Page 16 of Dragon Fires Everywhere (Witchlore #4)

I can tell by the look she gives me that I’ll have to confess to her later.

And I don’t want to. I can’t believe Azrael has... betrayed me like this.

I don’t walk back to Wilde House. I just transport myself back, but my magic must be a little wonky from all my emotions, because I don’t land in my room like I wanted. I land in the foyer.

Azrael is sitting on the stair—next to the newel post now glamoured to look like there’s still a dragon in it—but immediately

rises to his feet when I arrive.

He opens his mouth, but I am not about to let him say anything, because he still looks angry and has no right to. No right

at all. None of this is his business.

Including me. Feelings are not facts .

“Don’t talk to me. Don’t come in my room. Don’t even look at me.” I shove past him on the stairs, ignoring the fact that he must have let me, because he certainly could have blocked me if he wanted to.

“Good thing I don’t want to do any of those things,” he returns at my retreating back.

We sound like children. I know this, and still I storm off to my room. I even slam my door, because why not? Maybe I am childish,

and maybe that feels good.

I flop onto my bed. I stare at the ceiling. I want to cry, but no tears come out, and I feel tied up in a million knots. I

reach out for my crystals, trying to organize them into some formation that will fix this.

But nothing happens. No magic. No hum. They might as well be gravel. I want to hurl them at the wall, but that is hardly a

healthy expression of anger.

I set them down. Gently. I pull out my journal, deciding I will stream-of-consciousness journal my feelings. Then organize them. Process them, once

and for all.

I put pen to paper, and then just... stare.

I try to write a word—any word—but none come out. The only thing I actually want to do is stab the pen to paper a few hundred

times.

A bath , I think, maybe a little desperately. A good, cleansing spiritual bath. That’s what I need.

But before I can even sit up , there are suddenly three people in my turret room. Emerson sits at the end of my bed. Rebekah is sprawled out on the window

seat between the turret windows. Ellowyn arranges herself on my chair, being careful with her belly.

I can see immediately that it’s time for a reckoning.

Damn you, Azrael. I hope he hears it. I hope he feels it.

I beam brightly at everyone. “So, what were our end-of-day Black Friday tallies? Record-breaking, I assume?”

No one takes the bait.

“Georgie, I am so confused,” Emerson says. “Why does Azrael know something about what happened with Sage that we don’t? What

happened ? You said it was mutual?” She’s searching my face for clues, and I hate that. “Did he hurt you?”

She seems so concerned. So worried. I don’t want her to be. I don’t want anyone concerned or worried over me . I am fine. Don’t I seem fine?

But now I have to drag out the corpse of something I was getting over—or would have been in the process of getting over once

I had time to think about it—and rehash the whole thing. Maybe the dragon should have stayed cursed.

The wind chimes outside my window crash around, and I scowl at the noise. I don’t have to see the curl of his massive dragon tail to know he’s responding to that thought. But I don’t take it back.

“It’s not untrue that Sage and I grew apart,” I tell them. “There was just... an inciting incident when I got back.”

“Like?” Ellowyn demands.

Maybe I’ll come up with a dragon curse myself , I think, doubling down.

I swear I can feel that dragonish grin of his like he’s pressing it into my skin. I’d love for you to try.

With his voice in my head, I focus on it and use my magic to create a block. He won’t be able to talk in my head anymore until I let him in.

I hope.

“I came home early and went over to Sage’s to surprise him,” I tell my friends, trying to sound calm. Because I don’t want

to explain that if I sound upset, it’s not Sage I’m upset with right now. That feels far more complicated. “Turns out the

surprise was he was with someone else.”

There are three different sounds of outrage, so I rush to explain. “I think the shock of it was more about the fact he was

actually doing that , not that I was hurt.” That is actually true, though I hadn’t planned to advertise it. But now it feels like I don’t have

a choice. I look at each of my friends in turn. “I didn’t love him. I tried to. I tried very hard to, but I didn’t. So it

really isn’t a tragedy. I’m not hurt. I was surprised, maybe a little offended. But I’m fine.”

“Then why didn’t you tell us?” Rebekah asks.

I want to throw a tantrum or challenge a dragon to a duel, but instead I smile. Gently. “Because I know none of you liked

him.”

