Page 53 of Dragon Fires Everywhere (Witchlore #4)

For a moment, I can’t seem to form a thought, much less say something.

It’s not the shock at being interrupted here. Why would anything be easy in this long, painful year? It’s not even that much of a surprise that— of course —someone turned up to make this hard.

What stuns me is that this is Desmond .

Not Carol or one of her cronies. Not even some evil black ooze.

My actual biological father.

He stands there, dressed in his crisp suit. He looks exactly the way a father of the bride should, but...

There is something wrong here.

Something more wrong than this man having an affair with my mother and keeping the fact that he’s my blood relative secret for almost thirty

years, that is.

“Are you...” I hardly know what to ask. “Are you really working with Carol?”

I can’t fathom that this self-important man, someone who’s always been so... pompous yet ineffectual could be... actively engaging in black magic .

But he’s not the Desmond I’m used to seeing and dealing with, however distantly.

Today his eyes are a deep, terrifying black, and that’s new. Is it black magic or... is this just a Carol-controlled husk in the shape of Desmond? I certainly don’t remember his eyes being that black, or his smirk being quite that oily.

I definitely don’t remember him giving much of a shit about anything but himself and how he might become more important in

the highest levels of witch society. I never would have picked him to be a lackey.

Then again, he made sure to get that black magic necklace to me back at my pubertatum, didn’t he? So working with Carol can’t

be new for him. Unless...

Desmond Wilde was a friend of my dad’s. And my dad doesn’t always live in the here and now, but he’s never been a fool. If

he thought they were friends, they were. They researched the secrets of the fabulae and the crows together when doing so was

traitorous—and the Joywood have always been fans of swift and brutal “justice.”

Why would anyone risk it if they didn’t believe in what they were doing?

But then Desmond had a sudden change of heart. And followed that up with an affair with my mother and a lifetime of cravenly

jockeying for status, which isn’t the same thing as power. It’s nothing but the appearance of power.

It makes me wonder if the thing that changed Desmond was Carol all along.

“You were a mistake, you know,” he says to me, examining his hands, clearly expecting that almost casual comment to rip me

to shreds.

But I laugh. “Shocking! A child from an affair was a mistake? Imagine that.”

He gazes at me with those empty black eyes. Like a living corpse. Like a Joywood zombie. In spite of myself, I have to fight

to restrain a shudder.

“I should never have let your mother keep you.”

“So why did you?”

He frowns a little, as if he’s not sure why. As if he doesn’t quite remember.

Definitely a Joywood zombie , I think.

He indicates the cave with a tilt of his head. “Go on then. Have a look. Learn all the secrets of the Joywood.”

I laugh again in spite of the fear moving through me. “Yeah, I’ll go ahead and skip right into the cave of evil while you

watch.”

I call out to my real dad and my coven, but there’s only an echoing silence.

And Desmond’s smirk.

He moves closer to me. That’s when I realize I have nowhere to go except into the cave.

I try to reach out to Azrael too. Maybe we’re at odds. Maybe we don’t—can’t—agree. Maybe the real future for us is finally

not indulging in the love our souls were meant to feel.

But I am not going to die here at the hands of Desmond Wilde without trying to get help.

“You can’t reach them,” he tells me, with fake pity. “Not your sad, illegitimate father outside. Not your friends performing

their little farce. They think all is well, and they’ll keep thinking that until it’s too late.”

He smiles wide, and if I’m not mistaken, lets out the faintest little... titter.

And that’s how I know.

This is not Desmond. This is Carol. I know it.

So with no warning, I lash out. I shoot a blast of magic power that should knock Desmond over—

But he’s not Desmond. Not totally.

His power is greater—stronger—and he doesn’t even budge from the blow. Instead, he throws out a blast of his own.

And it has me skidding back, perilously close to the cave. I fight it with everything I’ve got, but it’s all-encompassing.

It’s all over me.

Thick and black and oily.

It’s like that river sucking me under, but this time it’s pushing me into a cave, into black , into evil . And I’ve already spent so much energy just trying to get here.

We battle on in the same way. I manage some decent blows, but I never knock him back. And while I block some of what he throws

my way, I am inching closer and closer to being thrown in that cave that throbs with evil.

