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His arms wrap around me, pulling me against his chest.
Tears well up in my eyes. “No. You can’t do this here. We can’t. What if someone saw you come in here? I’m sure lots of dragons did. You’re the size of a Boeing 747.”
“Liz.” His voice is deep, solid, and calm.
“She says I—” My voice breaks on I. “She says I made it all up. She says I’m a murderer. She says that’s who I am deep down, that I’m messed up.”
“I believe you.”
But I don’t even believe myself anymore. I tap away until I’m opening the file. I’m practically frantic to prove that my mom’s wrong. I’m not a monster who murdered two people and maimed another when they were merely dragging me to meet up with someone else. There were people gathered there. They were going to shove me into the volcano—they told me as much.
The file’s there, just like Mom said. It’s marked Iceland.
A lot of it isn’t in English, but there are photos. And there’s a translation of the interrogation of the man who didn’t die. I didn’t even realize I killed the other man—I called him Driver. “I didn’t think I even hurt Beer Can,” I say.
His name’s apparently Gunnar Jónsson.
The record shows that he was badly burned, and that a dagger struck him in his foot.
“Maybe the other people did that—not me. I ran after I stabbed. . .” I hear myself. I sound as crazy as Mom said I am.
I close my eyes.
But when I open them, the files are the same. No record of any other people in the area. And Beer Can would never say anything except ‘the cursed,’ over and over.
My free hand tightens into a fist at my side, and I do the only thing I know to do to keep tears at bay. I prepare for a fight.
“Liz,” Axel says.
“I am crazy,” I say. “I guess I must be. I can’t believe Mom knew it all along.”
“You’re not,” he says. “A terrible thing happened to you, and all she has are images of papers. You were there.”
I blink. “You—you still believe me?”
Axel nods, his eyes entirely sincere.
“But these papers—they’re our human records. They’re proof that what I said took place didn’t happen.”
His hands rise slowly, his fingers brushing the sides of my face. “I saw your memory. So if you’re crazy, then so am I. Memories don’t lie.”
“Human memories do lie sometimes,” I say. “We can change our memories if we tell them in a different way enough times.”
“I believe you,” he says. “We will go to Iceland.”
“But what if my mom’s right? What if there’s nothing there but a volcano?”
Axel shrugs. “We’ve found nothing here, either. We’ll be no worse off than we currently are.”
And Houston will be free again.
A noise behind us, a rustling, has me spinning around and glancing overhead. “Someone could see you any moment. You have to shift back now.”
His finger brushes across my mouth. “Are you alright? The bond’s still. . .trembling.”
Trembling. “You don’t see colors?”
He shakes his head. “You do?”
