by Kate Hall
A warm energy thrums beneath her fingers, and she looks back at the shining opal. She imagines a baby dragon, twisting and turning beneath her fingertips.
Her jacket is moist, but she has nothing else to cushion it. Before she leaves the cave, she wraps the egg in her hoodie and buries it in her old brown backpack.
Climbing out of the cave and back to the ground is tedious. Her hand stings even worse from earlier, so she has to be careful when grabbing her handholds on the way out. She nearly falls halfway down the cliff wall, her foot slipping on a particularly slick stone, but she’s able to keep her balance, her shoulder burning with effort. She probably wouldn’t die if she were to fall, but landing on her back would definitely destroy the egg.
When her feet finally hit the ground, a clap of thunder sounds. The clouds are nearly black and swollen with water, ready to burst. She turns around, and the thick pines that she’d walked through to get here are nowhere to be seen. The forest has rearranged itself, so she’ll have to guess her way back. Before she can make a decision, the clouds give way, and she is instantly drenched.
The walk in the sheets of rain gives her a chance to consider her options. Mark and Elizabeth are usually gone until late in the afternoon, so she should be able to sneak in unnoticed like most days. She doesn’t think they’re bad people, but she doesn’t know them. She’s lived with her great uncle since her parents died, and when he was put into hospice last month, she’d been sent to St. Louis to live with his estranged daughter.
Lightning streaks across the sky, blinding her for an instant. The trees hum with energy; wild faeries, the ones who don’t want to live with humans, love storms. They love to trap people in their woods, wandering for years and years, and the sky’s music makes it easier to get people turned around.
Nobody approaches her, though. She’s glad she remembered to put on her woven iron cross this morning—she isn’t religious, but it’s the only piece of iron she owns. It used to adorn her dad’s neck, and she found it hanging on the key hook by the back door when she was given a chance to pack a bag. It had kept him safe from the faerie woods behind their old farm house, and now it keeps her safe from these eerily-similar trees.
She turns in a circle to look for anything recognizable, but at this point, even the river has disappeared into the trees and shrubs. Safe enough, she reasons. They may try to confuse her, but at least they can’t touch her without getting burned.
After trudging through the thick, pelting rain, she finds one of her blue ribbons tied to an oak.
It takes a minute of searching to find the second ribbon.
Another moment for the third.
She eventually makes her way out of the woods, and she sighs with relief when she sees the house, an amalgamation of a building, part stone colonial and part paneled suburban home. The main portion was built way back in the early eighteen hundreds, but the rest was built less than fifteen years ago to expand it into a four bedroom rather than one. An ancient iron fence surrounds the whole thing—that’s the one part that has never changed. If you live in faerie woods, you have to be safe from those who want to steal your children away.
She sneaks through the house, dripping water along the hardwood floors toward her room. She curses under her breath, wishing she’d paid enough attention in her home economics class freshman year to remember the spell that cleans muck off the floor. She isn’t great at magic, but something that basic should be ingrained in her memory. She doesn’t have much time to dwell on it, though, because the garage door begins to clank open on the other side of the house.
She locks herself in her room, the last bedroom at the very corner of the original structure. When she’d arrived, Mark had informed her that they only had the one spare room, as the other had been turned into an office. His voice had been slow and careful, like she was a wild animal he might scare off. The Halacourts don’t have any children of their own, and they clearly weren’t expecting to get one thrust on them at any point.
At least they’re trying, the voice in the back of her head reasons.
Her room has a fireplace, surely built to keep residents warm two hundred years ago, but now comes in handy for something else. She snatches her cell off the charger and pulls the egg out of her bag, Googling how to start a fire. She knows the basics—dragon eggs need high heat to incubate. Female dragons can heat their bellies to hundreds of degrees while they roost, but orphan eggs can sit in a fire or even embers.
