Page 2 of Dragon Fires Everywhere (Witchlore #4)

Sage is the one who missed me the most, as he told me every single day I was gone. He sent me more little presents on the

road than Emerson did—and that’s saying something, because Emerson is hard to beat.

Sage has been increasingly concerned I’m focusing too much on work, and he’s right, isn’t he? I can see that now. The past

few weeks have been all work. If I went into Jacob’s house right now, it would devolve into work talk. Riverwood plans for

the Cold Moon Ceremony. More speeches about our plans and priorities. More dark imaginings about what the Joywood had planned

if all their machinations had actually worked.

All of it worth discussing, but still, all of it work.

This is supposed to be a holiday for everyone , even the ruling coven, so I decide I’ll see my friends in the morning.

I know they’ll be happy to see me then. And will be as excited as I am that I found everything I needed on an accelerated

schedule. We’ll dive deeper into all things Riverwood, and the rest of the steps that need to be taken before and after the

Cold Moon. Tomorrow.

Tonight, I’ll go see my boyfriend like a normal person. I’ll go live a life that is independent and mine, instead of trailing after Emerson like a puppy.

That’s how Sage characterized my relationship with her before I left. But then he apologized for getting negative. For letting

the prospect of missing me cloud his thinking.

I don’t fly this time. I picture Sage’s place—a converted carriage house separated from his parents’ beautiful Romantic Revival–style

house up off Main. The Osburns weren’t part of the original witch settlers to St. Cyprian. They arrived in the early 1900s,

after the town was set up to be the capital of witchdom, so they’re a little removed from the bricks.

I set myself down just outside his door, because my boyfriend likes rules and propriety. I’ve never dropped in on him unannounced

before, and I’m sure that even though he’ll be happy to see me, he’ll be a lot happier if I knock.

Society has rules for a reason , I have heard him tell his students at the high school with great seriousness. And I’m a Historian while he’s a Praeceptor

of history. We have rules for everything and we swear by them. We like rules, Sage and me.

Even if, sometimes, I dream of life-altering love that could shake the stars loose with its intensity—

That is not realistic , I lecture myself. And also it is childish. It’s time to grow up and live in the real world.

I should be grateful for what I have. I should treat my daydreams like intrusive thoughts. This is the last stretch of a long

year, and it’s past time I get with reality.

I go to knock, very properly, on his door—but I don’t.

Something is wrong. I feel it dance over my skin like a shiver of warning. It’s not a premonition. It’s nothing that specific,

just a very generic off feeling that even the most out-of-touch humans might feel when something isn’t right .

I let my hand fall. Then I stand there, trying to figure out what feels so wrong . It’s not the kind of black, choking evil that I’ve encountered entirely too many times over the past year— that feels oily and gross. This is just... off .

I frown at the porch. Sage’s bicycle is there, but it isn’t neatly locked to the Fenrir-shaped spigot as usual. It’s lying

on its side, like he haphazardly left it out like that. But Sage is the least haphazard person I know, and that’s a high bar when you’re a Pendell who’s best friends with Emerson Wilde.

There’s no window to peer through. There’s only this shivery certainty that something isn’t adding up. I look over my shoulder

at the little alley that stretches between two of the bigger roads. I hear a crow squawk from its branch in one of the trees,

which sends that shiver deeper.

It reminds me of the dream Ellowyn had that she told us about—with princesses riding dragons and a crow army, not unlike a

fairy-tale book I loved as a child. But that certainly has no place in the here and now.

I scowl at the alley. There are usually a few cars and trucks parked there, and tonight is no exception. But the one that

sticks out as odd is a big black SUV.

One I recognize. Because Cailee Blanchard owns a little boutique shop on Main Street close to Emerson’s Confluence Books and

is forever parking it on the street right in front of Emerson’s shop instead of her own or in the alley behind the shops.

I’ve had many conversations with Sage about her because her oldest was a holy terror in one of Sage’s classes last year. Her

husband, Dane, was a staunch Joywood supporter at the ascension trials, but Cailee is the type that doesn’t believe a woman’s

place is politics when she has children to care for and a hobby business to run. I know this because she tells everyone this, without solicitation.

She and Dane live way off the bricks, in the part of town where all the historical buildings were razed for cookie-cutter

McMansions.

