Page 8 of Dragon Fires Everywhere (Witchlore #4)

“What... are you doing in here?” I manage to ask him, despite that shivery sensation that’s making my skin prickle. “This

is my room.” I remind myself that he’s been living in a newel post for at least a century, apparently, so he might not know where

to go. “I’ll find a room on the second floor for you to—”

“I’ve always wondered what your room looked like.” He wanders from one side of the room to the other, studying the crystals

littered on every surface, the stacks of books, the old photographs propped up everywhere and pinned to the walls, and the

dried-out flower wreaths hanging from ancient hooks.

“Why?” I hear myself ask, because I cannot fathom why a dragon would have even the slightest interest in my room .

“You can tell a lot about a witch by the place they rest and practice their most intimate magic.” He doesn’t look at me when

he says that, so there’s no reason for me to feel suddenly overwarm. He’s obviously only talking about spellwork. Azrael looks

over at me then, his eyes gleaming. “I always make it a habit to study the private domains of my Historians.”

My Historians. “What do you mean, your Historians?”

“Dragons are always assigned to protect Historians.” When I only stare back at him, his expression shifts into that same astonishment. “Not even this has survived as common knowledge?”

I shake my head. The idea of a protector is ludicrous—who would bother with a Historian enough for them to need protecting?

From what? Bookworms and dust?

And even if I thought that reading was more fraught with peril than it is, here’s what I know for a fact: Every single one

of the women in my coven has been directly targeted by the Joywood this past year... if not over the course of their whole

lives.

Except me.

No one cares what Historians do. Why would magical creatures?

I try not to sound as dubious as I feel. “All dragons protected all Historians? Throughout history, even though that’s lost

to us?”

“No, not all.” He settles back on his feet, and I think about his dragon form, all sinuous, gleaming muscles and talons, not

so much standing in the front hall as conquering it. “Not all Historians are worthy of protection, and no one can tell a dragon what to do if they do not wish to do it.”

He stares at me then, something pulsing between us that feels just out of my grasp.

“I was the protector of another Wilde Historian, once upon a time,” he says very quietly, studying me with an intensity that

makes me feel like someone else entirely. “Why do you think I got cursed into this house?”

But I can’t think of one Wilde that’s ever been a Historian. Not in the last century or the five before. “What Wilde Historian?

When?”

That intensity morphs into irritation. “How can there be so much you do not know?” he demands. “I gave the lot of you far

too much credit, I think, from my position as observer.”

His frustration pokes at my temper. Normally I would say I don’t have one, because I know how to control it. It was that or be like my parents, and I would rather my entire family think I’m a dingbat than be too much like them.

But the more tired I am, the more pushed I am, the more I have to admit that the truth is, I’m more like my mother than I want to admit.

I have a terrible temper.

It just takes a while to get me there.

And as I feel it boiling within me, I struggle to keep in mind that this is a dragon . I don’t have to have vast experience with the species to suspect that blasting one with my entire and usually hidden temper

is probably unwise. “We’re just stupid, of course. I’m surprised that wasn’t obvious from the newel post.”

He makes a dragonish sort of scoffing sound, and I swear I see a little puff of flame snake out of his mouth as he does. “Witches

are so touchy.”

“Witches have been dealing with the psychotic, powerful, and tangled web of lies the Joywood has had in place for who knows

how long,” I shoot back at him. “The Joywood have obscured and changed what they could. Records go missing. Books that should

exist don’t. Frost has some of the missing pieces in his library, but you have to know what to look for to find it. It’s hard

to know what’s hidden and what’s an outright lie when it’s not only all you’ve ever known, but they’ve done everything they

can to wipe away the memories they don’t want any of us to have.” Like dragons and mermaids . “Take you and Melisande, the mermaid.” A thought occurs to me, and I frown at him. “Is there... anyone else in Wilde

House?”

“I don’t know.” He sounds unconcerned. “Melisande was the only one I could see.”

I try a different tack. “What magical creatures were here in town with you before the killings? The curses?”

