by Katie French
At his words, my blood turned to ice. I looked from his face to the others trying to find a different opinion, but I could see by their expressions that what he said was true.
“They wouldn’t,” I whispered.
“They would,” Ki said.
“Shit.” I pressed the phone to my forehead trying to think.
“We could still steal the lens,” Fang said helpfully.
He pointed up to the top of the landing where the lens waited. That had been our plan all along, steal the expensive, practically irreplaceable lens and blame it on Jimmy, but now that seemed stupid and juvenile. I had proof on my phone that would cut Jimmy and Tara off from this lighthouse for good. All I had to do was give up my dragons, my best friends, my family. My whole reason for being.
But if I didn’t, the entire world could be in danger. My father would never be found. More people could be hurt. Lots more people.
“How long do you think we have before Tara comes and draws power from this beacon?” I said quietly.
Ki ran a hand through his black hair, sighing. “She could’ve already come.”
“Then there’s no time to lose.” My heart heavy, I pushed the cell phone into my pocket and began the descent to the floor.
We made it to Mr. Webb’s house an hour and a half later. Thanks to Ki’s expert computer skills and the internet’s way of holding onto very personal information for public officials, we found the Webb’s house quickly and efficiently. We’d forgone the dive back, choosing instead to use cover of darkness to slink off the lighthouse property and fly over to the woods behind Mr. Webb’s two-story colonial.
Now, standing in the driveway of the quiet little house, I was having second thoughts. Instead of acting, I stood evaluating the Webb’s choice of exterior house decor. Pink flamingos on the lawn? So tacky.
I squirmed in my wetsuit, feeling hot and icky.
“Lila, what are we doing?” Tom asked, nervously scanning the surrounding tree line. The moon was high and full, giving us an unobstructed view of the yard, but doing nothing for the long shadows that awaited beyond the tree line. The woods here were expansive, wild, and great for hiding evil dragons.
“We’re pretty exposed here,” Ki added, backing Tom up. Fang stood beside them looking like a bouncer at a bar just waiting for trouble to break out.
“Give her a minute,” Santiago said, scanning my features. I tried to offer him a calm, reassuring smile but I think it looked more like a wince of pain. “It’s okay, amor. We’re behind you.”
“They wouldn’t really erase my memory of you, right?” I said, glancing over my shoulder at the boys. None of them would meet my eyes. If it got erased, what would happen to them?
“Promise me something,” I whispered, staring at my phone.
“Anything,” Santiago said. The others nodded.
“You’ll keep looking for my dad. When I don’t remember, I mean. You’ll keep the search up.”
The sadness on their faces nearly cracked my heart in two. I wouldn’t be warden anymore, but at least we would stop Tara and someone more capable than me would and probably be assigned to the lighthouse.
“Of course,” Ki said.
“We won’t rest until he’s found,” Santiago added.
“Okay then.” I marched up the porch steps, then pressed my finger to the doorbell. It rang loudly in the quiet night.
It took a while before a light shone behind the smoky glass windows. When the front door opened, a very sleep Mr. Webb peered out at me.
“What in the world is this?” he asked. His gray hair was askew on his head, making him look silly instead of serious.
I took a deep breath. “Mr. Webb, I have some important news to share with you. Jimmy is not who you think he is. We caught him on film doing some very strange and inappropriate things.” Putting my cell phone into his line of vision, I hit play.
The light from the recording bathed his face in a yellow hue as it played. He watched the video, which I’d reviewed on the way over. It was blurry and shaky, but Jimmy could be seen naked, marching, and flailing around the column of light.
When it was over, I drew my phone away, waiting for his response. His tired eyes scanned me and the boys in his front yard.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but this kind of harassment will not be tolerated,” he blustered. “If you all don’t leave, I will be forced to call the authorities.”
He started to shut the door, but I shoved my boot in its path. “Mr. Webb, did you see that? Jimmy is doing magic.” I paused, wondering how far to go. “Mr. Webb, Jimmy is a dra-gon,” I said, over-enunciating the word for emphasis.