Instead of risking magically summoning a fire, she digs up the lighter Penny had stolen from a twenty-year old boyfriend and lights a magazine page, shoving it under the logs in hopes they’ll catch. She lays the egg on top of the haphazard pile of logs, and white smoke starts to emanate from beneath.
A knock sounds at the door.
“Dinner will be ready soon,” Elizabeth calls, her voice hopeful. There’s a pause. “Is something on fire?” She doesn’t seem as concerned as she perhaps should about their home burning down.
Sarah’s throat goes dry. Elizabeth works at the zoo, so it would only be right to come clean now. “I wanted to try out the fireplace!” The excuse is flimsy at best, but, after a momentary pause, Elizabeth’s feet creek on the floorboards as she leaves.
She was entrusted to take care of this egg, and she doesn’t want it to be raised by some clinical hands and a robotic mother. Forest dragons are at least a little illegal to keep, though, so nobody can know about this.
Chapter Two
Alex
WHEN ALEX RETURNS TO ST. LOUIS, HIS RELIEF IS palpable. The drive to campus takes seven hours from his parents’ squat ranch house in Kansas, and he makes it overnight so he doesn’t have to drive right after an emotional goodbye. Instead, he sneaked away into the night the moment everyone else was asleep.
Every bigger city is more magical than his tiny hometown of Winfield, Kansas, but St. Louis always feels like more. The sun glistens off the arch, illuminating it gold as he comes up over the interstate in his late grandmother’s old green Ford Taurus. His fingers twitch and spark, not enough to start a fire, but enough to singe the musty fabric steering wheel cover. His heart soars at the sight, and not even his shining orange and yellow aviators can keep the brightness out of his eyes. The light is no longer blinding when he takes the exit that leads him back to St. Merlin’s Academy, his car tucked into the long shadows of the tall glass and stone buildings that adorn downtown.
There’s an excruciating amount of traffic this morning, but he should’ve expected that when arriving at the same time as everyone is headed to work. He’s stuck at the same light by the art museum through three different cycles, creeping ever closer, and his car goes at a crawl through Forest Park, an expanse of green and trees and women jogging by with strollers. Finally, though, he’s able to turn off into the back driveway of the school. He has to swipe his student ID to get into the dorm parking lot, which is mostly empty this early in the day. By the end of the afternoon, though, it will be packed with overpriced cars owned by the affluent teenagers that stay here for the year.
Students keep the same dorms their whole high school career, so he parks his new-to-him car in its new-to-him assigned spot and hauls his hefty duffle bag up four stories, the white steel and concrete stairway echoing every step. Halfway up, his eyes begin to droop from the exhaustion of staying up all night.
Freshman and sophomore year, his parents dropped him off, and although he didn’t think he’d miss their incessant affection this time, now that he’s here, standing in front of the pale wooden door to his room, his throat closes up with emotion. He brushes away the tears that have begun to well up before unlocking the door and walking in.
The room looks just like it did when he left, including the nerdy decor hung all over the walls. Both of the twin beds have Star Wars sheets, Alex’s featuring the Empire insignia and his roomate has the Rebel symbol.
He isn’t the only one to arrive early. David, another pyromancer, is already lying in his bed on the righ
t side of the room, a book featuring a girl with white hair in hand. When Alex walks in, he looks up and uses the inside of the book jacket as a bookmark.
“Hey, I was wondering when you’d show up!” David says, a grin spreading across his face as he gets out of bed, still in his dinosaur pajama pants. He must have arrived yesterday. They’ve been close since they were assigned together the summer before freshman year—neither of them knew anyone in the city, so it had been easy for them to bond.
Alex drops his duffel bag and holds his arms out, and David, a few inches taller and fifty pounds heavier, pulls him into a bear hug.
When Alex pulls away, he asks, “Where’ve you been? I haven’t heard from you half the summer.”
He unpacks his duffel bag as David goes over his vacation, which he spent backpacking across Europe. His parents own a wireless internet company somewhere in Florida, so they’re always going on huge expensive vacations and buying new cars. Unlike Alex, David doesn’t need a scholarship to attend St. Merlin’s.
