by Lisa McMann
A Strange Sight
Thisbe opened her eyes to find sunlight streaming over her. At first she didn’t know where she was. She moved to stretch, and the pain in her ankle brought everything back. At least she was feeling more clearheaded—yesterday had felt so foggy compared to now. She turned to find Fifer, who was standing at the east window.
“Is someone out there?” Thisbe asked. “Did they come?”
Fifer turned, but Thisbe couldn’t make out her expression because of the backlight. “Thiz, there’s something I’ve got to tell you.”
Thisbe sat up, gingerly testing her ankle and finding it had improved. “What?” She looked around the library at the stacks of books, and it suddenly dawned on her where they were. “Oh! I think I know where we are—this must be Ashguard’s palace!”
Fifer tilted her head and stepped out of the light. “Where?”
“This is where Maiven went to find the ancient books. The Suresh family ruler, Ashguard the curmudgeon, lived here. This must be it. I can’t imagine it’s anything else.”
Fifer looked nonplussed. “I don’t know who that is, but I’m glad you figured it out. How close is the nearest village?”
“Oh, we’re out in the middle of nowhere,” Thisbe said, crestfallen. “I don’t exactly know, but we’re surrounded by natural barriers. The crater lake is on one side, and I think there are mountains somewhere else.” She was quiet, then turned back to Fifer. “What did you have to tell me?”
Fifer tapped the windowsill, then slowly went over to Thisbe and knelt next to the sofa near her feet. “Um… how’s your ankle?”
“Not bad. A couple more doses of medicine and I should be able to hobble a bit. Did you see someone outside again?”
“No. I mean the dragons are still there, but no people. No rescue team. And I didn’t expect to see them because, well, they’re… not coming.”
“What?” demanded Thisbe. “How do you know? Did Florence send a reply?”
“No,” said Fifer, looking very serious. She pressed the bridge of her nose and let out a resigned sigh. “I know because I told them not to come. That’s what I said to Florence in my message.”
Thisbe’s lips parted, and a confused expression came over her face. “Why?” she said softly. “Why would you do that?”
Fifer faltered, then plowed onward. “I had a gut feeling, and I went with it. I— It’s hard for me to explain this without sounding like I’ve made a mistake, and I’ve been trying to figure it out for myself before I tried to explain it to you. I’m sorry I let it go this long.”
Thisbe could feel angry heat coming up to her face. “You lied to me?” She couldn’t fathom what reasoning Fifer had for doing this. “Have you lost your mind? Fifer! We got abducted by the Revinir, and you told Florence not to help us? That’s nuts!” She fumed, thinking of all the ramifications of Fifer’s poor decision. “Let’s call them to come now before we starve to death.” She fumbled around, trying to find her component vest so she could look for a send spell. It was on the floor, just out of reach. Had Fifer moved it so Thisbe couldn’t take her out when she decided to confess this atrocity?
“Wait!” said Fifer, rising to kick the vest farther away and backing up, wary of her sister’s sparking eyes and fingers. “Let me explain. Please!”
Thisbe grew angrier, and she could feel her fingertips sparking. “Who do you think you are, taking my life in your hands like that without consulting me? I’m so furious right now I could spit fire. You’d better get out of my way.”
Fifer hastily ran around the other side of the desk and crouched. “Thisbe, listen to me!”
“Do you think that robe gives you the right to control my life, Head Mage Fifer?” Thisbe challenged.
“What? No! Of course not! I’m—it has nothing to do with that!”
“You are on a real power trip now, Miss Stowe,” Thisbe snarled. Smoke swirled up from her nostrils, and she could feel heat in her throat, begging to be released. She let out an angry dragon roar like she’d never known she could do before.
Fifer stared, and Thisbe closed her mouth abruptly. “I didn’t know I could do that,” she said. She got to her feet and hobbled recklessly to the desk, too angry to feel pain. She peered out the east window at the dragons.
“Don’t hurt me, please,” begged Fifer, crouching lower.
“Be quiet,” Thisbe said, still furious, but focusing on something else outside for the moment. “The dragons heard my roar,” she said softly. “They’re walking this way.”
Fifer muttered something unintelligible under her breath and got up. Both girls watched as the two dragons from the front corners of the property moved toward the palace. The twins turned together to look out the window that overlooked the back of the property and saw those two dragons coming too.
“What have you done?” Fifer whispered.
“What have you done?” Thisbe fired back. She smoothed her scales and hopped on one foot back to her sofa; then she took a drink to try to cool the fire in her throat.
“They’re sniffing the air,” Fifer reported. “Slowing down.”
“Nothing to see here, dragons,” muttered Thisbe. She dropped her head into her hands, annoyed by Fifer and wishing the dragons away. “Are they still coming?”
“They’ve stopped,” said Fifer. “They’re turning around and going back.”
“Good,” said Thisbe with a relieved breath.
“How did you do that?” asked Fifer.
“I got mad enough, I guess,” said Thisbe, eyeing her sister through slits.
“Look, will you let me explain?” Fifer tentatively stepped closer.
Thisbe shook her head and rolled her eyes, then sank back on the sofa. “Fine. Explain your madness, please. Because it sounds pretty bonkers to me.”
