I wasn’t stupid. I knew well enough that all I was doing was drawing out this problem for longer than it needed to—but it was still a relief to be outside and by myself with nothing but the frozen world around me. And because it was winter, I didn’t need to worry much about ticks or poison ivy, either.
Before long, my bare feet, numbed by the glacial cold, hurt relentlessly at every jolt and root and stone. I kept walking anyway, stepping carefully, hunching deeply into my coat and letting the pent up tears inside me seep down my cheeks. To avoid them freezing onto my skin, I had to keep wiping them away; dirt from my jacket smeared across my face. Sobs stuck in my throat as I tried unsuccessfully to choke them down.
Why could no one understand what Kalgyrad was? That he was dangerous? Why was he coming back to our house, again?
And why did I ever let Mara talk me into anything so utterly dumb as… whatever last night was. I should have known better. I did know better.
I tried to sniff away the snot clogging my nose, but all I got was a lungful of iced air.
Still sniffling, I flopped down into a crouch, turning to keep my eyes on the way I’d come. No sense in letting someone just walk up behind me unawares. But I also didn’t want to go that far away, anyway. I just wanted to be… somewhere else. Pressing up against a tree and settling down further, I wrapped my coat around my knees and zipped it up. It didn’t quite get my feet, but it did help. My choking, panting breath also heated up my little pocket of warmth, even though every time I breathed in, the cold rushed to chill me again. I would have just stuck my head in my jacket and called it a day, but I wanted to watch for anyone following me, and I didn’t want to smear my clothes with snot and tears. There was already enough of a mess of laundry back in my room.
The wind sang, hitting my face and feet with an extra dose of ice, waving the branches and bushes in a soft dance.
It was cathartic in a twisted, unhappy way. Alone and cold as I was, feet hurting, there was a bitter comfort in how the outside world finally mirrored what reality felt like to me. And I’d escaped; even though it couldn’t possibly last, I could at least be miserable on my own terms for a while.
Of course, being left alone with your thoughts means that your thoughts are really the only thing you can listen to, and mine weren’t very complimentery. Drawing up my collar further, I sank against the tree, last night and this morning playing over and over in my head like the world’s least appealing movie theater.
I should have stopped Mara from leaving.
I should have tried to find help sooner.
I should have acted faster against the shadow creature.
I should have never let Kalgyrad get near me.
I should have kept my temper better with Grammy.
I’m a coward. I froze up again. I almost got Mara and I killed.
Who knew how long I would have sat there, wallowing in my mistakes. Maybe I was planning to stay until my feet froze to the ground and I slowly turned into a snow-covered extension of the tree. But that wintery future got interrupted.
Something warm and furry nudged my foot, and I startled, staring down at the creature from my bedroom—Jask.
How had he managed to creep up without me realizing?
Looking back, I think if it had been anyone else I would have just gotten up and run away again, or cowered in my jacket until I got physically dragged back to the house. But as it was, I was too surprised to do much more than wipe at my face for the umpteenth time and say: “What are you doing here? I thought you were in the house.”
He just gave me a look out of all eight of his eyes, as if to say “I thought you were, too.” But he didn’t actually say anything. He just stood and watched me.
“Jask…? That’s your name, right?”
There was a slight nod.
I fished out a handkerchief from somewhere deep in the recesses of my jacket and, perhaps for the first time since it had been made, blew into it. It was alright to be a snotty, soggy mess on my own, but things were different if someone was going to be looking at me—even if that someone was a strange, ridgebacked, guinea pig creature.
He continued to say nothing.
After a moment of facing off with each other, Jask gave a tiny sigh and hunkered down on top of my feet.
I blinked, confused, as an almost painful flow of warmth trickled up from my toes. Restraining myself from the instinctual reaction of kicking him away, I leaned over my knees to peer at him. It was hard to tell what his emotions were. All I could see was that his ears were flicked back. Still, he didn’t move, instead settling further until his soft fur pressed down all around my cold feet. As far as I could tell, he might have been settling down for a nap.
Hugging my knees tighter, I sat, still, trying not to move my feet and inconvenience him, too thrown off balance to think of anything else to do but wait for him to say something.
