saint-John again? Or someone else?”

Corin frowned. “I can’t tell yet. They’re being secretive.”

“Can’t be Saint-John, then.” She tried to smile, but the memory of the day she’d run away from one dragon only to have another attack the town she’d sought sanctuary in twisted in her chest. “Corin—what are we going to do, when we find them?”

He pulled over to the side of the road. “It won’t be like the last time one of them came here.”

She managed a wobbly grin, this time. “Of course not. The Dans have the property damage market tied up already.”

“We are going to talk. There may be some ridiculous draconic bluster and posturing. I apologize in advance for that. But there will be no violence. I promise. I would not bring you into a situation that was unsafe.” He took her hand. “Apollo and Felicity will use their magic to expel any unwanted visitors. I won’t use mine.”

She squeezed his hand, equal parts reassured and unhappy he thought she was worried about his magic.

They reached the crest of the hill, and the town’s magical border. The border itself was invisible, though sometimes Maya pretended to herself that she could see a golden shimmer in the air.

How had the Montfort visitor known where it was? It had to be Saint-John. He would remember exactly the limits of the magic that had literally thrown him out of town last time.

“No sign of anyone here,” she said, getting out of the car. To one side, the hill dropped down to the rooftops of the town; to the other, open land was dotted with shrubs and trees that grew thicker further inland. She rubbed her fingers together anxiously. “Are they hiding? Could this be some sort of ambush?”

“What would be the point of ambushing us within the hearthfire dragon’s protection?”

“Why knock on the magical door and run away?” She frowned. “Unless they didn’t know it was there, and smacked their heads against it. Wait. Is that a car behind the bushes over there?”

She pointed. There wasn’t much to see—just the edge of a roof and the bumper, in gleaming pastel pink.

“There is no way in hell Saint-John Montfort drives a car that color.”

“But what an interesting idea for a lure.” Corin’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Apollo will be up here soon. Felicity is staying in town in case someone is taking this opportunity to sneak in the back.”

“Blackburns are the only dragons who can turn invisible, right?”

“So I believe.”

Movement caught the corner of her eye. “Look—”

Matching mops of dark hair disappeared behind a craggy boulder. Corin swore and charged forwards. “What the hell are you two playing at?”

Agitated whispers burst from behind the rocks. “Shit! Quick, he’s coming!”

“Come on, we need it back—”

Maya blinked. “The Dans?”

A woman’s voice, strident and commanding, broke through the Dans’ whispered pleas. “I’m not talking to either of you. I thought I was coming here to deal with—”

They rounded the boulders. A zing of magic brushed over Maya, but she barely noticed until Corin drew her back behind the magical boundary. She was too busy staring at the woman who’d been hiding there.

“Seline Montfort?”

Two of the Dans were there, too, but before she could see which two, they exploded into their dragon forms. Corin growled something under his breath, one arm extended in front of Maya protectively, but the Dans leaped into the air and fled back down towards the town.

Leaving Seline Montfort standing with her arms folded.

She was in her early twenties, with a perfect waterfall of strawberry blonde hair and an expression on her face like she’d expected filet mignon and been served dog food.

“I’m going to kill all three of them,” she snarled, and then saw Maya and Corin. Her eyes widened for a moment, and then she remembered herself and sneered down her nose at them. “For legal reasons, my previous statement was meant purely metaphorically.”

“May I ask what you’re doing here, Ms. Montfort?”

“You can ask your cousins that,” she sniffed. “I can see I was brought here under false pretenses. If I’m not going to—whatever. I’m leaving.”

She shot a haughty look down at the town, but something in the way her gaze lingered made Maya think she had wanted to meet with one of the Dans. Just not either of the two who’d shown up.

What was that about?

Seline spun around, clearly intending to stalk back to her car.

“They said they needed something back off you,” Maya called before she could get away. “What was it?”

“ Ugh. You can have it. If he’s not even going to come and steal it back, what’s the point?” She reached over her head and pulled off a necklace Maya hadn’t seen, hidden beneath her clothes. Rubies caught the sunlight.

Corin hissed in a breath.

Seline flung the necklace half-heartedly in their direction. “This was a total waste of a trip,” she complained. “You can tell those—oh, what now ?”

Another car pulled up behind them. Maya’s car. Apollo was at the wheel, and—

Alarm bells started going off in her head even before her mom got out of the passenger side and opened the back door to get Tomás out of his seat.

Even if by some miracle her mom had missed Tally shifting into seal form on the beach, there was no way she wouldn’t have seen two dragons wheeling over the water.

“The last missing piece from my clan’s hoard. You stole this from one of my cousins?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Seline sneered. “Tell the idiot I’m sick of playing stupid games. If he wants to—oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. ” Her haughty expression transformed into actual rage. “If this has all been some fucking trick to make me come and pick up yet another of my useless brother’s kids from some chick he knocked up, I swear to god I will murder every last one of you. No legal disclaimer.”

Cold splintered in Maya’s stomach as she turned to see what Seline Montfort was glaring at.

Her mother, standing anxiously in front of the car.

With Tomás in her arms.