Chapter Thirty Four
Austin knocked on the door while Dustin leaned against the wall, supporting himself with his good leg. His face was still pale, still coated with a sheen of sweat. Mr. Smith opened the door, a surprise companion standing behind him.
“Jess?” Austin stepped into the threshold, glad for the warmth it held, “What?”
“What’s up?” she smiled, her hair was put up in its usual bun and wisps of hair were falling out. Her ironed sleeves were pushed up to the elbow, revealing dark blue tattoos that swirled and twisted into cursive names and words unfamiliar to Austin.
“Just got back from an adventure,” Austin said, swallowing, “You?”
“Just got released from my assignment. That was you, by the way,” Jess shrugged, elbowing Mr. Smith, “Most of the chaos in that area were sent there just to watch over you, including Smith.”
“Fledglings get assignments?” she asked. Mr. Smith and Jess exchanged a look.
“I’m a bit older than a Fledgling, a bit younger than Smith. He’s got a few years on me,” Jess raised an eyebrow, looking at him teasingly, “But I’m catching up.”
“That’s not how aging works, Jessica,” he smiled, “And I’d say that I have more than ‘a few’ years.”
“How many?” Austin asked.
“A thousand,” Jess laughed at the number as if it were meaningless, “Has he told you how aging varies? Depending on how diluted the blood is?”
“Two thousand,” Mr. Smith corrected her, spinning around. He was wearing a bow tie, “Actually.”
“But I’m only seven hundred. You’re a thousand seventy eight in March,” Jess said. She put her hands on her hips. Both seemed to have forgotten that they had company.
“Two thousand seventy eight,” he corrected her again.
“Age is just a number,” Jess bit her lip, smiling. Mr. Smith rolled his eyes.
He directed his next words at Austin, who had begun to feel left out of the conversation, “Chaos energy has no effect on the aging process. Jessica is a pureblood water dragon.”
“I see,” Austin nodded, a strange feeling building up in her chest. She felt like she had walked in on something strange, something from a completely different dimension.
Dustin cleared his throat, still looking rather pale, “If no one minds, did you say that Jess is a water dragon? Did her powers carry through in the transformation to chaos?”
“You’re lucky they did,” Jess leaned out the door and stared at Dustin’s awkwardly hanging leg, “They amplified instead of changing.”
Jess gripped Dustin’s shoulder, and when she sighed, Austin could almost see her energy flowing from her body to his, fixing all that was broken. She had never before witnessed a healing where she wasn’t the patient.
“So what now?” Mr. Smith asked, putting a warm hand on Austin’s head as he messed with her hair, “You’ll stay the night, of course.”
“I’ll be off to the human dimension in the morning,” Dustin said in a forced whisper, “I miss Earth, and my humans might be starting to miss me.”
“I’ll be going with him,” Austin said. Silence followed her words, and even Dustin looked surprised.
“Without us?” Jess asked, glancing at Mr. Smith.
Austin nodded and gestured towards the patient, “Someone has to keep him in check, and that someone has to be me.”
If he were left alone, he would kill everyone. Ending him would end the problem, but Austin couldn’t do that, so she would be the one to deal with it. Finally she knew her title. Instead of the Storyteller’s Assistant, she was the Babysitter.
She crossed her arms over her chest and frowned, unhappily resolved with the decision.
Fledgling Page 35