Which is why he had come after me, presumably. Earlier, he’d had a lot to say, and had insisted it was important; it stood to reason that his motivations would be the same. So why the delay?
The silent seconds ticked by, marked only by the wind in the trees and a distant cawing of crows.
And if he had come after me, it probably wouldn’t be too much longer before Grammy tracked me down. Unless she’d gotten really side tracked, or Kalgyrad was late, which seemed unlikely. He struck me as the kind of guy who was irritatingly punctual.
Finally, a different part of our earlier discussion clicked into place. “You ran out of time to talk, didn’t you?”
My toes almost felt like regular flesh again. Enough, at least, that I could feel a slight twitch of his head, as if in acknowledgement.
I kept my chin on my knees and my eyes towards the distant smoke from the house.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, tightening my fingers around my arms. “I rushed out to… do something else, and only just ended up wasting both of our time. Hopefully, the important thing you were going to tell me can wait a little bit.” I watched a huff of my breath carry on the air. “At least, I’m assuming you’ll be able to talk again at some point.”
Another little shift of assent.
I chewed on my lip, dried and chapped from the winter air. “Sorry. I just… it all got a little too much. And this was really stupid but… I don’t know. It felt better than suffocating. I already have extra chores and training tonight, anyway, so what’s a little more on top of that?”
If I’d been a normal kid, this probably would have meant being grounded, but considering that under normal circumstances I’d stick to the house all day if allowed, this would instead mean extra work. Maybe I’d even get dragged on a field expedition. Grammy wouldn’t frame that as punishment, though. She’d just say that it was time I got out for some fresh air and time out of my head. And she’d probably mean it, but it wouldn’t change the facts: I hated expeditions, and if she forced me out on one it’d be because of this morning.
“I just… I just wish… I don’t know. That last night had never happened. That someone could have come and helped us. But no, we were out all night, by ourselves, being hunted by who knows what, and… I almost let someone die. I almost let myself die.”
I shivered, only partially from cold. The weight of that thought had occurred to me last night, but I hadn’t had any room to feel it. Now I did. Mara and I could have died. Maybe should have died. The fact that we got off with nothing more than a cracked ankle and some scrapes and bruises was nothing short of a miracle. But Mara had trusted me enough to take me with her, and I had almost let her get killed, because I, who had been trained for those kinds of situations, couldn’t manage to keep my head under pressure. I’d failed. I’d frozen. I’d been a coward.
Memories creeped back, replaying the feeling of shadows coiling around the world, eyes staring from blackness—
I hunched further in my coat.
“And then, on top of all of that—” I stopped, trying to put things into words. “Well, besides the silveries, that dragon just had to come along and take advantage of the whole situation.” I hesitated. But I had only promised to not tell Grammy. It would be fair to include Llewellyn in that, since he would inevitably tell Grammy. But I doubted the silent pikur at my feet would have much of a stake in spreading random dragon-related information. “He should have at least told us what to expect, but he didn’t, and he tricked us. And now Mara is part of the whole deal, and I have no idea what he’s going to ask us to do. What if it’s a crime? What if it’s betraying the Wardens? He can’t possibly force us to do that favor, can he?”
Favors aside, he was a dragon, so the answer to that question was yes. But that’s not what I meant. Would we just be bound to him to do any little whim?
I could feel the tears starting again. No sobbing, but just tears gathering and spilling quietly before I knew they were there.
“And that’s not even… Grammy was out there all night. And so was Llewellyn. I know it’s unfair. I know it’s not their fault—they expected us to be inside and out of all of this. But why did no one find us? Not them, not any other Wardens. The Bradyrs aren’t that far away, and the older kid, Theo or something, he’s usually pretty active. Lives and breathes monster stuff, if I remember him right. It’s just… it doesn’t feel fair. I’m supposed to be training so I can grow up and be a Warden and help people, but what about when I need help? There wasn’t anyone last night, and there wasn’t anyone back when my parents died, and there wasn’t anyone—” The words choked off. I still didn’t know how to quantify what had happened to me so when I was a kid. I had thought I had forgotten about it. But between last night and the aching hole where my chest was, clearly I hadn’t gotten over it.