“Too many to name.” But he considers. “In St. Cyprian, specifically, there was a Fenrir, a handful of fairies, centaurs, basilisks, griffins, and so on.”

I think about all the things around town in the shape of these creatures. Sage’s spigot. A post on Main Street in the shape

of a griffin. There’s a little fairy trapped in stained glass in my childhood bedroom. I can see her from my window here in

Wilde House.

It’s so much to take in.

Because it’s not just another secret—I think if it was one dragon in one newel post, I’d be able to cope with it more easily. Even with all the ramifications.

But we’re not talking about a single act. We’re talking about the Joywood targeting all the magical creatures there were.

Killing them outright. Cursing them into hiding, and then erasing them from history. Turning them into fairy tales or dinosaurs,

little more than acts of imagination on the part of children before they grow up. Not just to gain immortality, but to ensure

they’re the only ones who can.

I already thought the Joywood were evil.

But this is next-level.

“When I go to Frost’s tomorrow to work on the spell for your glamour, I’ll see if he has any books about magical creatures.

Perhaps that will help fill in some blanks.”

Azrael scowls at me. “You trust Frost. A murderer.”

I blow out a breath. “Frost has never pretended to be a good man. We all knew from the start that you don’t become an immortal

from doing good things. Maybe that’s why I trust him. There’s no bluster, no pretension. Has your life been blameless, Azrael?”

Another scoffing sound. “Dragons don’t believe in blame.”

“But it sounds like you blame Frost when there’s the whole Joywood wandering around, ripe for a little blame of their own.

They’re the ones who actually cursed you, aren’t they?”

“Dragons don’t blame ourselves . Dragons, by definition, are blameless.

” That grin of his is a weapon. I’m not sure he needs the smoke and flame, the claws and the tail.

These things I can feel all around us, even though I can’t see them.

“Witches, on the other hand, we can and do blame for everything. You deserve it.”

I roll my eyes. What ridiculousness.

And only after I finish the eye-rolling do I think to question what he might blame me for, since I’m the only witch in the

room.

“You said you were tired,” he reminds me, and then he smiles with a kindness I don’t trust for one second. “You should rest.”

I would love to agree, but there’s something about the way he says it. About the way he’s studying my window. “And what are

you going to do?”

He flicks a wrist and my window opens, though it is not an opening kind of window and shouldn’t have obeyed someone else’s

magic anyway. I have wards to prevent that.

“I’m going to fly.” And he’s starting to change... scales and smoke and eyes of gold. “Are you coming with me?”

I think to myself that I have never wanted anything more in all my life.

And it sears through me like scalding heat.

I tell myself it’s irritation.

“Azrael, you cannot go around flying in your dragon form. The Joywood will see it or sense it or—”

“Then I’ll go alone.”

I can’t let him do that, for reasons that feel like more of that scalding heat, but I rush forward anyway. With the idea that

I’ll reach out and somehow hold him in place, but he’s smoke.

But it’s not just smoke, because the smoke grabs me. Out the window I go, somehow, against my will. Or it would be against my will, surely,

if I had access to anything that felt like will instead of that heat that is like a pulse in me, deep and wild.

And as we go, the smoke and scales come together to form that gigantic dragon I first saw erupt from the newel post.

I can feel him become corporeal. I can feel the strength of him, the heat. It meets that pulse in me and adds to it, like

we’re both a part of that humming .

And then we’re flying. Soaring through the dark night sky, him with his wings stretched out wide and me on his back like I

belong there. Like I’ve done this a million times before.

Something in me seems to shift, then settle at that, like I really have.

But all I can think is that I am flying on a dragon .

And I want to laugh. I want to throw my arms up toward the stars, the moon. I want to sing .

It’s just like my book , I think.

Except better. Much, much better than any fairy tale could ever describe. Because I finally feel... at home.

Like I was made for this. For him.

This soaring, scalding, pulsing yes that turns me inside out, and I love it.

It’s not just the pretty lights of St. Cyprian and all the other towns along the river that sparkle down below us. It’s not

the simple truth that flying and the magic that lets us all do it are wonderful things to experience on their own—because

this is nothing like that.

