by Becca Mills
“Not prey. Pup.”
“I understand that pups become wolves, but she’s too young. She belongs in the den.”
Apparently this was a good point because Ghosteater gave Williams his full attention for the first time.
“Yes,” he said. “Milk pup. But her den is gone. She must come out early.”
“There’s a big difference between being out of the den and going to Eyry,” Williams said. “She isn’t ready for that kind of hunt.”
“This is not a hunt.”
“You know it is. The dragons never act as one.”
The skin on the wolf’s shoulders twitched. “I will protect her. If I live, she will live.”
He said it with an air of finality.
Ghosteater wasn’t much of a talker. Really, it was amazing that he spoke at all. I wondered how many of his million years it had taken for him to learn to communicate as he did.
I went and sat down next to him, then twitched a little in surprise when he laid his head on my thigh.
Mizzy made a strangled sound.
Since he seemed to be inviting it, I stroked his head softly, ruffling the strange, translucent filaments. My youngest niece — the one who’d introduced me to him — had called it glass fur.
“Have you seen Madisyn recently?”
“No. Her mother only.”
“You’ve seen Justine? When?”
“She is the thing.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”
“‘Oldest thing.’ ‘Pass.’ It is her.”
My hand stilled as I processed the words.
“Williams, we need a silence barrier.”
I shot Mizzy a look. “Sorry.”
She just shook her head, confused.
Williams approached slowly and knelt. I saw the telltale finger twitch.
“Ghosteater, I need to understand this clearly. Are you saying the ‘thing’ the she-dragon wants to give me is a piece of Eye of the Heavens?”
Williams shot me an incredulous look.
“The fragment woman. Justine.”
“The dragon has a piece of her? One of those blue balls? And she wants to give it to me?”
“Yes.”
Damn.
I closed my eyes, working my fingers into Ghosteater’s thick ruff.
The thought of going with him was terrifying. He’d do his best to protect me. I knew that. But he was just one creature. And dragons. I couldn’t really wrap my head around that. They must be some kind of dinosaur offshoot, but it was hard to grasp. Dinos were bad enough. How much worse must these be?
“Ryder.”
I looked up at Williams. I could see he was angry. And something else. Scared. That was a weird emotion to see on him.
“What blue balls? What the hell are you talking about?”
I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure how much I should say.
“Look,” he said. “You can’t go to Eyry.”
“Why? Would it make the trip even longer?”
He spoke slowly. “Your trip would be through the digestive tract of a dragon. People don’t go to Eyry. Cordus wouldn’t go there. Negus wouldn’t go there.”
“Limu wouldn’t go there,” I said, musing.
“Him either,” Williams said, not following my chain of reasoning.
How could he? He didn’t know. Only I knew. And Cordus.
That’s the answer.
“Ghosteater, Cordus is the one you should take to the she-dragon. He knows about Justine. In fact, he’s got her. He can bring the piece back and reunite it with the rest of her.”
“No.”
“But —”
The wolf didn’t lift his head, but his lips peeled back, and a deep snarl came out of him. For a moment, I saw something appear where his feet should be. Something glittering and gray. Then it was gone.
“I offended you,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
The wolf growled softly. “I will eat that one.”
Okaaay, then. Cordus was out.
I worked my mouth, which had gone dry.
“I think I have to go.”
“No,” Williams said. “You don’t. You’re a child. You have no abilities. No knowledge. No experience. No judgment. Whatever this is, it’s not your problem. If you get into it, you’ll die.”
I looked away. I’d needed to hear that, but it sure wasn’t pleasant.
I rubbed the inside of Ghosteater’s ear. He sneezed and shook his head.
“You know how sometimes you’re not the right person, but you have to do something anyway because there’s no one else?”
“That’s a stupid action-movie trope. This isn’t something you can do. It’s just a way to die.”
“You think I have zero chance of success? Even with Ghosteater?”
I felt a little rumble under my fingers. The wolf was following the conversation.
Williams was smart enough not to say anything, but I could see the answer on his face.
I thought about my brother and his girls, about how desperately they needed Justine to come home.
And the thing she’d stolen. Had Cordus been telling me the truth when he said it was part of a plot to trigger a mega-eruption at Yellowstone, or had he invented that whole story in order to manipulate me?
I thought of the rage and hatred Limu had exuded the night I saw him at Cordus’s court in Manhattan. And what had Shuxian said? That he’d gone all crazy and warped because of his hatred for humans — something like that.
And the rumor that the stolen thing was a weapon — we’d heard that back in April. I’d heard it directly from the green man ambassador, alongside Cordus.
Those things weren’t direct supporting evidence for the Yellowstone plot, but they did fit.
Lastly, I thought about the fact that, somehow, apparently, I was known to dragons.
I have to go.
I looked up at Williams. “It’s something that you don’t know about, but it’s really important.” I paused, wondering again how much I should tell him. “If you tell Cordus what Ghosteater said, he’ll understand why I went. I don’t think he’ll hold it against you.”
“You’re not going to fucking Eyry!”
