by Zoe Chant
She might know things that would help us, his dragon said. We should tell her.
This is coming from YOU? Reive thought back at it. You're the most secretive reptile in existence.
I don't know, there's just something about her. I feel like we can trust her.
Reive grunted.
"Sorry," Jess said. "That was a really intrusive question. I take it back."
"No, no, it's not your question. I was having a conversation with my dragon."
Her eyes went wide behind the sunglasses. "What do you mean?"
Huh. Maybe he was wrong that she was a shifter. "It talks to me. Shifters—we talk to the animal part of ourselves."
"Oh," she said, sounding surprised and a little puzzled. "Well, everyone talks to themselves, don't they? Most people don't answer back, though."
I like her, his dragon purred.
"True," Reive said. "My dragon likes you, by the way."
"Just to be clear," she said, looking pleased, "your dragon is you, right?"
"It's the instinctive part of me. The part that just knows. You probably have something like that too, some little part of you telling you what to do, some part that skips straight past right and wrong to the things you instinctively feel. It's just that for most people it doesn't have a voice."
"No," Jess said, and now she looked sad, for reasons he wasn't clear on. "I've never heard a voice like that."
Definitely not a shifter, then. Maybe he was simply wrong about how physically strong and mentally resilient humans were.
"You're human," he said. "You're not supposed to."
For some reason this made her look even sadder. But then she did the same thing she'd done earlier when she had started to cry, and straightened up, visibly packing away her sadness and anxiety, putting on a calmer face.
Reive would have wondered what kind of life she'd led that had taught her to do that, except he didn't have to wonder. He recognized that look because he'd felt it from the inside.
"So you said there are others?" she asked. "Not just dragons, but—what did you call them? Shifters?"
"Yes, shifters. People who can turn into wolves or big cats or bears."
"No kidding? Werewolves are real too?"
"Well, they don't change at the full moon and they aren't afraid of silver bullets." He was starting to enjoy this. It was surprisingly restful to be able to talk to someone about the fantastic side of his life. During all the time he had spent running errands for his clan, when he was out in the human world he'd had to conceal everything that he was, everything his real life was. Now he could just talk about it, like a normal person.
Jess looked delighted. "What else is real? Gargoyles and dragons and werewolves; what other things are out there? Marion collects fairy memorabilia—are there real fairies? Elves?"
"I don't think those are real, no. At least I've never met one." But then he thought of the black-robed guy in the library. He'd assumed at first that the guy was a gargoyle, but then all that magic stuff happened. He was starting to think that guy was something he'd never seen before. Maybe something that dragons didn't even know about.
"What about magic? What am I saying, of course magic is real. I literally saw you turn into a dragon in front of my eyes."
"But ..." Reive began, and trailed off.
He was going to say that dragons and other shifters weren't magic; shifting was intrinsic to them. He had always thought of it as a natural process, like snakes made poison and chameleons changed colors. Those would seem like magic too, if you had never heard of them before.
But he had to admit that being able to turn into a giant flying reptile was a step above most animals' natural abilities.
"Okay, maybe I am a little bit magic," he conceded. "But until today at the library, I would have told you there's no magic in the world other than shifter magic."
.... and gargoyle magic. But gargoyles were like shifters; their magic was intrinsic to them.
Or so he'd thought.
"That cultist guy was doing real magic, wasn't he?" Jess said. "He really, like—froze us or something."
Us. Reive gave her a glance.
"It didn't seem to work on you," he said.
The car veered slightly. Reive reached for the door handle instinctively, banging his bad hand against the door, and had to stifle a gasp of pain.
"Sorry!" Jess said. "Sun in my eyes, there was—uh—something in the road. I guess he didn't think I was a threat. And he was right. So what was he doing, exactly? Have you ever heard of anything like it?"
"Not really," Reive said slowly. "I thought at first he was a gargoyle. And he still might be. They can have some pretty wild abilities. I saw one cause earthquakes, and another threw the poison spikes that poisoned—my friend."
His arm gave a sharp twinge. Body-memory was indelible in some ways, and the memory of that spike of pain going straight down to the bone would be with him forever.
He had been unconscious for days, then sick and weak for a while, and then believed that he had recovered entirely. It was months later when the pain had begun, just little twinges at first. He'd thought it was just muscle aches, maybe a strain from flying too much, as he'd been going back and forth frequently between his clan's Aerie and the human city where his uncle and mate lived.
And then the stony patches began to appear, and the fear set in.
"I forgot about your friend entirely," Jess said. She sounded truly sorry, her voice warm with empathy. "Is it a very close friend? Did they survive?"
"A member of my clan." It felt oddly wrong, lying to her. He was used to concealing aspects of himself, but with her, it didn't feel right. "He's very sick from the poison."
"Oh." Jess looked stricken. "That's why you're looking for the book. To help your friend."
We should be honest with her, his dragon declared.
Oh, NOW you get chatty, now that I'm simultaneously having to carry on a conversation with someone else. Not through all that time alone on the road, when I could have used the distraction.