He shook his head as if to ward off what I was saying. “Lila, I know you’ve been through a lot, but this is not how to deal with it. Now please, leave my property.”
Frantic, I rewound the video, trying to play it again. “Don’t you see—”
He cut me off. “I didn’t see anything except the bottom of the lighthouse, which you clearly broke into, something I could have you arrested for. I won’t as long as you all clear out right now.” Without warning, he kicked my boot out of the way, then slammed the door shut in my face. The click of the lock echoed across the moonlit front yard.
Staggering back, I felt like I’d been spun in a blender and my brain was pureed. How had that not worked? Could he not see or was he choosing not to?
The stabbing pain I’d felt underwater seemed to be back, lancing through my eye and spreading across my cranium. I clutched my head, feeling dizzy and sick. My thoughts alternated between I failed and My head’s going to fall off my shoulders.
“Lila, what’s wrong?” Ki was at my elbow.
A flash of pain burned through my head. My knees gave out. Hands grabbed for my arms.
Then everything went dark.
Chapter Thirteen
I woke up with the taste of sweaty socks in my mouth. Pain was my next thought as I became aware of the throbbing in my head. At least it wasn’t the lancing pain I’d experience before I passed out. I took comfort in that as I opened my eyes.
The room before me was not one I’d seen before. Small and tidy, the bedroom held a single bed, which I occupied, a whitewashed nightstand with birds painted along the drawers, driftwood decor on the walls, and heavy white curtains drawn over a window that glowed with morning light.
Damn, I’d probably slept too long. The clock was ticking. How many hours did I have left before Tara sent her hounds after me? Throwing back a white duvet, I tried to get up.
And quickly realized what a mistake that was. I clutched my head as the pain tore through it. God, what was happening to me? Migraines? Stress? A tiny steam roller slowly creeping over my gray matter?
Murmured voices reached me from the other side of the closed bedroom door.
“Hello?” I called.
Footsteps sounded down the hall. My door burst open, and a sea of male bodies poured in. Ki, Fang, Santiago, and Tom gathered around my bed, worry on their faces like I’d almost died or something. Ki brushed hair out of my eyes. Santiago planted a kiss on my cheek. Tom stood at the foot of my bed, looking sick.
I peered at them with my one good eye. “What happened? We were at Mr. Webb’s, and then I…” Last night’s insanity came back to me. “Why didn’t he believe me?”
Ki spoke up. “We think Mr. Webb couldn’t see Jimmy on the video. Must’ve been some magic present during the incantation. You can see it because you still have the power to see dragons, but Mr. Webb doesn’t.”
“So we looked like fools,” I added.
“Most definitely,” Santiago said. “And then you passed out.” He leaned forward, gripping my hand. “Don’t scare us like that, amor.”
His grip was warm and felt nice. It all felt nice, four boys tending to me and this soft bed, but I knew we had little time left. A day, maybe?
“Where are we?” I asked, scanning the room that looked like it belonged in a beach house again.
“Your aunt’s rented house,” Tom answered, sounding displeased.
Ki nodded. “We brought you to her when you fainted. Our parents were gone. We didn’t know what else to do.”
My aunt’s?
“But I thought she’d gone to meet the Warden Council,” I said.
“Well, she’s back,” Fang said.
“Give her some room,” a female voice said.
They parted, and my aunt strode forward.
She regarded me, her hard expression betraying only the slightest hint of worry in her green eyes. Good. Let her worry. She’d abandoned me. Maybe I should play up my symptoms, really turn the screws.
As she sat on the bed, I clutched my head, moaning. “What happened to me?”
She wrapped a cold hand around my wrist like a nurse taking my pulse. Then she peered into both eyes. “You are undergoing a transformation. One we should’ve tried to stop sooner. Now, I’m afraid, it may be too late.”
