Page 30 of Magic Claimed

“No, definitely not,” I said hastily. “She can breathe fire, yes, but she’s fully in control of it. She won’t burn your house down. And she doesn’t get any bigger.”

The other woman let out a deep deliberate sigh and closed her eyes. “Okay. Sorry. It’s just… a lot.”

“No worries at all. We should probably follow her though, in case she has questions.”

We took the stairs two at a time and found Kira in a small bedroom that clearly belonged to a teenage boy. It was painted dark blue, with white baseboards and trim and a restored hardwood floor. The bed was covered in a plain blue comforter, and the bedding was rumpled, as if someone had just gotten up.

There were three or four pairs of athletic shoes on the floor, a pile of clothes thrown over the back of a chair, and a half dozen dirty plates stacked on the desk beside a computer. Empty soda cans rolled on the floor beneath the desk, beside an overflowing trashcan with a pizza box stacked precariously on top .

“I’m so sorry.” Monique sounded deeply embarrassed as she headed straight for the desk and grabbed the dirty dishes. “I swear, if I tell him once, I tell him five times a day to bring his dishes down, but it’s like talking to a wall. He spends all his time online chatting with his friends or playing games.”

“No, wait!” Kira bounded over the bed and stopped her with one clawed forefoot. “Leave it. I need to see everything.”

She sniffed around the desk towards the closet and pulled open the door, only to be hit on the head with falling shoeboxes and nearly buried in an avalanche of clothing that smelled very strongly of teenage boy.

“Well, I don’t think anyone ambushed him from inside the closet,” she muttered as she shook her head to dislodge a hoodie that had gotten hung up on her ear.

“Do you smell anything you recognize?”

Her head tilted. “I do, but I’m not sure what to make of it. Monique, has the window been locked the whole time?”

“Yes,” Monique assured her. “It’s not alarmed, but we keepthem closed and locked during the winter. And no one has changed anything since yesterday morning, when I found out he was missing.”

“Did you ask the human police to take fingerprints?”

“They said there was no reason to do that yet,” she said helplessly. “They just asked a lot of questions about our relationship and his friends and how he’s doing at school. And when I explained that everything was locked and nothing was disturbed, they just said he must have left on his own.”

“Hmmm…” Kira eyed the window. “I need to look around outside.”

Without waiting for us, she bounded away, down the stairs and out the front door.

A few seconds later, her face appeared in the window as she hovered in midair, flapping her wings gently. After a moment, she shot up, and we heard the thud of her landing on the roof.

Monique’s expression turned worried. Probably wondering if the dragon was about to crash right through her ceiling.

“Just pretend it’s a really big squirrel,” I murmured. “I promise she’ll be careful.”

We made our way downstairs a little more slowly, then out the back door, to find Kira nosing around the yard like a very large, winged dog. When she finished, she walked over to us, shook out her wings, and huffed in frustration.

“Okay,” she said, “I have news, but I don’t know what it means.”

“I’ll take anything,” Monique said grimly. “Just tell me so I have some idea where to look next.”

“Therearehints of magic,” Kira announced. “So unless yourson has Idrian friends who’ve been over recently, I think we can conclude that you’re correct about his kidnapping.”

Monique’s head fell back, her eyes closed, and her whole body seemed to sag. “I knew it,” she whispered. “I don’t think I wanted to be right, but I just knew…”

“And in light of that,” Kira continued gently, “if you would like us to discontinue this investigation, I understand.”

The older woman’s eyes flew open. “Why? Because you’re Idrian?”

Kira nodded carefully.

But Monique only glared at her. “Do you blame all humans for the crappy things one or two of them do?” Her tone was tart with annoyance.

“Nooo.” Kira’s ears flattened cautiously. “I just wanted you to have the option. You don’t know us, and you really have no reason to trust us other than Shane’s word. So I wanted to offer in case you needed to take time to think about it and decide for yourself.”

“I trust you,” Monique said. Her jaw was clenched, and her eyes sparked with anger as she rested her hands on her hips. “Now what else do you know?”