I have one foot in, one foot out. I’m holding on to the side of the opening to keep the blast from taking me all the way in.

Everything in me is flagging—every ounce of strength, power, magic.

It’s a renewable resource, and mine has been depleted.

I guess this is me dying horribly again , I say in my head, going for a little rueful gallows humor here at the end.

Because hey, at least I know I’ll come back.

And I’m going to fight until I can’t.

I throw another blast at Desmond and grip the doorway with everything I’ve got. And as I do, I feel one of my fingers start

to... heat. Like a strange, hot brand around my ring finger.

There’s a deep, distant rumble through the house, kind of like when I turned the key to open the archives.

But this is angrier.

It isn’t Carol-as-Desmond, because he looks up, shocked.

Then furious, and not in my direction.

With his attention diverted, I throw out what little magic I have left. It knocks into him, but at the same time, the roof

seems to crash in on itself.

No. Not on itself.

Because a huge, pissed-off dragon crashes in and lands with a thud that rattles the entire foundation I’m standing on. I almost

topple back into the cave, but I just barely manage to grab onto the wall and hold myself up.

Azrael.

Here.

In dragon form and breathing fire.

I’ve never loved him more.

Carol-controlled Desmond manages to hold off the fire blazing at him, barely. Azrael reaches forward with one fearsome claw

and closes it around Desmond’s body with no trouble at all.

And he roars, loud enough and scary enough to make me believe very deeply in genetic memories, because I am certain no breakable

creature on this earth can possibly be chill in the face of a dragon roar .

But that doesn’t mean I can let him do this.

I scramble forward. “You can’t kill him!”

Azrael sighs, a plume of smoke erupting from his mouth. He slides me a wild gold look as he gives Desmond a little shake.

“You are forever saying that to me.”

Since I’ve said it all of twice now, I assume he means across our many lives. But I don’t have time to mine that notion. “Carol will only use it as proof

that magical creatures are dangerous.”

The way he looks at me is downright ferocious. “We fucking are .”

“But you’re not evil, Azrael. You’re not black magic. And I...” I look at Desmond hanging limply in Azrael’s giant claw.

“I’m not altogether certain he’s actually in there. I think Carol has some kind of mind control over him.”

Another round of smoke. “If she does, he let her.”

A terrible truth I can’t deny. But still... “We can’t give Carol more ammunition. Not until you’re all free.”

He sighs. Then, with a flick of his tail—which crashes through lamps and walls like they’re made of papier-maché—magic erupts

in the corner of the half-destroyed house. A statue appears, kind of like the dragon one in the cemetery. But instead of big

and fearsome, this is a small and inconsequential little stone thing that looks like a naked rat.

He tosses Desmond’s limp body at it, and with another burst of magic, Desmond is gone. I realize that Desmond is now imprisoned like Azrael was.

Azrael takes his time turning that huge dragon’s head of his back to me.

And for a moment, we stare at each other across the wreckage of Carol’s once-pristine house.

My throat is so dry it hurts. “You came.”

He studies me with that golden dragon gleam. “Did you know they are broadcasting that tiresome fairy tale all the way across

the river? Directly into the graves. And there’s no way to block it out.”

“I did... not.”

“Well, they are. And I heard you. Loud and clear. Then.” He looks at the looming cave full of books that must be full of Joywood

secrets. “Now.”

That makes my throat feel tight.

He keeps going. “Then the rest of them. The Guardian. The Immortal. The Revelare and the Chaos Diviner. On and on about this

love thing I apparently know nothing about. And maybe you are right, I don’t.”

That hits me even harder than any of Desmond’s blows, but there couldn’t possibly be a worse time.

“Azrael, I don’t have time to fight with you. I can’t do whatever this is.” I’d magic myself right out of here, but I don’t

have the magical battery for it, and I need to deal with some evil books.

Not a moody dragon I needed days ago .

He scowls at me. “Your words freed me once, Georgina, but I suppose that was different. That was a very physical imprisonment.

A curse. This time, it was my own choice.” He shimmers bright and hot, and then he is a man, and that makes everything in

me ache . “Perhaps you were right, and I was selfish. I did not want to feel that pain again. It is unbearable .”

“Yes,” I say. “I know. I don’t have to remember. I feel it all the same.”