“Sorry,” I said again, wiping my nose on the handkerchief. “I don’t know why I’m saying all this. It’s not your business, really, and you didn’t come out here so I could cry on top of you. I mean, I don’t know why you came out here at all, but it probably wasn’t for that.”
Jask raised and lowered an ear, and that was all the response I got. Hesitant, I reached down and patted his head. It was warm, soft as old cashmere. When he didn’t object, I smoothed the fur down along his head and neck, avoiding the spikes and petting him gently. That hadn’t been my intention, but, well, he didn’t move, and I hadn’t expected him to be so soft.
“Thanks, anyway,” I said, sniffling. “I’m not sure why you’re really out here, but it was still nice of you to help me.”
Sucking in a deep breath of cold air, I blew it out again, as if I could disperse the rest of my feelings to the wind. There was more I could say—how no one but Mara and I seemed to care about the dragon weaseling its way into the Appalachias. How I dreaded the coming lesson and learning, again, just how bad I was at Mithae (which I did not need a reminder for). How tired I was and how I couldn’t say anything, explain anything, justify anything to Grammy. But that felt still sealed up, like they were things not yet ready to be said. I was already feeling better, anyway, and with each creak of the forest, the pressuring need to return home got a little heavier.
I patted Jask again.
“No idea how Grammy will react to you,” I told him. “She doesn’t like illdýr as a rule, though apparently she makes exceptions for dragons.” I tried not to sound bitter. “But I’ll see about smuggling you back in, and getting you food. Though… I don’t know what you eat.”
Jask trotted off my feet, looking almost amused. When I reached out, offering to pick him up, he hopped dutifully into my hands and submitted to being hidden in my coat. Or, well, my attempt at hiding him in my coat—it became instantly clear that he was too big to pass unnoticed, even though my coat was too big for me. Still, It was only polite to try and shield him from the cold. He was heavy, too, much heavier than he looked, as if his bones were made of lead. But it would be rude to bring that up, so I just hugged him closer with a begrudging relief that Grammy kept me fit enough that this was’t a huge problem.
As for Grammy herself, we’d figure out the rest when we got closer to the house.
Honestly, I don’t know what I expected.
I half-considered sneaking back in through my room, instead, but that would come with its own host of problems (such as getting past Grammy in the kitchen). And going in the front door would be much more noticeable, much more quickly. I know that what I hoped was to slip back in through the dining room window (unnoticed), sit down and act like the cold gust coming in and my reddened face were merely a byproduct of sitting and waiting, and actually I’d been there the whole time, why do you ask.
My hopes didn’t survive the next minute. Just as the house was coming into view through the skeletal trees, someone appeared between me and it. Grammy was back in her old coat and boots, with an extra layer of scarves, and a baseball cap pulled down over her hair and face. It obscured her facial expression, but I didn’t have to be clairvoyant to tell that she was irritated. She was carrying something under her arm that I couldn’t make out.
Before I could make another dumb decision and try and bolt, she looked up and we locked eyes; the blue of hers was more piercing than usual, like the color had been sharpened into a cold focus by the world around her.
In the second it took for both of us to freeze and stare, I noticed her escort. Tensing, I met Kalgyrad’s eyes for one second; even as a strange, tightening sensation buzzed in my ears, I remembered all the old lore saying to never look a dragon in the eyes, and turned away.
In contrast to the both of us, all he had on was his usual suit, with a single scarf—more decorative than functional—draped artistically over his shoulders. Being your own furnace came with perks, it seemed.
“Rhys Powell Vordur,” Grammy said grimly, for the second time that day, “what exactly do you think you’re doing?”
As she strode closer, two things became clear to me. First, the unidentified object tucked under her arm was a pair of boots—my boots—and second, there was no way I could hide Jask before Grammy noticed.
I tried, anyway. “I-I was just—”
My old pair of battered back-up boots thunked to the ground at my feet.
“Put those on before you get frostbite.” Grammy cut me off. “And let me take a look at whatever you’ve got under your jacket.”
