Chapter 28

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

T he drive back to the hotel seemed to take forever. We broke the journey in Flagstaff, gathering in a large parking lot at a strip mall to stretch our legs while Colby went into a sandwich shop and bought us all lunch.

Mick wore clothes Colby had kept stashed on his bike. Colby was more compact than Mick, so the shorts and sweatshirt were a little tight, but at least they covered Mick enough to not get him arrested.

I'd ridden in Maya's pickup with the little blue dragon, who kept wanting to break her way out and explore the wide world. I had to hold her pretty tightly. Mick rode my motorcycle, and he looked so weary I wanted to cry.

Next to me in the truck was Grandmother, again an exhausted, elderly woman. She didn't leave the vehicle but held Nitis, still the form of a normal-sized crow, wrapped in a towel Maya'd had in the back. She didn't speak.

Questions whirled through my head as we waited for Colby to return with food, but no answers came. Were the Phantomwalkers gone for good? How had Cesnia done what she did? What the hell was I going to do about Blue? And how would I console Grandmother?

I hadn't realized what Grandmother had felt about Nitis, but then she was the sort of person who never let on that she had softer emotions. She scolded, lectured, and rebuked those she loved the best, very likely to shield herself from heartbreak.

You love someone, but they could leave, die, or not love you back. Sometimes all three. I'd learned long ago that Grandmother was prickly so she wouldn't have to admit she loved. Didn't mean she didn't feel things more deeply than most.

Colby returned with sandwiches, which we all eagerly reached for. Grandmother showed no interest. I hungrily devoured my ham and cheese with chipotle mayo, or at least, I tried to. Blue ate half of it, and also the paper wrapping.

What did baby dragons eat? That answer dawned on me pretty swiftly. Anything they wanted.

We headed out for the last leg to the Crossroads. Nash and Maya were silent in the front of her pickup, and Grandmother and I were equally silent in back. Baby Blue, about the size of her egg, sat on my lap, when she wasn't lurching around trying to look out all the windows.

Maya had explained on the way to Flagstaff that she'd watched the stone walls close once Nash and I had gone inside the slot canyon, and decided she didn't like that. She had a portable plasma cutter and welder in the back of her truck, stocked and ready for her to cut through whatever she needed when called for a remodeling job .

She'd been ready to use the battery on her truck to power it, but Mick had landed nearby, giving her a dragon fire assist. He'd been too tired to blast through the wall himself, but he'd been a good alternative power source for her gear.

Nash had yelled at her for approaching a dangerous situation, and Maya yelled at him for running into one. All normal in their relationship.

Now they sat in tense silence. Only Blue made any noise, she very curious about the truck, those of us in it, and everything we passed.

We at last reached the Crossroads to find the hotel lobby full of people. The Horribles lounged here, there, and everywhere, blissfully unaware that they'd been victims of a compulsion spell. They gaped at me as I entered in my jacket zipped over my bare torso, carrying a turquoise studded cane and a bowling bag that swung of its own accord.

Mick made straight for my suite, me hurriedly following. He continued through the hall and out the back door, to the space behind the hotel without guests around. There, he told me to set down the bag and back away.

I complied. As soon as I retreated a few steps, Blue ripped her way out. She settled down next to my feet, flapping her wings, and cooing in contentment.

Mick constructed a cage of dragon fire around Blue, the bag, and me—a cube of ten-foot walls on all sides. It wouldn't burn her, Mick said, but would keep Blue safely contained until we could figure out what we'd do with her.

He told me to step out of the cage, and after a moment's worried hesitation, I did. The fire didn't singe me at all, but Blue couldn't follow me. She whimpered, then launched herself up and buzzed around the cage, growing happier as she went.

"You're not a dragon," Mick explained when I asked how it worked. "You can go in and out as you please, but dragons and other magical beings can't. It will keep her safe."

Mick then dragged himself inside our suite, spent, and ready for a shower. I wanted to shower with him, hold him, comfort him while he comforted me, and reassure myself that he was all right.

But I needed to find Grandmother.

"Go to her," Mick said as he paused at the bathroom door. "She needs you more than I do right now."

That was true, I realized. Mick was tough. He'd survived plenty of perilous shit before he'd ever met me. Grandmother was grieving.

I left Mick after a brief but promising kiss and headed into the main part of the hotel.

I found Grandmother in the kitchen. Elena held a polished cedar box about the size of a shoebox, where I guessed she'd placed Nitis's body.

"We'll give him a good sendoff," Elena was promising. "For now, he'll have to go into the shed."

Whatever Nitis had been in life, right now, he was a dead bird. The health department would shut me down if we kept him in the walk-in fridge. If we put him in the basement, a hungry Nightwalker might not be able to stop himself having a snack.

The shed, where Mick and I stored our motorcycles, was cool in these months, the best place to lay him before we could hold his funeral .

That we would have a funeral for him was not a question. Grandmother would need to say goodbye.

"He helped us all," I said.

Sacrifice, Nitis had told me. He'd meant Cesnia, and then himself. Both had given up life in all its sweetness so that the one they loved could live.

Grandmother, seated on the wooden chair she always planted herself in when she visited Elena, gave us both a sullen nod. "It's fine."

I went to her. "I have your cane. It's in my suite. Take it whenever you want it."

Grandmother glanced up at me, her dark eyes red-rimmed and moist. "I said, it's fine, Janet. Don't fuss."

Elena and I exchanged a glance, Elena shaking her head.

I took the box from Elena and carried it with reverence out the back door to the shed, which I unlocked. Inside, I set the box carefully on a shelf above Mick's motorcycle.