Ghosteater growled audibly. It wasn’t anything like the sound Cordus had provoked, but it was enough.
Williams clamped his mouth shut.
You don’t mess with animal powers. They can have just as much strength as the human variety, but they don’t think the same way and aren’t bound by the same quasi-rules.
“Hey,” I said softly. “I’m sorry. It’s not like I want to go.”
He just glared at me, furious.
“Ghosteater, you can get me to Fur, right? After we see the she-dragon?”
“I do not know that name.”
“Remember the big furry horned creature that was living in Dorf? Fur is the main stratum where they live. They have a citadel there.”
“Yes,” Ghosteater said. “The dragons’ place touches that place.”
“Hey, great — Eyry’s a shortcut.”
Williams swore at me under his breath. Not a joking matter, I guess.
“Will you come with me?” I said.
“Not a fucking chance,” he said. “I’ll come as far as the ligature — that’s it.”
He rose and stalked off.
Good riddance, I thought.
“Pup,” Ghosteater said reproachfully.
I realized I was twisting a fistful of his strange fur. “Sorry.” I smoothed it back into place.
“Beth, you can’t go to Eyry.”
Mizzy glanced up at Ghosteater, who was slinking through the trees ahead of us.
The wolf had turned us off Negus’s path onto a game trail that ran almost due north. After a few miles, the trail had dumped us onto an old stone-paved road, half overgrown with grass and brambles.
At least it was wide enough to ride two abreast. Williams and Ida were up ahead.
“Seriously. Like Mr. Williams said,
people don’t go there. Not ever.”
“Are the dragons dinosaurs?”
“Probably. Who knows, really? One ancient hominid power left cave drawings. That’s how we know they fly. Some tidbits have filtered out through the green men, but they’re pretty tight-lipped about it.”
“And that’s it? No one else has seen them?”
“No one who’s talked about it publically. I’d have heard the stories.”
Huh.
People explore. They colonize. They hunt. They tell tales. Knowing there are dragons next door and just leaving them alone, or seeing them and never mentioning it? That was strange.
Or maybe the dragons really were that good at eating everyone who dropped by.
“Do you want us to come with you?”
“What?”
“Ida and me. Are you taking us to Eyry?”
I turned in my saddle to study her.
So far as I could tell, she thought I might say yes. She looked terrified.
“No, of course not. This is my thing, not yours. When we get to the ligature, we’ll figure out our baggage situation and repack. Then you guys’ll all head back to Free.”
“You’re just going to let us go? Even Ida?”
I shrugged. “I don’t really want vassals right now.”
Mizzy’s mouth opened and closed a few times. She didn’t seem to know what to say.
“But Mizzy, I am going to ask you for a couple favors.”
“What are they?”
“First, please don’t tell anyone about Ida. I want her and Cata to be able to stay with Mr. Gates’s people.”
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. I think we should at least tell Mr. Gates.”
“Why?”
Mizzy looked down. “I love Ida like a daughter. I helped raise her, you know. But someone who’s spying for a rival power … letting that go unreported could put Mr. Gates in really hot water with Lord Cordus. We’d all be at risk. Besides, he needs to know that she serves you, now, not him.”
Crap. I hadn’t thought of that.
“Can’t I just, you know, give her back to Mr. Gates?”
“You can try. But if he refused to accept her, she’d be masterless. And he might well refuse. He really goes against the norm by protecting us without demanding true fealty in return. To go out on a limb for us like that and get betrayed … if I were him, I’d be furious.”
“What if I kept Ida as a vassal? Would Mr. Gates let her stay on at the inn so she could be with Cata?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
I sighed. It’s not like I had money to set Ida up somewhere myself. And even if I had, I couldn’t protect her.
“I could send her back to Negus.”
“No. Absolutely not. She was a gift. Returning her would be incredibly rude.”
“Shit. Do you have any ideas?”
“Yeah. Keep her as a vassal and send her to Lord Cordus. You’re his vassal, so your vassals are also his. Order her to tell him the truth.”
“He might kill her.” I paused. “He’d certainly rape her. Cata too. So far as I know, he plays his sick games with everyone.”
Mizzy looked down, her eyes welling. After several long seconds, she said, “I doubt he’d kill her. He needs people desperately. If anything, he’ll try to use her as a double agent.”
“That’d be awful.”
“It’s better than being masterless.”
“Really? Is it really?”
“Yeah. It is.”
“Is that what happened to you?”
She laughed bitterly. “I’m from the days before Nolanders had masters, remember?”
“Oh, right. Sorry.”
We rode along in silence for a few minutes. I hoped she might volunteer something further about herself, but she didn’t.
“You said a couple favors. What’s the other thing?”
I told her about the boy I’d seen in Chasca’s castle with his desperate mother, the one with the growth on his face. “If he’s still alive, I’d like you to heal him — free of charge, of course.”
“I’m happy to do that, if I can track him down. But what you’re describing sounds like an advanced facial cancer. The chances he’ll still be alive … well, they’re probably small.”
“I understand. Thanks for trying.”