Not knowing what to do, I hugged Jask tighter and looked down at him. He gave a slight nod, as if reassuring me that it was okay to let him down.
Slowly, not looking at either adult, I unzipped my coat and lowered Jask to the ground; I pretended not to hear Grammy’s sharp intake of breath, focusing, instead, on shimmying my boots over my numb feet. The boots were a size too small now, and pinched at my icy toes; but since I’d lost one of my regular shoes, and my current boots were being mended and re-waterproofed, this was the best I could expect.
My chest felt cold, now, without the warmth of Jask’s body heat, and my breath was going short again. I thought I’d gotten past it, but no—tears were once again threatening to fall.
“What, exactly, is that?” Grammy said with almost sardonic calm.
I could only imagine what this looked like from Grammy’s point of view (much less Kalgyrad’s). Her timid, monster-fearing grandson ran away into the woods and came back clutching a strange, never-before-seen creature under his jacket and immediately tried to hide it from her. Would this be growth, or simple insanity?
“Um, Grammy, this is…” I looked helplessly from Jask to her, mind whirring through the options as I swallowed my tears. “I-I’m not sure what kind of illdýr it is,” I finally said, “it seems like a nice one, though. It was helping me stay warm.” I hadn’t actually thought about whether or not I should tell her that it talked, that it had a name, or had a specific purpose in being at our house. It would be a stretch to say that I trusted Jask just yet, but I had promised him food and shelter, sort of, and I didn’t think Grammy would be too happy about a sapient illdýr suddenly coming under her roof. So, I’d tell her later. Maybe. Just add it to the list of secrets, I guess.
Grammy raised an eyebrow. “And you’re okay with that?”
“At least he was here for me” hovered in my mouth, like it was going to scream without my permission.
After all, it wasn’t like the past 24 hours had been magically wiped clean by a short cry session in the woods. My tongue felt too big for my mouth.
“I believe this creature is something known as a pikur,” Kalgyrad interjected. “They are generally friendly creatures.”
I started at the sound of his voice, partially because I’d been ignoring him, and partially because he was saying something helpful.
But he did that last night, too, I thought. Don’t trust it. Still, it gave me a needed jolt. I focused on trying to breathe slowly through my nose, and the freezing of my nasal passageways at least gave me something different to focus on.
Grammy, meanwhile, was in a staring match with Jask. “And how, exactly, did it end up here?”
“The wards over here aren’t very strong,” I said.
“That’s not what I meant.”
Kalgyrad shrugged. “They’re small, and good at coming and going through tight spaces, even magical ones. Maybe it followed me and I just didn’t notice.”
There was a gleam in his eyes I didn’t like. Part of me wanted to pick up Jask again and tuck him out of the dragon’s sight. Jask, however, didn’t seem to mind. His nose twitched placidly.
Grammy didn’t look satisfied. She pushed up the brim of her cap. “So, then, why is he here, at our house.”
It’d been a while since she’d been this blunt with anyone outside of the family. Suddenly, I felt a pang of guilt. I hadn’t meant to rattle her to this point—but then again, there was a lot I hadn’t meant to do lately.
“Maybe he followed me further,” Kalgyrad said, gesturing towards the way he’d come. “Though I’m surprised the poor thing has survived alright in the cold for this long. They typically live in warmer climes.”
“So he was probably trying to get warmth from you,” Grammy told me drily. “Even nice illdýr are hardly altruistic.”
I bit my lip and didn’t say anything, feeling the knots in my stomach tighten and loosen. Of course Jask wasn’t being altruistic, but he had been helping. And something about Kalgyrad calling him a “poor thing” rubbed my nerves wrong.
Never thought I’d see the day where I wanted to defend an illdýr from, well, anything, but here we were.
“Well, this has all been a very nice learning experience,” Grammy said, crossing her arms, “but I think it’s high time we got back to the house and stopped wasting our guest’s time.”
“What about… the pikur?” I said, feeling a rush of panic. I had a promise to keep, and if he could get in, anyway, that would be… difficult to explain to Grammy later.