Flying on a dragon’s back is nothing like flying on my own.

Flying on this dragon’s back , I correct myself, because I know with a certainty that feels old and weathered within me that this is an experience that

is singular to him.

To him and me.

Like I’ve been waiting to finally meet him all my life, and all this heat and certainty inside me is recognition.

Azrael dips and rolls, and I can feel his delight, his freedom. He makes no noise, so I don’t either. We’re nothing but wings and his raw, earthy magic, starshine and moonlight.

We’re us .

We rise and plummet, soar and roll, and I think, Finally . We’re us.

Maybe the Joywood can’t feel this, and wouldn’t even if we flew straight at them. That even if they could feel us up here, they wouldn’t understand

it.

Because what do they know about a joy so deep and encompassing that it feels like an ache? Something almost like grief. Something

that wide and exhaustive, but threaded through with dragon gold.

I don’t know how far we go or how long we’re gone. It could be a string of forevers, all that same sweet rush of tumbling

through the sky.

It feels as if we’ve lived each one. A thick and colorful bouquet of lives, the two of us intertwined—

Though witches don’t believe in reincarnation. That’s for other beings, perhaps, but not us. We live too long, some say. We

are already too magical, claim others, and cherish our ability to go to the other side and still affect those back here.

Eventually Azrael circles back from forever to St. Cyprian and to Wilde House, rising up from its part of Main Street with

all of its usual authority and grace. And just as I was pulled out of my bedroom in the first place, I’m swept back in on

a wave of blue-and-green smoke that morphs from scale to man as we go.

It’s exhilarating. It aches . It’s too much.

Now we’re standing in my room once more, but we’re both a little windswept. Our eyes are shining from the cold air and glowing

from all that magic. I can see myself in my mirror. I can see it all over him.

And his eyes are gold and on me.

The way he’s looked at me a thousand times before, I think—

But no. That’s not possible.

Too many emotions are battering around inside of me, almost too much to bear. If he were anyone else, I’d probably let myself cry, because sometimes tears are the only way to get things out. But Azrael isn’t anyone else.

I don’t know what to do with him.

He moves toward me, two meaningful strides that almost have us touching —

But I move back because everything in his gold-and-onyx eyes is too much, too confronting. Too much recognition , when this morning I knew that dragons weren’t real.

Trouble is, there’s nowhere to go.

I run into the wall. I’m trapped unless I want to magic myself away, and that seems a bit risky with my heart trembling inside

my chest.

And when the only thing in my head, in my heart, in every part of my body, is him.

He leans forward, so close I can feel the dragon heat of him, the way I did out there beneath the moon. Not just the heat

in me, but the heat he gives off, like a furnace.

Deep inside, underneath all my layers of body and magic, something in me relaxes, as if it’s finally found a soft place to

land.

Home , I think again.

His eyes glitter. “You are brave, Georgina Pendell, though you try to hide it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I tell him. “I’m a Historian.”

Not brave. Not special , Hecate forbid. Just... smart and organized and careful.

The way a Historian is supposed to be. Just ask my entire family tree.

“Careful,” he sniffs, apparently reading my mind. Again. Which is a thought I can’t quite take on board in the middle of this

moment. When he moves away from me, I tell myself I’m relieved. “You would do well to accept yourself, Georgina. Denying who

you really are gets us nowhere.”

Us.

I’m standing there with my back pressed up against the wall, and he’s prowling through my room. I think maybe he’s going to leave, and I’m wondering which room in this house he’d consider an appropriate place for an ancient mythic dragon to sleep now that he’s real—

But then, in an elegant move that makes my mouth go dry, Azrael stretches out on my bed instead.

On my bed.

He links his fingers behind his head, closes his eyes, and lets out one long sigh. Like he’s... going to sleep.

Like he’s already halfway there.

Like he... expects me to crawl right up next to him and snuggle in like he’s my cat familiar and not... him ?

“That’s my bed ,” I say incredulously.

But I’m quite certain he’s already happily asleep. And even if he wasn’t, he doesn’t care one bit.