We rode on. The longer the silence lasted, the more awkward it felt. I knew there was a lot Mizzy wasn’t telling me, and I think she knew I didn’t fully trust her.
“So,” I finally said, “if it’s so terrible to be masterless, do you not want to end our … relationship?”
She was silent for a long time. Finally, she sighed.
“I don’t know, Beth. I like you. And I trust you. But I don’t think …”
She shot me a glance.
“It’s okay. You’re not going to offend me.”
She nodded and lowered her voice. “To be honest, I’m just not sure you can defend me.”
I stifled the impulse to honesty. It would be foolish to admit my helplessness to someone who suspected but wasn’t certain.
“Does that mean you want to go back to Mr. Gates?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” She looked at me. “I’m sorry. I appreciate so much what you did for me. Words don’t come near to covering it.”
“What exactly did I do for you?”
“Excuse me?”
“The working you made using my power is different from the old one, isn’t it? You’re a lot younger, and you’re staying that way, seemingly without effort. Putting Ida and a bunch of horses to sleep didn’t tax you at all.”
She stared at me, shocked. “I’m sorry, I thought you knew. It’s a sustained working. I don’t have to put anything into it at all. Your power will keep it going.”
I looked away, into the dark woods off the side of the road.
A sustained form-working. Whatever body you want, forever. The calling card of a power.
“Are you going to take it away?” Mizzy said, her voice low and trembling.
“No.” My voice came out all rough. I cleared my throat and tried again. “No, of course not. What I gave you was in return for services rendered. You deserved it.”
“Oh, thank you!”
She reached across and gripped my arm for several seconds, blinking back tears of joy.
Then she looked back to the road ahead, still smiling.
I watched her, and … I don’t know. I got the sense I’d been played. It might’ve been the smile, or perhaps her body language. It was just a tad overdone. There was a touch of I got away with it. Maybe. I could’ve been imagining it.
I looked down at my hands, thinking.
“Mizzy, there is one more thing you could do for me.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t want to scare Ida, but could you, I don’t know, impress on her somehow that her loyalty has to be above reproach from now on?”
“Of course. But I don’t think it’s necessary. She’s so grateful to be given a second chance. And I think we all know you don’t mess around with Lord Cordus.”
“It’s not just Cordus. It’s also me.”
I turned and met her gaze for a long moment.
She blinked a few times. Then her skin went the color of spackling putty, and she turned away. “Yeah, okay. I’ll tell her.”
“Great, thanks.”
Wow, I thought. I can’t believe that actually worked.
“It’s in there?”
I bent down and peered into the dank cleft in the rock.
Ghosteater gave the crack a cursory sniff. “Yes.”
We were gathered on a sandy ledge near the bottom of a steep gorge. About ten feet below, a mountain stream churned through the narrows.
This place had turned out to be a lot closer than the ligature to Ice Like Glass — we’d reached it in just three days.
“Why is it inside this crack?”
Ghosteater just looked at me.
Maybe it m
ade sense. It’d be pretty hard for a dino of any size to come through. Even a large person would have a bit of a squeeze.
Good thing Williams isn’t coming, I thought.
I glanced over and saw he’d almost finished unloading the pack mules. Tents, bedrolls, cooking equipment, and clothing were stacked in different piles.
I wasn’t going to be able to bring much with me — just what I could carry on my back.
The frame backpack I’d had when I left Cordus’s appeared at the back of a pannier. Williams pulled it out and tossed it onto a pile of winter gear.
The women dismounted and came over to me. Ida lagged behind, her eyes on the ground.
“Are you really going through with this?” Mizzy said. “You don’t have to, you know. We wouldn’t think any less —”
“I’m going.”
She nodded. “I guess this is it, then.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“I’m sure I’ll see you again. You’ll visit us in Free, right?”
“Sure. Definitely.”
Over Mizzy’s shoulder, I watched Williams dig out my alpine suit. Then a toothbrush — probably one of the original fifty-two I’d counted in Bill Gates’s guestroom. Then the package of books about Eye of the Heavens.
I thought of watching the lightning bugs through Mr. Gates’s living room window. I’d been so filled with confidence and purpose, then. Fake confidence. False purpose. But now here I was, heading off after Eye of the Heavens, after all.
I felt neither confident nor purposeful. I just felt scared.
“Try to stay as safe as you can over there,” Mizzy said.
“I will. Thanks.”
I felt myself tearing up and looked down. I didn’t trust Mizzy, didn’t dare think of her as a real friend. But she’d been … something. A human connection, at the very least. I was relieved to be rid of her, and yet I was going to miss her.
I scuffed the toe of my boot in the sand, annoyed at my messy feelings. “So, do you have any tips?”
She thought. “The green men love violent stories. Maybe dragons do too.”
I nodded. “Please tell Jobah and the others …”
I stopped. If I said Terry’s name aloud, I’d start bawling.
Pain rippled across Mizzy’s face. “I’ll tell them.”
Behind her, Williams knelt by my pack and started stuffing things in. He picked up a book and leafed through it. After a moment, he looked up and caught my eye.