Fifer wasn’t sure what bonkers meant but figured it was a Kaylee word. And it didn’t take much sleuthing to figure it out. “Bear with me,” she said. “I have a story to tell.” She went to the arm of Thisbe’s sofa and, when Thisbe didn’t set her on fire, perched on it. “After Alex died, when we were camped out in the forest searching for you, everybody kept asking me if I could feel your presence. And I couldn’t. I’d never had that feeling that I knew what you were thinking, or where you were, or if you’d been hurt—all that stuff that Alex and Aaron felt for each other. Did you ever feel a connection like that?”
“No,” said Thisbe impatiently. “What does that have to do with you making a grand decision to endanger our lives without telling me?”
“I’m getting to that,” Fifer explained. “Anyway, you felt it the other day like I did, right? First on the beach, then when the Revinir was carrying us away. We spoke to each other in our minds.”
“True,” Thisbe admitted. “I still don’t get—”
“Just give me two seconds,” Fifer said, getting angry now too.
Thisbe crossed her arms over her chest and shot Fifer an annoyed look.
Fifer glared back. “I think the things are connected.”
“What things?”
“Will you please just—”
“Fine! Go on! Say words already!”
Fifer stood up and stomped over to the south window, staring blindly out it as she seethed. She took a moment to collect herself. “Simber told me that I had good instincts and I needed to learn to rely on them. But for a long time I didn’t know what that felt like. I learned slowly over time, and my biggest moment, where I felt like I needed to make a life-altering move, was when I killed Frieda Stubbs. I felt it deep down, and I knew it was right a split second before I acted. Part of that came from you.”
Thisbe pointedly kept her mouth shut.
Fifer glanced over her shoulder to see that her sister was still paying attention, and then she continued. “The connection between you and me has grown since that moment when you first told me I needed to do away with Frieda. We hashed out our differences, and we grew closer again after being distant for a while. Only things aren’t
like before, when we were kids—not exactly. Our relationship grew deeper in a different way. On a different level.” She paused and turned around to face Thisbe. “And as we spent more time together, talking as leaders rather than just as twins, we began to… connect, I guess. So much that I felt that little electric jolt when we touched hands on the shore. Is that how it felt to you?”
“I… yes. I just thought it was a static shock, but then later…” Thisbe’s anger had lessened. “I heard you in my head when the Revinir had us in her clutches.”
“Exactly.”
“But, if I may emphasize once more,” said Thisbe dryly, “I still don’t understand the connection.”
“This is going to sound weird,” said Fifer. “But I think I’ve developed my gut sense that everyone kept telling me I should have.” She paused to let the words sink in. Thisbe narrowed her eyes but didn’t challenge it, so Fifer continued. “Simber and Florence repeatedly told me to search for it and trust it. And I think I’ve finally found it. It led to our tighter connection, as well as other things.”
Thisbe frowned. “And the other things are…?” she asked suspiciously.
“Well,” Fifer said, hesitating because it was going to sound bizarre. “I got a weird feeling when the Revinir was speaking to us that we should… stop fighting against her. Do you remember what I said to you in your mind?”
Thisbe faltered. “I think it was something like ‘remember the fights we won.’ ”
“Yes. And how did we win our battles? Against dragons, against soldiers, against the catacombs and the Revinir, and against invisible Frieda Stubbs?”
Thisbe grew skeptical again. “I feel like you want me to say something profound here, and I don’t know what it is, so why don’t you go ahead and tell me.”
Fifer stared at her sister, thinking one word over and over in her head and trying to force it into Thisbe’s mind the way it had happened before. But if it was sent out telepathically, it didn’t connect—perhaps because the two were at odds at the moment.
“Well?” Thisbe demanded. “Stop staring at me like a freak!”
“Didn’t you hear it?”
Thisbe exploded. “No!”
Fifer lifted her arms into the air and said, exasperated, “We won with our wits. Our smarts. Sure, magic helped against the soldiers, but we are not and never will be a match against the Revinir’s power and strength. We have to beat her with our minds! Don’t you see?”
“And would you like to tell me how we’re going to do that?” Thisbe shouted.
“By joining her side!” Fifer screamed.
The words rang in the rotunda. Both girls were silent for a long moment. Fuming. Incredulous. Confused.
Then Thisbe put her face in her hands and shook her head wearily. “You have become completely unglued.”
Fifer let out a frustrated noise and turned her back on her sister. She was mad at Thisbe, but she was also mad at herself for completely botching everything. The gut feeling she had was clear as day, but for the life of her she couldn’t explain it adequately in words. Thisbe was right. Fifer fought off tears of frustration and wiped her eyes angrily, then stared out the window, pressing her forehead against the cool glass as the fog outside was beginning to burn off.
Then her eye caught something moving through the brush at the edge of the orchard. She focused on it, then gasped. She couldn’t believe it. Everything they’d just been fighting about faded. “Thisbe,” Fifer said, her anger slipping away. “You’re going to freak out when I tell you what I’m seeing right now.”