But it was odd. It was as if Jess had catalyzed it somehow. And yet, he still didn't have the intense certainty that he had always believed went along with a mate bond. He liked her very much, he found her beautiful and her scent intoxicating, and he wanted to protect her and get to know her better. But there wasn't the driving beat of mine, mine, mine that other dragons talked about.
He didn't get that with a hoard either.
How badly broken was he?
"Reive?" Jess asked softly, and he realized that from her perspective, he'd fallen silent, turning inward. "Are you all right? I'm sorry I asked, and I'm so sorry about your friend."
"No, don't be sorry, it's not your fault. I'm just thinking."
He dragged his mind off the problem of Jess and onto the problem of black-robed cultists who could apparently do magic. He was becoming more and more certain that the guy wasn't a gargoyle. It was true he hadn't fought many of them, but they always shifted in battle, just like dragons did. It made no sense to continue fighting in a soft, fragile human body when they could be nearly invulnerable.
So what was he, then?
Uncle Heikon might know. And even if Uncle Heikon had never heard of black-robed magic users who could raise stoneskins like gargoyles, it was the sort of thing that he really ought to be informed about.
"I need to send a text," Reive said. "I can think of someone who might know more about our cultist buddy." He reached awkwardly for his pocket. The phone was on the wrong side; he was going to need to get it out with his bad hand.
Jess pointed at an exit sign up ahead. "You could do it in the car, but why don't we pull off here? There's gas and food. We can grab something without having to pay airport prices, and you can send your text."
Reive still wasn't hungry, but he went into a small chain restaurant with her and they ordered food to go. He was starting to feel a slow relaxing of his earlier panicked urgency with every mile they put between them and Jes
s's hometown. Black Robe and his stoneskin army were still out there, but they didn't seem to be following. They might not know about the other half of the book, either.
While they waited for their food, Reive used his phone to check airline schedules and book them a pair of tickets to Rome. "I just need you to put your information in. I, uh ... I don't actually know your last name."
Jess blushed scarlet. "And I fly so seldom that I literally forgot you can't just walk in and buy tickets like on a bus. You don't have to buy it for me."
"I don't mind. There's a flight to New York this evening, and then a flight to Rome from there."
"Oh my gosh, is this the price? No way, I can't ask you to do this."
"I want to," Reive said. "Like you guessed, I need the book to help my friend. And you're right that I can't do it without you. I need you, Jess."
She flushed hotter and grew very quiet, biting her lip as she tapped her information into his phone. "Reive ..." she began, and then shook her head and handed the phone back. "Does this all look right?"
Her full name, he noted, was O'Dell. Jessamy Marie O'Dell. "It's—" Beautiful, he caught himself on the verge of saying, then managed to change to, "—looks great. I hope you don't mind me asking this, but you do have a passport, right?"
Jess grinned. "Yeah, I have that. I do know that much about traveling. And you can't take more than three ounces of liquids on the plane, right?"
"In carry-on. You can have whatever you want in checked luggage."
"Really? Damn! I could've brought my big bottle of shampoo."
The waiter brought them a large bag with their burgers and fries. Jess had also ordered a milkshake. "This might be my last chance to have a traditional all-American meal for a while," she said around the straw.
"It's Italy, not the moon. They have food there. Meat, even."
She threw a french fry at him, and grabbed a handful to munch on as they walked back to the car. "How do you know? Have you been there?"
"Not to Italy. I've been to Greece and Switzerland, though."
Jess looked delighted. "That's so awesome. What was it like?"
"Er ..." In Greece, he'd been poisoned by gargoyles; in Switzerland, he was too groggy and out of it to remember much. He did vaguely remember very pretty mountains and gardens. They had been staying in a lovely chalet belonging to Uncle Heikon's mate. "Scenic," he said. "Very pretty."
"I can't even imagine traveling enough to be that matter-of-fact about it," Jess said in rapture. "I've never been anywhere, really. This is going to be so much fun."
"Jess, you almost died earlier today. This is going to be incredibly dangerous, and I wish you would just go somewhere safe, far away from all of this."
Jess sobered. She leaned an arm on the roof of the car. The sun had set, and in the lights of the shopping plaza, her face was a study in shadow. An evening breeze tugged strands of hair loose from her braid and swirled wisps around her face.
"I know," she said quietly. "I understand that. But, believe it or not, I've been in danger before. I'm not afraid. I'm excited about this. Don't take that away from me."
"I just want you to understand how serious this is."
"I do," she said. "But I can understand that and have fun too."
Maybe, Reive thought as they got back into the car, he'd spent too much time viewing travel as something he had to do, not something that was fun to do. His clan had dispatched him all over the country, and occasionally the world, to gather information and deal with problems. He wasn't sure if he'd ever traveled anywhere just because he wanted to go there.
And he didn't dare tell Jess the real reason for his urgency. He was racing a clock, but it was a clock only he knew about.
But maybe she was right. Maybe, just because this was a necessary trip, didn't mean it couldn't also be a fun trip.
"Gosh, I'm starving," Jess said through a mouthful of fries. "Lunch seems like it was a thousand years ago."
"I really don't mind driving while you eat, if you want me to. I'm not that hungry anyway."