She stared at me like I’d pulled another unknown life form out of my pocket. “We leave him here. He seems to be surviving just fine on his own. And since he’s apparently not a danger, and we have Mr. Kalgyrad here vouching for him—” she shot him a meaningful glance—”then I guess we don’t need to lock it up or anything of that sort.”
I’d forgotten about the possibility of cages, and bit my lip. Looking down at the ground, sniffling, I wondered if I could use the distress I was in as some kind of leverage. Though there was a high chance Grammy wouldn’t be phased—after all, she was pretty used to my tears. “But he said they don’t do well in the cold.”
“Then maybe Mr. Kalgyrad can take him back to his own accommodations, should he’s concerned.”
“If I may,” Kalgyrad interposed, “I myself don’t find the cold to be a bother, so I’m afraid that dragon lodgings in winter would be rather unsuitable for him.”
Grammy raised an eyebrow. “I hope you’re not suggesting the idea that it stay in our house.”
“Well, it seems that the two have formed some kind of bond,” Kalgyrad said benevolently, gesturing to us.
I managed a bland smile instead of the suspicious glare I wanted to give him; Jask companionably rubbed up against my ankles and put a paw on my boots.
Grammy stared at me even harder. “And I hope you aren’t agreeing with him.”
Again, I could only imagine how this appeared to her; I’d never so much as looked at a puppy before, and now I was basically asking her to house an anomaly. I nodded tentatively. “We’re supposed to take care of people, right?”
She squinted at me. “People, yes.”
“As I’ve said,” Kalgyrad put in, “I do believe that the pikur is no threat—to your grandson or anyone else. But I do understand that a woman in your position as a Warden can’t take my word so lightly.”
“Yes,” she said cautiously. “And I suppose you’re about to say that, seeing as that’s the case, it’d be irresponsible of me to let an unknown entity wander around the woods unsupervised.”
“I would never presume to put words in your mouth, madam.” He offered a short bow. “I suppose there are other Warden families in the area that might be of assistance?”
I shoved my hands in my pockets and waited; my hand touched something cold, in the depths of my jacket. It sucked my attention for a moment—another jolt of helpful distraction.
Grammy sighed. “There are the Bradyrs. Theodore Bradyr is trustworthy in his own way, but—” she waved a defeated hand and turned away. “Even then we’d have to keep it until we could get in contact, wouldn’t we? And then there are their kids. So, we might as well go ahead and let it waltz right through our wards for the time being. No need to worry about enemies in the night if we already know where they are, I suppose.” She resettled the cap on her head, and trudged her way back through the snow.
The rush of relief further loosened the knots in my stomach, but I knew better than to actually relax. It wasn’t over, and, besides most of my mind was pulled away by the surprise in my jacket. I traced the odd lines of the hard object I’d found, keeping the frown from my face and trying to figure out what it could possibly be. It was only slightly smaller than my palm, smooth, with odd ridges. Even as Kalgyrad made to follow Grammy, I stood still, gripping the mystery and thinking and reluctant to chance anyone else finding out. Jask looked back at me and so I moved my feet to follow, sneaking the thing out of my pocket to catch a glance.
At first, I was even more confused than before. It was pale, seemingly made of bone, and polished to a glassy finish. The main outline was a circle inside a triangle, and some kind of carved “ribbon” around both. Inside the circle was a strange, elaborate symbol that I did not recognize. Loops and curls radiated or spiraled around a dot in the center, reminiscent of something I couldn’t place. Some of the background almost reminded me of how atoms are depicted—overlapping orbits around a clustered heart—but that wasn’t quite right. There were too many “orbits,” for one, and then there were the three side-by-side semi-circles in front of them.
At the very top of the triangle was a small hole. Was it part of the design? Or was it for something to go through? I rubbed my thumb over it and concluded that if so, the thing would have to be pretty small, whatever it was. Maybe it was meant to go on a string?
Flipping the amulet-type-thing over, I found the back inscribed with the tiniest writing I’d ever seen, minuscule symbols twining around and around to form rewrites. It wasn’t any Mithae I recognized, but clearly it was Mithae. Not activated, though, just etched into the bone and covered over with a clear coat of some kind of resin. Either it had been used up, wasn’t activated, or was just aesthetic.