I pushed up, ignoring the pain in my head. “Transformation?”
My aunt sighed deeply. “When you were in the cave with Tara the night she took your father, she hooked you up to something, correct? At least, that’s what the fledglings have told me.”
I nodded slowly, remembering the I.V. in my arm, the cool drip of liquid running like ice through my veins. “Yeah, but… but I wasn’t hooked up for very long.” A knot formed in my throat.
“Long enough, it seems.” She pressed her hands together in her lap, smoothing out invisible wrinkles on her pants. I wondered where she’d been since I’d last seen her twenty-four hours ago. Her silver hair was clean and plaited down her back. She wore casual clothes—jeans and a white T-shirt. She looked tired.
“What does that mean?” I asked, all the questions bubbling up. “I’m going to change?” The image of Frank—one of my classmates who had been turned into a monster, half-human and half-lizard—rose in my mind. My stomach revolted, twisting and clenching. I shook my head, fear crackling along my chest.
Panic surging, I grabbed my aunt’s arm. “That can’t happen. You have to stop it.”
“What do you think I’ve been doing all this time?” she said, deliberately pulling her arm out of my grip but not without compassion. “I saw changes in you the day of our first training session. I figured the magic in the beacon could keep it at bay while I researched what to do, but then you lost the beacon. As soon as you did, the virus, or whatever it regarded is, must have started to spread.”
I ran my hands over my stomach, trying to hold back the sickness. Was the feeling due to the realization I was infected? Or was the virus taking hold? What was happening to my body? I inspected my fingers, my arms. Nothing seemed different, but my insides felt odd, almost as if my organs were taffy on a pulling machine. The image made me feel worse.
“How long do I have?” I whispered.
“I don’t know.” My aunt stood, addressing all of us now. “Whatever Tara is using was created by her, and only she can reverse it. Of course, she won’t, so that leaves us with little options.”
Ki stepped forward. “My father is one of the most powerful magical dragons in the world. He’ll know how to help Lila.”
“I’ve already spoken to your father.” She turned to Santiago. “And yours. This is beyond their powers to repair. No one has seen this before. They’ve been trying everything they know on your friend… Frank. That’s his name, right? Anyway, what Tara’s been doing… her experiments. She’s been at this for years and years, according to Tom. She’s probably calculated everything. She’s got to be ready for anything we throw at her.”
“Frank,” I murmured, remembering how they’d bundled off my classmate, his monstrous body beyond human recognition. More waves of nausea rolled over me. I put my head in my hands.
“How long until I’m a… monster?”
“A few hours to a few days,” my aunt answered. “But we have more pressing problems, I’m afraid.”
We all gaped at her, waiting for the bomb to drop. What could be worse?
My aunt drew herself up to her full height, appearing regal and fierce at the same time. “Tara has drawn power from the beacon. Now that she’s flush with magic, she knows we have no chance of stopping her. She has called all dragons within a two-hundred-mile radius to Mirror Island tonight. Everyone who comes and swears fealty to her will live. Those who don’t, or refuse to come, will be hunted down and killed on sight. And with the power she has acquired, she can follow through on her threats. The dragon dens don’t stand a chance.”
“What about the wardens?” I asked, focusing on her.
She cleared her throat. “We are to be discarded.”
“Killed, you mean?” I said plainly.
“Yes.” She nodded, her face still emotionless. “To Deeploch, the creed is dead. Tara wants to make herself empress.”
“She can’t do that,” Tom said, but there was no conviction behind his words.
“She can,” my aunt said. “She has power unlike anything anyone has ever seen, and so do some of her followers. It’s over. You four would do best to swear allegiance to her. At least then, if her power wanes, there might be a chance to rebel.”
Santiago spoke, his voice full of anguish. “But you two will die.”
“I will die,” my aunt said, placing her hand over her heart. “Tara may have more sinister plans for Lila.”
Ki shook his head vehemently. “We’ll stop her.”