"Yeah, I noticed that." She frowned at him. "I've never seen a big guy like you who didn't eat like a horse. Did you have a big lunch or something?"
"Yeah," Reive said, trying to remember what he'd had for lunch, or if he'd bothered with lunch at all. "That's exactly it."
"Well, you can steal some of my fries, if you want."
She held one out temptingly at about mouth height. Reive hesitated, then took it carefully from her fingers with his lips. Very carefully, so as not to brush her skin, because he didn't need this attraction getting any more out of hand than it already was. Not when he was a dead man walking.
The french fry was hot and salty and greasy and good, with just a hint of ketchup.
Maybe he was hungry after all. Just a little bit.
Jess
Jess stirred, waking from a restless sleep. Someone was jostling her arm. She turned her head, squinting dazedly, and saw Reive leaning toward her in an airline seat. For a moment her mind was a complete blank, and then it all came back to her: driving to Indianapolis with just enough time to catch the flight he'd lined up for them, changing planes in New York, and then the long night flight over the Atlantic, which she had mostly slept through.
"We're flying over Italy," he said softly, and Jess woke all the way up, jolting out of her dreams to the sound of cabin announcements and the closeness of other passengers around her. "I thought you might want to see it."
Jess sat up, stretching and yawning, and peered out the window. The last time she'd looked, there had been nothing to see but the dark ocean below and a sliver of light on the rim of the world. Now they were flying over a patchwork tapestry of green and rusty red. Long shadows stretched out in the morning sun, across vineyards and olive groves and little hill towns with twisting, medieval streets.
Italy. She was captivated. They flew over a freeway streaming with traffic, and even that seemed wondrous and foreign from the air.
She was glad Reive had taken care of the arrangements, from buying tickets to taking the lead through security; she had simply followed along with everything he'd done. They had left her car in long-term parking in Indianapolis. She was still in a daze; the night flights had made the whole thing blur together into a hazy jumble of airport terminals and too-narrow seats.
She wished she had been more awake and less rattled for most of it. She wanted to remember all of this. For her entire life, she'd dreamed of having the money and leisure to travel. It would have made her quest to find out about her past much easier, too. She could have gone to famous libraries and museums in London and Paris, examined books much older and rarer than anything she could ever afford to buy herself.
But now they were really here, in Italy. An overhead announcement declared they would soon be landing in Rome and gave instructions in English and Italian for going through Customs, and a flight attendant came through, passing out Customs declaration forms.
Jess was delighted to find that she could, if not entirely understand the Italian, at least suss out enough of it to get the gist from her knowledge of Latin and other Romance languages.
She couldn't help feeling like, in some ways, her entire life had been leading up to this.
"Excited?" Reive murmured, and when she grinned at him, he grinned back, a flash of white teeth and warmth.
As delighted as she was to be doing this, she was delighted five times over to be able to do it with him. Exploring Rome on her own would have been wonderful, but having Reive with her elevated it to the level of—okay, honeymoon was taking it too far, definitely. But she couldn't imagine being happier.
Keep in mind there are gargoyles after us, she reminded herself. And cultists.
"How likely do you think it is that they'll come here?" she asked quietly as they began to collect the small items around their seats.
Reive didn't have to ask who they were. "I'm not sure. We'll just have to keep our eyes open and be careful. It's unlikely they
could have beaten us here, at least."
They were standing now, waiting for the line of yawning tourists and other travelers to start moving. A woman getting a suitcase down from the overhead bin bumped Reive's arm, and he flinched and swayed, his shoulder hitting Jess.
"Are you okay?" Jess asked, surprised. He seemed to be in pain.
"Fine," Reive muttered, grimacing. He stuck his gloved hand awkwardly into his jacket pocket and pulled in a little bit, leaving the aisle clear.
He was very careful with that arm, she couldn't help noticing. He had left the jacket and glove on for the entire flight, which suggested that he had a specific reason to cover it up. She tried to think back to the mottling she had noticed when he shifted, but everything had been happening so fast that she couldn't clearly remember what it had looked like. There had just been so much going on at once.
She still didn't want to ask prying questions, but she wondered if it could be something dragon-related. Perhaps he'd been in a fight with another dragon and was hurt. Or maybe it was, as she'd originally assumed, a birth defect, but with a dragonish twist. Maybe he has claws under there.
She wished she could tell him that she didn't care. If he only knew that she had a far worse abnormality, one that affected every part of her body. But hopefully he would never learn.
They collected her suitcase from the bag claim and went through Customs, with Reive once again taking the lead. When the agent asked them their reason for being in the country, Reive simply said "Traveling for pleasure," and Jess smiled and let her excitement show, as much as she could currently muster; exhaustion was sapping some of her eagerness. She didn't even know what time it was back in Indiana. The middle of the night, probably.
"I think he thought we were a couple," she giggled as they walked through the airport in search of public transportation.
"It seemed like the simplest way to avoid awkward questions," Reive admitted. "Do you mind?"
"Not at all." She reached out, a bit shyly, and took his arm, making sure it wasn't the gloved one. He looked surprised. "Gotta make our cover authentic, right?" she said, grinning.