With most of my attention on the amulet, I wasn’t really looking where I was going; I tripped over a root and fell, windmilling my arms for a second before redirecting my weight so that I only fell on my knees and not my face. Jask, Kalgyrad, and Grammy all glanced back at me. I hopped back up, new dirt stains on my pants, waved with the hand that wasn’t holding the amulet, and everyone went back to business as usual. But the cold patch of mud on my knees was a good reminder: my time wasn’t my own right now. I shoved the amulet-bone back into the deepest part of an inner coat pocket, and focused on staying on my feet.
Maybe I was imagining it, but I thought I saw Jask’s rearmost eyes flick away from me as I did so.
It was an enormous consolation that no one mentioned the red splotches all over my cheeks or the way I kept sniffling. I tried to convince myself that it was because they’d been fooled into thinking it was the cold, or poison ivy, or something, and buried my embarrassment at their silent pity. Whatever the reason, the inner tension had somewhat passed, and I felt more in control of myself.
Once back inside, Grammy took my coat from me and, with a look that seemed to say “no more running off,” she put it in the hallway closet and went to adjust the heat. Biting my lip, I hovered in the hallway by the kitchen counter, unsure of what to do. To have refused to let her take my coat would have been suspicious, so I’d kept quiet, but the idea of just leaving seemed risky. If nothing else, the amulet was evidence that I’d done something dangerous last night, and I didn’t want Grammy stumbling on it. But she was already bustling around and keeping an eye on me. I couldn’t go retrieve the amulet without raising more suspicion.
“Once you’re ready, young Vordur,” Kalgyrad said from the dining room.
Grammy caught my eye as I hesitated. “If I may have your attention for a moment,” she said in a hushed voice, “I’d like to point out that our guest has already been more than patient with you, considering the woods and all. So I want you to pay attention to the lesson and not be rude, alright?” I wasn’t sure if this was a result of my attitude this morning, or because she’d caught wind of my behavior from last lesson, or just a general worry that I would somehow manage to get a dragon on my bad side. “This is going to be good for you,” she added more softly, reaching out to touch my shoulder. “Learning Mithae, I mean. If you figure out how to ask, you can learn more from him than you’re likely to learn from any Warden still alive today. Alright?”
Knowing there wasn’t much else to be done, I nodded. “I’ll try.”
She patted my shoulder, her scolding eyebrows melting into a look that seemed more sad than anything; her grip on my shoulder tightened, like she wasn’t ready to let me walk away. “Rhys—”she stopped. “Try earnestly, then,” she said firmly—except her voice quivered at the last second.
And then she let me go.
The Mithae lesson passed in a blur. Once again, I was struggling to keep up. Kalgyrad talked at length about how to prepare rewrites and items ahead of time for quick use—something I’d never had much success with. Some success, sure, as evidenced by my baseball bat. But those rewrites had taken ages and, as also evidenced by my baseball bat, weren’t high quality. There was something about the particularity of the lines and notes needed, a language I couldn’t quite speak, that hovered maddeningly out of reach. I already struggled with basic protective wards, much less the dragon’s idea of a simple double-phase remote activated trap rewrite.
It was more intriguing than I’d admit, though; the way Kalgyrad was describing the individual components compelled me more than stuff I’d heard before. Wardens always spoke in literary terms: words, phrases, verbs, paragrpahs. But Kalgyrad, seemingly without noticing, consistently referred to the long strings of symbols in more scientific terms: codes, sections, sequences, even DNA.
There was something in that connection that almost made sense in my brain. But I also knew it was hopeless. I just couldn’t see what he saw.
And on top of all of that, I barely slept last night, ran around a lot in the woods, cried more than I wanted to, and had only eaten one small breakfast in the past half-day. That is to say, now that I wasn’t propped up by floods of emotions, I was in grave danger of falling asleep. And every time my eyes drooped, my mind wandered back to my coat pocket and the amulet. Or to Jask, who I had lost track of, or to Mara (who I was sure was more affected by last night than she let on), or to how I was going to do laundry without blowing my cover.