Fang punched his fist into his open palm.
My aunt shook her head. “We’ve been over this already. Tara has no weaknesses that we can think of.”
“She does.” Tom stepped forward, a resolute expression on his face. “She has one weakness, and I know where to find it.”
Chapter Fourteen
I sat on the front steps of Aunt Scarlett’s rented house, staring at the twinkling lake surface in the distance. Leaves rustled overhead from the gentle breeze, while the sun did its best to rise above the trees. Its angle made me realize it was quickly rushing toward noon.
The eggs Aunt Scarlett had forced me to eat churned in my stomach. I’d even forsaken my morning coffee, barely able to handle the thought of it—which was all the same since I was going to die. Life without my only drug wasn’t worth living, anyway.
But what if you don’t? Frank didn’t, a sadistic part of my mind said.
I shook my head.
No. “Monster” isn’t an option.
Death was preferable to that.
As embarrassed as I was to admit it, I had avoided Frank while he’d been on Mirror Island. I simply hadn’t been brave enough to face him. It didn’t help that he’d become as skittish as a feral cat, hiding from all, except Ki’s father, who had tested the lengths of his knowledge trying to help the deformed boy.
Still, even though I’d avoided Frank and tried to get rid of the memory of his transformed body, the image remained there, imprinted like a damn photograph. His hunched-over form as he walked on four legs, the few tuffs of dry hair left of his head, his claw-like, twisted hands. It was all there.
Not a dragon. Only the mutated shell of a human.
Was that what I would become?
A nebulous creature everyone avoided.
The front door opened behind me. I swatted the tears away from my face, swallowing the knot in my throat.
“There you are.” Ki bounced down the steps, then sat next to me. “You were supposed to go back to bed,” he added, saying nothing about my tears. “Scarlett Warden’s orders.”
“I’m not staying here,” I said. That was exactly why I’d come to wait by the front steps, so the boys wouldn’t try to leave without me.
Ki sighed. “I was afraid you would say that. Is there no way I can convince you to stay and rest?”
“No.”
“Not even if I promise to take you out on a date after all of this is over?”
My eyes darted to his in surprise. A date? My stomach fluttered as if my pixies had gone from
building protective armor to swooning inside my gut.
“This is no time to joke,” I managed.
“I’m not joking,” Ki said, appearing as serious as I’d ever seen him.
Ki wanted to go on a date with me. I might figuratively die. Exhaling my deranged pixies in one long breath, I came back down to earth.
“Even if you promise me… that,” I said, unable to repeat the date part.
He assented, not seeming rebuffed, just understanding. Only Ki.
We were silent for a moment, then I asked, “Are all other beacons like my lighthouse?”
Earlier, when my aunt explained the situation, I’d been too overwhelmed to think straight. Now, after several minutes of sitting out here, my mind had begun to clear and the inevitable questions popped up.
“What do you mean?” Ki asked.
“Are they all big sources of energy?”
Ki nodded. “Pretty much.”
“How did all that power get in there?”
“Oh, it happened a long time ago,” he said, his eyes acquiring a faraway quality as if he’d been present when things took place. “In my village, back in China, Zûfù used to tell us these old stories when we were children. The legend says that a long time ago, dragon dens were always at war. There were no rules, no creed. So it was pretty much the law of the fittest. Small dens lived in fear, hiding from the strong ones. But in time, one of those dens grew fierce.” He paused, then added with pride, “It was Longtail, my den.”
Ki continued, a faint smile curving his lips. “A mighty dragon rose from this den. She was so powerful that weaker dens rallied around her and decided to fight back. The war was brutal. It lasted decades, and had a high cost. Most of our kind died fighting each other.” There was immeasurable sadness in Ki’s voice now, the faint smile gone.
“Humans feared us,” he said. “The sight of us meant destruction to them, since we fought no matter what stood in our way. Unsurprisingly, they got fed up and started hunting us—which, as you can imagine, didn’t go too well for them.