They all exchange those usually-behind-my-back glances that make me want to scream. But I don’t.

Rebekah is eyeing me. “So that means you couldn’t tell us he’s a disgusting, cheating, lying worm?”

“Why does it matter?” And some of my frustration must leak through then, because Emerson moves from the end of the bed to

sit next to me.

“Because it means we don’t have to be nice to him if he’s a lying cheater,” Rebekah says, as if that’s obvious.

“Because it means he’s not just boring, he’s slime ,” Ellowyn adds.

Emerson reaches over and wraps her arm around my shoulders. “Because it happened to you.”

I have never once doubted my friends. I love them. I know they love me. But I don’t love the feeling of people... having feelings about what I do or how I do it. I don’t like them having reactions I have to deal with.

Azrael’s voice from earlier echoes in my head. Your mother really did a number on you.

And I hate that in this moment, it makes sense. Because I know my friends don’t judge me the way my mother does. But because

she did , I don’t want any reaction to what I am or what I do.

It’s why I put up the mask and walls. Not because I don’t think they’ll react kindly, but because I want zero reactions.

“It doesn’t matter.” They start to protest, but I refuse to let them. “It really doesn’t. It sucks because it’s embarrassing,

not because I lost some great love of my life.”

“Let’s come up with a curse.”

“Rebekah,” Emerson scolds, but she’s smiling.

“Just a tiny curse? Like on his penis,” Ellowyn says, then grins. “Get it? Tiny.”

And I’m able to smile a little at that. It’s not that I feel better. But they know, and they’re supporting me without piling

on how much none of them liked Sage. How much they knew better. That’s preferable to waiting for them to find out on their own.

Not that this ever had to happen, much less because of an interfering dragon.

Still, it did.

And I’ve dealt with it.

The end.

“No curses. No rituals. None of that is necessary.” I give them all a stern look, and because I am never all that stern , they actually seem to listen. “It was a relationship. It ended. I’d like to focus on opening the archives at the Cold Moon

Ceremony next week.”

Rebekah and Ellowyn look a little surly at that, and I feel certain there will be a round of Curse the Cheater teas at Tea & No Sympathy by morning, but eventually I get a promise from them that they won’t actually curse Sage.

Not that I want to protect him, but we are the ruling coven now. We can’t go around enacting revenge curses. That’s what the Joywood are famous for. We need to be different.

We are different.

But when Ellowyn and Rebekah head off, back to their own lives, I can’t seem to dislodge Emerson.

She’s quiet for a few minutes, and that is worrisome. I know what she’s about to say is going to be heavy. Important.

“I have always given you space when you wanted it,” she tells me eventually. “Or I’ve tried to. You’re the only one I’ve ever

managed to do that consistently for.”

I know she’s right, and it means more than I can express. So we just... lean into each other, there on my bed.

“But I don’t want you shutting me out on stuff that actually means something,” she says. “We don’t need a heart-to-heart every time you have an emotion, but you need to at least share .”

I stiffen a little at that, though I try not to. “I’m an only child, Em. I don’t like to share.”

“Don’t make me steamroll you. I hear it’s very painful.” She smiles again. “You’ve heard what people say about me. You know

it’s true. Everyone should hate me, I’m a raging narcissist who bullies everyone, blah blah blah.”

I manage a laugh, because right now I wish any of that was true, so I could hate her and dismiss what she’s saying to me as the closest thing to a sister I have. “I don’t want to waste

time talking about him, hating him,” I manage to get out. “He was a mistake. My mistake.”

Emerson sighs. “Sometimes we have to share our mistakes, you know. Just like we share our successes.”

I know this is new for our fearless leader—who very much preferred to succeed and fail on her own not that long ago. “You’re

so evolved,” I tease her.

I expect her to laugh, but instead, she nods. “Weird thing is, Georgie, a really good, loving relationship will do that to you.”

She’s being too serious for my liking, but I smile. I let her hug me. And when she finally leaves too, I can admit that I

feel a little better.

But there’s still a dragon-shaped pit of anger and frustration—and still that same scalding-hot recognition— in my stomach that isn’t going away anytime soon.

And maybe I don’t want it to.