Once he’s finished unpacking, Alex flops down on his bed, wrapping himself in the throw blanket his mom had packed. The entire room smells musty and unfamiliar, the result of sitting for three months with no residents. The rough blanket, though, smells like home. David doesn’t make fun of him for it, and Alex doesn’t make fun of the stuffed Ewok that David has had since he was a baby. Alex’s eyes prick with tears once again—he’s too tired to care, and David has seen him cry more than anyone else, anyway. When he’d first moved here, his first real time away from his family, he’d cried himself to sleep almost every night for two weeks.
“Wake me up before lunch,” Alex says, his voice heavy with sleep and sadness. He’s asleep before David can reply.
HE’S BEING POKED IN THE SPINE BY SOMETHING. A broom handle, maybe. He forces his eyes open and sits up, his body aching with protest at his nap being cut so short. A clatter makes him turn to David.
Their dollar broom is lying on the floor; it definitely wasn’t there this morning.
“Thanks,” Alex says, hopping off the bed.
He should’ve taken his medication before leaving Kansas, but, by the time he’d realized, it had been packed toward the bottom of his duffel bag. He grabs his toiletry bag and goes to the bathroom they share with two other suitemates, neither of whom have arrived on campus yet. He doesn’t talk to Mike or Will often, but they usually show up late at night the day before classes start after every break.
He fills a brand-new syringe with testosterone before giving himself the shot—he used to flinch at it, but he’s been taking it once a month since he got off hormone blockers at fourteen, and the fear has long since worn off.
“What are you thinking for lunch?” David asks when Alex is back in the bedroom. He’s finally out of bed and is halfway changed from his pajamas to actual clothes—a pair of blue jeans and a violet t-shirt that illuminates his obsidian skin. Alex has always been envious of David’s muscle tone—they spend a lot of time together at the gym, yet David has always managed to be more toned than him. Alex has always been lean, but it’s an even more stark contrast now that David seems to have bulked up over the summer. It isn’t until the shirt is completely on that Alex realizes he’s been staring.
“Imo’s. Definitely Imo’s,” Alex replies. It’s a tradition for them to eat at the St. Louis pizza staple their first day back—freshman year, Alex’s parents had noticed that David was all alone in the dorm. His mom and dad had sent him from Miami to St. Louis on a plane, and tears were beginning to glisten in his eyes when Alex’s family was getting ready to go to dinner. Even without Alex’s parents today, they fit themselves into the tangerine Corvette David brought back from winter break last year.
The nearest Imo’s is just on the other side of Forest Park, a miles-long expanse of land that cuts through the middle of St. Louis like a scar. Some days throughout the school year, Alex walks from his dorm over to the science center or the zoo just to get out for a while. It’s a nice day out, cooler than usual for summer, but they don’t walk. They used to justify it by saying they didn’t want to hike the mile back to campus with leftover pizza, but the truth is, the Corvette is achingly cool, and Alex likes feeling like he belongs at St. Merlin’s, if only by association.
They split the biggest pizza on the menu, and, as usual, there are no leftovers.
As they step outside to head back to campus, the faint screech of a dragon reverberates throughout the city. He isn’t in any immediate danger—it must be miles and miles away, but the sound still roots him to the spot. Back home, he has to deal with cat-sized prairie dragons occasionally trying to burn down their hay fields, but he’s never heard a larger dragon screech outside of television. He feels bad for whichever farmer is losing a cow or two this afternoon.
He’s about to ask if David heard it when he spots a curvy blonde girl getting out of the passenger side of a black Mercedes.
“Hey, guys!” she says when she notices them, a grin spread across her face. Kendall is the third pyromancer at St. Merlin’s, and she’s a year younger than them. Her older sister, Heather, tall and slim in comparison, steps out of the driver’s side. The only similarity the sisters have is their blonde hair and their shared apartment near Washington University, which nestles into the West side of the park.