To his credit, Kalgyrad was patiently overlooking my occasional noddings. He’d started talking about illdýr and was trying to engage me by asking questions—which was great in theory, except that he was asking questions I had no answers for, like how a foxlight can activate its glowing ability or sense emotions. From what I understood, he was tying their abilities back to Mithae, or saying it was the opposite of Mithae, but I couldn’t figure out how or why. It was possible he was asking about something else that I’d lost track of. Part of me hoped he wasn’t just wringing me for information about the locals when I was too tired to notice.
He stopped the lesson early.
I wasn’t sure if it was because I was failing so hard to engage with what he was saying, pity for my deteriorating mental faculties, or because he was tired of fighting to drag “basic” concepts out of me. Maybe all of the above.
Whatever the reason, I couldn’t complain. He tried to cheer me up (I think) with a line about how I was learning more than I realized, but I knew better than to believe it. And then, with a few more civilities, he was gone.
With him gone, that left Jask to take care of, and my extra workload of chores to get to. Maybe if I got things done really fast, I could go to bed early.
“The pikur seems to want to go into your room,” Grammy said, squinting at me like she was trying to divine my real thoughts on the situation.
I looked over to see Jask hunkered down in front of my door. “That’s okay,” I said dully. I was more worried about how I was going to get through training than Jask, but it wasn’t like I could tell her that he’d already been in my room.
She nodded, lips still pursed. “Our esteemed guest said that pikurs can process just about anything, food-wise, so we should be able to just feed him what we eat. I suppose we’ll have to test that out, since I’m not sure I know what dragons think we eat. I did give the creature some of our rice and beans, and it seemed satisfied. But if it turns out to be mainly a carnivore, it may have to be hunting for itself with the way meat prices have gone up lately.”
I wondered if he’d share more information about his eating habits later.
“Also, I’m meeting up with several other Wardens this evening,” she said, leaning back against the counter.
I thought of the shadow creature lurking in the dark, and shivered.
“Do you want to come with me?” she said. “I’m sure some of the others are also bringing their kids, so there might be some other folks your age about.”
I’d rather eat rocks out of a firehose, I thought, but wisely did not say that out loud. What I wanted right now was sleep, not other kids—already leagues ahead of me in every area—who were painfully aware of my lackluster reputation, and who would probably (maybe literally) kill to take magic lessons from a dragon. Despite my silence, the sentiment must have shown on my face because Grammy chuckled. I opened my mouth to respond, but ended up yawning instead.
That oddly sad look settled on her eyebrows again. “If you feel alright about it, you can stay behind with the pikur.”
I rested my elbows on the kitchen counter dividing it from the hallway, part of me wishing I could just lay down right there and close my eyes. “I don’t think he’s a threat. But I can sleep in my coat if you’re worried.” My coat had a layer of protective wards as an extra defense.
She tilted her head. “No, if you feel alright about it, then that’s okay. Though, now that you mention it, I should redo some of the rewrites on your coat. They seem a little thinned out.”
I did close my eyes then, instead of grimacing. I had used up some of the reactionary ones when tumbling down the hillside last night, and then forgotten about it. But it wasn’t like I could have redone them myself, even if she hadn’t noticed.
There was a long pause. When I opened my eyes again, Grammy was still watching me with that odd expression, and her arms were crossed.
“Well then, you stay here. Keep weapons near you at all times, and be sure to keep all the windows closed and locked. There’s food in the fridge that you can heat up.”
I nodded.
“After you eat, be sure to clean up and take a shower. Then—” she stopped, and smiled. But mixed as it was with her odd expression, she looked almost regretful, and almost like she knew more than she was saying. “You’d best head to bed and try for some shut-eye. You look exhausted.”
I blinked, and stood up a little more, clamping my teeth around the “but what about chores?” that I almost said out loud. If I did that, she’d have to verbally confirm she was going back on her earlier punishment, and that she might not do if pressed. But she was giving me an out, and that was enough.
“Okay,” was all I said, and, driven by sudden impulse, I pushed forward and hugged her.