Testing the Dragons
Dev had spent a restless night in the village, lying on a cold floor and trying to sleep. Trying to justify the fact that he was hiding from the dragons when maybe he should be defending his palace. Or meeting his grandfather. Or sleeping on his sofa. In Grimere, he’d reasoned, people walked around without the dragons bothering them. But this seemed different. The last time the Revinir had roared, it had been a command to kill him. Did that command expire after Drock had caught him mid-fall and taken him away? Or would these dragons still have that goal in mind if they discovered it was him?
It’s not like the dragons had seemed to care that he’d been standing at the edge of the property earlier. But what if he took the lengthy trek from the orchard through the brush and up the hill, and went halfway across the open courtyard to the center tower—that was the part that frightened him the most. If the dragons decided they were interested in him after all, if they came for him once he stepped onto the property, he had no place to hide. They’d catch him for sure. Whether he made a run for the tower or back to the village, he wouldn’t be able to beat them.
He’d thought about food. Could he catch some fish and use it to bribe them? Or perhaps the dragons went to the river to drink and eat at some point? That was it. He’d get close enough to spy and wait for them to go to the river.
And that’s exactly where he’d been sitting for hours in the early-morning fog, waiting for at least one of the dragons to go to the river so his chances of being eaten were lessened. Not long ago all four had moved toward the tower, but then they’d retreated. Dev had held his ground and continued to wait. Then he saw the movement way up in his library window. The person, whoever it was, was still up there.
He sat up as the person looked out. He couldn’t make out any features. The angle was too sharp, and the sun was bouncing off the dusty glass, obscuring his view with a glare. He didn’t feel afraid to be seen—humans weren’t his enemies these days. Maybe Ashguard or whoever it was could help if he wasn’t hiding from the dragons. Keeping his eye on the great red beasts, Dev stood up and took a few slow steps forward through the brush, trying not to make any sudden movements that might set the dragons in motion.
They looked at him but didn’t move. Dev kept walking. His heart began to pound, and his scales rose on his arms and legs, snagging his new wool skirt. “Everybody just stay where you are,” he muttered under his breath. “Nothing is happening here.” He kept his head down, watching from the corner of his eye, first one dragon, then the other.
The front dragon made a noise and shook out its wings. It took a step toward him. Dev kept walking, picking up his pace slightly, acutely aware of where he was in relationship to safety at every moment. He reached the halfway point. If the dragon charged now, Dev was better off running for the tower than for the orchard and village.
He began the climb up the hill and two more red dragons at the far corners of the property came into view. Great. They turned toward him, and one rose up to get a better view, then rumbled and spat a spray of fire. Dev pretended he was a townsperson in Dragonsmarche going about his business and didn’t slow down. He reached the edge of the courtyard and headed between two of the small towers, aiming for the larger one in the center of the property. His tower. Who would he find inside? At this point, he didn’t care. If it was anyone other than the gray man, he’d make them leave.
None of the dragons took more than a few steps toward him. With his heartbeat pounding in his ears, Dev sprinted the last few steps to the middle tower doorway and darted inside. The foxes startled but then settled when they saw him. He said a few soothing words to comfort them and himself. And then he started up the stairwell as fast as he could climb.
Halfway up he heard a noise and whirled around. Had the dragons come after him? He peered anxiously out of the windows and saw they were still in their corners. With a sigh of relief he turned. And there, on the curve of the stairwell several steps above him, was a shocking sight.
“You’re alive,” said Fifer softly.
Dev sucked in a breath and stared at her. “Yes,” he whispered. And then, overcome by the sight of an ally, he gripped the handrail and doubled over, feeling pain and hope and fear crash together inside him. “Oh gods,” he whispered. “It’s you.” He suppressed a sob and covered his eyes, then looked again to make sure it was really Fifer. And that she was really wearing the head mage robe of Artimé. “
You came.”
Fifer nodded, her expression cracking with emotion at the sight of his tears. She went down one more step uncertainly, then another. “Do you… want… help?”
Dev nodded, overcome. He climbed the step to her and slipped his arms around Fifer’s waist in a hug.
“Oh,” said Fifer, stiffening in surprise. After a moment she reached around him, too. Then she gently pressed his head against her shoulder, feeling his sobs. His warm tears soaked into her robe. She wasn’t quite sure what was happening to make him react like this. But whatever experiences he’d been through since she’d seen him last had obviously changed him.
She reckoned she’d changed a bit since then too.
Having It Out
Come on,” Fifer said after a minute, and pulled away. “Thisbe is upstairs. She can’t wait to see you.” She took his trembling hand in her uninjured one and started up, pulling him along. “The Revinir told us she’d killed you. So seeing you in the brush was quite a shock. A pleasant surprise, I mean.”
Dev swallowed hard. “Thisbe is here?”
Fifer nodded, then studied his expression, but it was unreadable. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”
“We sure do,” muttered Dev, as hard feelings came out of nowhere. Thisbe was way out here? Had she been looking for him? He had a lot of questions for her. “Anyone else?”
“No, just us two.”
They rounded the curve at the fourth floor, and Dev paused to look at the fresh piles of debris from Thisbe and Fifer’s unfortunate fall and the new gaping holes in the floor. “What happened there?”