There’s no reason her car should be here .

I turn back to Sage’s door, the off feeling digging deeper, making my breathing a little unsteady as my heart trips over itself.

Her car being in this neighborhood could mean a million things, I tell myself.

But it’s like I know, even though I refuse to consider anything directly .

Because I don’t knock. I use magic to open the door.

And it’s the sound of laughter—hers and his—that hits me first. The image of them grappling on the couch isn’t as bad as that

laughter, because anything “intimate” between Sage and me was supposed to be serious . We had to engage in endless conversations about consent and power dynamics, with many asides involving lectures on the importance

of extensive communication.

We didn’t laugh much, is the thing.

I stare. I could just... go home. I could pretend I’m not back in town, that I never saw what I’m seeing right now, including

Cailee’s tattoo of Daffy Duck right there on her ass. I’d like to do just that. I’d like to mutter a spell to forget the whole

thing.

But I’m rooted to the spot.

Sage once scolded me for daring to kiss his cheek in the kitchen. And here he is... humping away at a woman in his living room .

A married woman.

With the TV playing some action movie when he claimed he watched nothing but select PBS documentaries, and only when he could

take notes.

While laughing . Like sex is a delight .

That last part is the betrayal that feels like a knife in the gut. Not the fact of it as much as the lighthearted execution .

I slam the door closed behind me with a surge of magic, and the two tangled, half-naked bodies scramble off each other. Cailee with a shriek, Sage with a choking kind of sound as he struggles to get his pants back up.

“Happy Thanksgiving,” I offer, pulling out the ditzy smile I’ve perfected over the years. “Did I miss a breakup conversation?”

I look from Sage to Cailee. “Or a divorce hearing?”

They both make a lot of noises, but no words, and it’s like that shivery off feeling has coalesced into something else. Like the spine I’ve pretended I don’t have since last spring, when Sage approached

me at a high school dance. When I told myself it was time to grow up and stop inventing fairy tales about what my life was

going to be like. When I gave up on the wild, impossible passion I’ve longed for all my life. When I chose to agree with my

mother, at last, that nothing special was coming for me.

I saw what I needed to see. Now I need to... not be anywhere near these people.

But much as I’d prefer to simply catapult myself out of here, I feel like all the magic just seeped out of me and is currently

located somewhere near Cailee’s contextually disturbing tattoo. So I turn on a heel and walk out instead.

“Georgie!”

Sage is on my heels. I can’t imagine why , but he is. He catches up and darts in front of me.

He’s mussed up when I’ve never seen him anything but perfectly pressed , with not a hair out of place.

“It’s not what it looks like,” he blusters.

Such a ridiculous statement that it makes me laugh when I’m pretty sure I ought to be crying.

“Georgie.” This time he says my name in his firm teacher voice, which, no, he never used in bed, where it might actually have been hot. “We need to talk about this.”

I look at him. Really look.

I think about my friends hinting at me that he wasn’t right for me.

That he was punching above his weight. I think about them trying so hard to understand him or what I saw in him, but they’re not Pendells.

They didn’t grow up with a steady stream of commentary about what’s realistic and what’s acceptable and what it means to not simply be Historians but to be Pendells , who have always stood for timeless order .

But now the truth is like a big, hot, bright light glaring in my face. I was always out of his league, exactly as my friends never quite said out loud. At least not to me.

And he’s the one cheating.

I don’t even feel angry. Just gross. Slimy and weird and a little sick to my stomach. Why does everything feel so off today?

Well. I did just see my boyfriend inside a married woman I have never liked, and in a frenzy . That would put anyone off.

“There’s nothing to talk about, Sage.”

“Georgie, you don’t understand,” he begins in that lecturey tone, and all I can think is that I let this man talk to me like this. For months . I murmured assenting noises, tuned out, and told myself that relationships are about compromise, not sparks and romance .

“I don’t want to understand,” I reply.

Because he never understood me . And the fact I stayed with him anyway? That’s on me.

But him cheating certainly isn’t.

That gives me the strength I need to get myself out of here. “I don’t want to hear from you ever again.”

Then I picture Wilde House, and let my magic take me there.

And once I’m home, I prepare to let myself cry.

But I don’t.

Which somehow feels even worse.