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Why are you here? I ask, on a private channel to Liz alone.
She hops off Euphrasia’s back and runs down the street toward me. “What were you fighting over?” She draws a sword she must have found somewhere—it’s far too large for her—and turns, placing herself between Hyperion and me. “And why did he finally stop attacking?”
Once it becomes obvious she’s trying to protect me, Hyperion laughs. You think to protect him from me, little one?
Her lip curls. “I protect him from anyone who threatens harm.”
She’s cute, Hyperion says. Are you sure the others are too young? I’m intrigued.
“What’s he talking about?” Liz asks. “And why were you fighting? Is he in love with Asteria? Did he freak out when you told her?”
Told me what? Asteria lands beside Hyperion.
Liz spins around, the tip of her sword dipping slightly as her shoulders droop. But then her brows furrow, and it’s clear it takes effort, but she talks to me on a private channel. What are you doing out here? What’s going on? You haven’t even told her?
I suppose I have no one to blame for the blessed being gathered around but myself. My fight with Hyperion freaked everyone out.
We’ve decided to move ahead more quickly with our relocation to Iceland, I say, as loudly as I can broadcast. We’ll be leaving tomorrow morning.
“We can’t leave tomorrow,” a tiny voice says from the very edge of the gathering. When I follow the sound, my eyes recognize Sammy just as he slides off Gordon’s back. What’s he thinking, bringing a child all the way out here? I’m going to kill Gordon. Two major blunders in one day?
“Why not?” Liz sheaths her sword in some kind of bizarre, clearly improvised sling on her back, possibly ascertaining that I’m not in any clear or present danger from my brother. “Come here, Sam.”
The murmurs around us rise up like steam from a warm lake on a cool morning. Wispy and insubstantial, but growing.
Who is that?
—Entwined with Azar’s?—
—younger siblings are always also bright.
Might be more likely to entwine too, if they’re part of the same family.
—awfully small, though.
The connection to Azar alone?—
Enough, I shout. Then I crouch down a little so I hopefully won’t scare Sammy. Why can’t we leave tomorrow?
He doesn’t look the least bit afraid. “Because I found a calendar, and guess what?”
No one guesses—not even his sister.
He finally sighs, clearly frustrated. “Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving Day,” he says, like that explains it.
“Oh, sweetie,” Liz says. “Are you sure?”
He nods earnestly.
She pulls him against her and hugs him tightly. It’s like she’s trying to prepare him for bad news. “Even if it is,” she whispers, “we can’t ask the dragons to stick around for that. Besides, our departure on Thanksgiving would make the humans who have been cast out of their homes happy, right?”
“They’re going to be celebrating wherever they are already,” Sammy says. “And the first Thanksgiving was when the Native Americans helped the people who came to their land. I think we should do the same thing.”
“The thing is,” Liz says, “I don’t think?—”
Sammy frowns. “Well, it’s not really up to you, is it? Their boss is him.” He points at me, and looks at my face expectantly.
Bizarrely, I have this strange compulsion to give him what he wants. I want to make him smile. It’s probably because, no matter how much she may argue with him, I know that Liz wants to make her brother happy. Just as she insisted he leave all his toys behind at the first building I stuck them in, while she really wanted him to be able to bring them, she’s just saying that we have to go because. . . I’m not sure quite why, actually. Humans still confuse me with their bizarre motivations.