"Thank you, Nitis," I said softly, brushing my fingertips over the smooth wood.

The box felt a bit warm, but then it had been in Elena's kitchen, where she had the stove and oven running nonstop.

I wheeled my motorcycle into the shed, parking it next to Mick's, then locked everything up. I checked on Blue, peering at her through the mesh of dragon fire. She'd curled up on the dried grass and now let out a baby dragon snore. I'd bring her a blanket in case the night grew too cold.

"Sleep well, little girl." I reached through the bars to stroke her soft body, blew her a kiss, and went back inside.

Later that evening, when the sky was streaked with red and fuchsia, Drake arrived.

I spied him standing next to the fire cage from my back window. His long black coat and dark hair moved in the desert breeze.

Blue was awake when I joined Drake, but she wasn't jumping in joy because she recognized her father. Instead, she ignored him to sail around the small cage, making burbling noises.

Drake studied her with the perplexity of a male realizing a child wasn't a theoretical concept but a living, breathing creature he had no idea what to do with. The same expression came over Titus, who walked out of the desert to halt next to Drake.

Drake snapped his attention to me. "Here." He held out a velvet bag that clinked.

"What is this?" I loosened the drawstring and peered at glittering pieces of gold, emerald, and jade nestled inside. "Is that the dragon's shell?"

Drake nodded. "Titus and I dug it out of the hill where it was buried. Colby called me and told me where it was."

"Oh." I studied the pair of them, who both watched me intently. I didn't know why retrieving the shell was important, but apparently it was. I accepted it without further question.

"No sign of Cesnia," Titus said. "Before you ask. She's gone."

The sadness in his voice, and in Drake's eyes, tugged at my heart.

"Colby called her a Wing Dancer," I said, keeping my tone gentle. "What does that mean? "

Mick's voice rumbled behind me. "A dragon who transforms him- or herself after death to assist one they love."

He walked to us slowly, stiffly, though he'd cleaned off the dust and blood that had coated his skin.

"That's a myth," Drake began.

Mick shook his head. "I saw her. If not for Cesnia and the mirror, I'd still be a prisoner."

"No." I set down the velvet bag and clasped his big hands. "I'd have come for you, no matter what."

Mick caressed my fingers with his thumb. "I know you would, but I might have been dead by the time you reached me. They trapped me so deep in that mountain I couldn't budge. What you saw was them projecting my image so you could watch my suffering."

I squeezed Mick's hands as the anguish of that hit me. "I understand why you all loved Cesnia. I love her now too."

"She was a special dragon," Mick said. "A great warrior."

Drake and Titus both nodded, but I knew they weren't thinking of Cesnia's skill in battle.

"I sensed your aura at her island," I said to Drake. "Did you find her there?"

Greif flickered in Drake's eyes. "In her lair. I wasn't certain what had killed her. I built a pyre for her on the mountaintop, then searched for the egg."

I recalled the charred place in the island's forest I'd seen when Mick had landed us there.

I switched my focus to Drake and Titus collectively. "So, which of you is Blue's dad?"

Titus's brows went up, and his eyes turned smoky gray. "Blue? "

"That's what I've been calling her. I don't know her real name."

"You do," Mick informed me. "Cesnia sang it to you."

I remembered the music mixed with Cesnia's laughter. Just as I did with Mick's name, which was a string of magical notes, I now felt Blue's inside me. It shimmered and danced, entwining Blue and me together.

Blue sensed it. She perked up, flying in a tight circle around the cage, chirping in delight. Cesnia had given me a great gift.

"To answer your question," Drake said, "we don't know which of us is the father. We won't know until she grows up enough to tell us."

"Really?" I asked in surprise.

Mick nodded. "That's how it works. The child knows and finds the father if he or she wishes. If the male dragon has survived, that is."

"Sheesh," I said with feeling. "Dragons live complicated lives."

Mick rumbled with laughter, and I was happy to see some of the darkness in his expression lift. "They do," he said.

"Until then, I believe Janet is the best person to take care of the young dragon," Drake declared.

While I staggered under the shock of Drake saying he trusted me that much, Titus studied me with dragon intelligence.

"The question is, does Janet want that burden of care?" Titus asked.

All three dragons regarded me with unblinking eyes, Titus's becoming a smoldering black. Blue zinged around her cage a little longer before she hovered in midair, gazing at me through the mesh.

"Maaaaa," she said.

I heaved a long sigh, knowing exactly what I would do, whether I was ready for it or not. No way in hell would I let anyone take Blue someplace like the dragon compound, where the dragon council could get their aggravating claws into her, and I'd never see her again.

"She stays with me," I told them. "I'll figure it out. Mick will have to help me every step of the way. Are you going to be okay with that?"

I put this question to Mick, but also Drake and Titus, who had to decide whether to let another guy raise their kid.

All three nodded readily. Titus sent me a slight smile. "Male dragons are shit parents."

"Great." I glared at Mick. "Were you going to tell me that any time soon?"

" Some male dragons are shit parents," Mick said. "I'm willing to give it a try."

The look he sent me both melted my heart and scared me to death. He took my hand again, his warmth filling me with strength.

This beautiful moment was broken by the sound of crunching. We all swung to the cage.

Somehow, Blue had managed to slide the velvet bag, which I'd set close to the cage, beneath the bars to her. I saw a furrow of earth where she'd dug.

The bag was now in shreds. Blue sat on its tatters, happily munching. As we watched, every bit of gold and precious stone vanished into the volatile mess that was a baby dragon's tummy.

That night, as Mick and I lay together, the cage's bars lighting us from outside the window, our motorcycle shed exploded into fire and burned rapidly to the ground.