It was like a miracle. I had the whole evening to myself, no chores, no training, and a bit of privacy.
Since Grammy was gone, I kept myself awake long enough to wash my clothes from last night. Partially to cover my tracks, and partially as a gesture of goodwill, I washed the basket of dirty towels, too. And while Jask was curling up on a spare blanket in my room, I pocketed the amulet and moved it to a more secure hiding spot. It was unclear when I’d get a better look at it, since I didn’t want Jask to know about it either, but at least no one should end up stumbling across it.
Perhaps the greatest miracle, though, came when I went to bed: I slept soundly through the night. No waking up, no being woken up by monsters. Either I was just too tired to hear any nighttime visitors, or Jask was true to his word in keeping bad actors away. It didn’t matter. When I opened my eyes to sunlight on the ceiling and the vague snoring of the pikur off in his corner, I almost didn’t believe it.
Maybe accepting Jask had been a good idea. In the back of my mind, I toyed with the question of whether or not he could be mind-controlling Grammy and Kalgyrad into being nicer than normal, but firstly, I didn’t think it was possible for that to happen to a dragon, and secondly, even if he was, it wasn’t like it was a bad thing. As long as he didn’t keep doing it. Then it would be irresponsible of me if I let it happen.
Of course, just as I was thinking that maybe everything wasn’t so bad, and that it wasn’t the end of the world or of my relationship with Grammy, and that surely we could find out some information about the shadow creature soon, my phone vibrated on my bedside table.
There were only three people who would text me, as far as I knew. Grammy, Llewellyn, or Mara; before the phone had even stopped vibrating, I knew in my gut who it would be.
Chewing on my lip, I stared at the ceiling a little longer, a selfish reluctance and fear creeping up my chest, holding me down.
Maybe if I didn’t look at the message, nothing bad would happen. Mara was probably more equipped to deal with a crisis than I was, anyway.
Or maybe she was just messaging to say hi and see if I was still alive.
Or maybe the ordeal wasn’t over, and to make up for being nice yesterday Kalgyrad had marched over to her house to demand his favor.
The phone vibrated again.
Gritting my teeth, I grabbed it from the stand before I could chicken out.
From Mara, as expected. It seemed she’d sent many messages already, mostly a torrent of “hey”and “are you up yet.” The latest one said [Rhys get up already I have something crazy to show you and I don’t know what to do about it pleeeeeeeeease]
Sitting up in bed, feeling the fuzzy staleness of morning breath in my mouth, I propped my pillows up behind me as fortifications.
[ok, ok am up] I sent, and then in quick succession: [what happened?] and [shadow mnstr?]
I really hoped it wasn’t the last one.
[much cooler] came the reply. [or at least, its not trying to eat me]
Any relief was short lived. “It”?
[idk what it is tho you’ll have to help]
[it?]
There was a longer pause. I licked my lips, and tried to comb my hair out of my face with my fingers.
Another vibration. This time, a picture, with the caption [it’s sooooo cool]
I opened the attachment and stared at the creature on my tiny, grainy little screen. But it didn’t have to be big for me to feel a cold thrill in my gut. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. I didn’t know what, but this couldn’t be good? Right? This was too much to be a coincidence.
It wasn’t the same of course. The creature in the picture was long and agile-looking, like a tiny but extra fluffy fox. About the size of a dachshund, if I had to guess, if with longer legs. But it had eight eyes, and all down its back were a line a of ridges that looked very like the ones on Jask’s back. And it was no illdýr I had ever seen or heard of before.
[can it talk?] I sent back, suppressing the urge to bite my fingernails.
[…] [I asked it and it didn’t say anything, but I don’t know if it’s just shy or something.]
Or if it only talks at certain times of the day.
Two unknown illdýr, each showing up in our bedrooms, both looking similar to normal animals, both different sizes than their more regular counterparts, both with eight eyes, both with ridges down their backs. They weren’t exactly the same, but weren’t those too many similarities for them to be entirely unrelated?
I looked at Jask, my new, oh-so-helpful little friend, sleeping peacefully with all eyes closed, and the cold unease in my stomach turned to nausea.
What had I done?
To be continued….