David plasters a huge grin across his face and jogs up to her, wrapping her in a hug that lifts her off the ground. Alex ambles up slowly behind, hands shoved deep in his pockets. Ever the third wheel.
“How was your summer?” Kendall asks. Before either of them can respond, Heather clears her throat and lifts her eyebrows.
“Are we gonna eat or not?” she asks. Heather is a senior at Washington University, and since her parents decided that Kendall should live with her instead of on St. Merlin’s campus, she’s been bitter toward her younger sister.
Kendall doesn’t seem to notice the hostility. “Be right in!” She turns back to Alex and David and wraps them in a group hug. “I’m so happy to see you guys again,” she mumbles before releasing them and following Heather into the pizza joint. Her eyes linger on David just a moment longer than necessary.
As bitter as Heather acts, Alex knows that she cares deeply for Kendall. Otherwise, instead of coming halfway across the park to this Imo’s, the one where David and Alex can almost always be found, she would’ve gone to the one two blocks from her apartment.
“This is gonna be the year,” David says, watching Kendall retreat into the restaurant.
All last year, he said he would ask Kendall out. He had a date planned, which he would describe to Alex in detail every time Kendall looked especially adorable. The plan is to take her to the zoo because she loves the sea lions and the Abadas—a small breed of African unicorn—before going out to dinner at Kemoll’s, one of the finest restaurants in town.
“I just have to up my game,” he says once they’re in the car on the way back to school. “Did you see her today?”
Alex had. Last year, she’d been shy and kept her appearance toned down. Today, though, she’d been wearing a dress that accentuated her full figure and makeup ready for a night out.
David talks about Kendall the entire way back, and then pulls out his notebook—yes, an actual notebook—dedicated to planning the perfect first date for her. It would be creepy if Alex didn’t know that Kendall cared about David just as much.
Alex enjoys listening to David talk about Kendall, especially because he sees the way she watches him in class, her eyes filled with longing. He is genuinely excited for the day they finally end up together, but he can’t help but wonder if anyone will ever look at him that way. Not just with lust or curiosity, but with the longing that comes with falling in love.
He’s kissed people before. When he was twelve, he would hang out with a boy named Kyle who was a year older. Alex liked him because he was older, he wore all black, and he drank alcohol. All things that made him seem dangerous, like the sly leading man in the R-rated movies he watch
ed with Dad when Mom wasn’t home. When Kyle was visiting his dad’s house next door to the Locklears’ on weekends, he and Alex would go behind the shed and kiss. “I’ll kill you if you tell anybody,” Kyle warned. Boys kissing boys wasn’t okay in their town. At least not if you were in middle school and wanted to have any friends.
When Alex was fourteen, gearing up all summer to go to St. Louis, he had a girlfriend named Brittany whose mom would drop her at the end of the street and peel away in a station wagon. His parents were rarely home—they were both working more to save up the extra money to send him to St. Merlin’s—so he and Brittany spent a lot of time in his room making out. Once, though, she tried putting her hand down his pants, but he protested. She was gone soon after, and his social status plummeted as she spread rumors about him.
David is his best friend, but he blushes when he considers asking what it’s like to be in love. Instead, when they get back to the dorm, he packs his satchel in preparation for his first day back at St. Merlin’s.
Chapter Three
Sarah
DUE TO HER EVERLASTING INSOMNIA, SARAH HAS already been awake for a couple hours when her alarm finally goes off, doing more research on dragon eggs. When the alarm rings on her phone, she simply closes out of it and continues to read her fiftieth article on dragon care—this one is titled “What to Expect When You’re Expecting A Dragon,” a play on the popular parenting book about half-mer children.
She lazily changes into her uniform, eyes on her phone the whole time. The next article suggests adding oxygen to make the fire even hotter; “Blue fire can be the determining factor on if your hatchling is quiet or active.” She skips past that one, as there’s no way she could sneak an entire oxygen setup into her room without there being some serious questions.
