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It had been years since he’d visited the dragons. He was surprised they still remembered him, still spoke his real name with fondness. They invited him into their circle amidst silver reefs and pale stone statues, where the undersea light glimmered off their deep blue scales.

The story they told was of a young fae male who carried a blessing of the sea inside of him for the sacrifices he had made, and the evil he had stood against. A blessing kept secret for numerous faeborn seasons, that not even the stars or the sky deities would whisper about for its preciousness.

One that had kept him alive when the shadows of the air had come knocking. It was the first time Mor knew for certain that the water dragons had been looking out for him all these years by imparting the gift of never being able to forget.

If it could still be called a gift at all.

In the middle of his slumber, he asked them, “Why can I not just forget the bad memories and keep the good ones? Wouldn’t that make things easier?”

An old dragon laughed, a booming echo through the water. “I think you will soon find that you need the bad memories, too. They can tell you things. They can give you answers, and sometimes they can solve problems. You must allow yourself to think of them every now and then, Son of Pane.”

Mor’s salty tears mixed with the sea water.

“But it’s hard to think of those memories. It hurts,” he admitted.

The dragon’s long tail swished behind him as it leaned forward, coming eye-to-eye with Mor like Mor was still just a childling of the village, and hadn’t left and grown up. “The hurt is why we need those memories. The hurt is what makes us understand others who are hurting, dear Son. If we grow numb to the hurt, we become shells with no hearts. And your heart is what has saved you,” the dragon said. “Don’t despise your hurt, and most importantly, don’t despise your heart.”

19

Cressica Alabastian and the Whole Three Days,

Starting at the Beginning

The trio of days had started all wrong.

First:

In the middle of the cursed night, Shayne had lunged off the couch in Kate’s apartment—still sleeping—and tripped over the area rug in the small living space. It had turned into a full-fledged fairy-splat after that. Shayne became one with the rug, moaning loud enough to rattle the building.

Cress released a huff as he tore off his sheets and strutted out of the bedroom. “You’d better be dead,” he warned Shayne as he entered the living space. “Or I’ll kill you for waking me up again.”

Shayne rubbed his face and shot Cress a look. “I fell,” he said.

Cress blinked slowly. “How enlightening. I hadn’t noticed.”

From the chair by the door, Dranian’s snoring hitched. It wasn’t fair that the fairy was able to sleep through anything these days, and Cress was left to deal with Shayne’s horrendous sleep noises.

Shayne picked himself up off the floor, rubbing his backside. “I had a bad dream,” he explained.

“I’m having a bad dreamnow,” Cress growled. “Is not even a prince of the North Corner permitted to get any sleep here?”

“Aren’t you going to ask me what my dream was about?” Shayne asked, flopping back onto the couch. The white-haired assassin adjusted the pillow behind his head, already seeming ready to go back to sleep.

Cress hesitated. He opened his mouth, then shut it again. He folded his arms. He shifted his weight.

“What was it about?” he finally asked.

“I’m not telling,” Shayne said.

Cress grumbled a curse and turned to head back into the bedroom. Kate was lucky to be sleeping at Lily’s apartment these last months. At least she was able to dream without waking to Shayne’s midnight madness.

“Cress,” Shayne said before Cress was out of sight.

The Prince poked his head back into the living space. “What?”

Shayne tapped a finger against his stomach and stared up at the ceiling. “I dreamt about home.”

Cress watched the assassin for a few moments. He didn’t need to ask why that would have resulted in a nightmare. Why it would have made Shayne fling himself off the couch in a fitful sleep. He knew full well.