“Uh…yeah?”
I laughed. “We should go track him down.”
"Are you serious?" His eyebrows rose almost to his newly farther back hairline.
I raised a hand high in the air, pretending to flag him down and explain the real facts. "Don’t worry, sir, I’m not a drug addict. I’m simply a dragon. Or that’s our best guess right now. Who knows? Maybe I’m an abominable snowman. Or a sea witch, an angel, or a scarecrow."
Lysander laughed too, smiling fondly at me. "Couple things?"
"Yeah?"
"Any snow-based beast probably finds the term ‘abominable snowman’ problematic.” Oops. “And a scarecrow is just a thing farmers use to keep away birds.”
“Noted.”
We shared a smile before continuing on our journey. This part right here wasn’t so bad. Lysander and I walking down the street together, falling into silence and not needing to say anything else. I liked having him next to me. I thought about reaching over and taking his hand. I didn’t.
"Uh what about the rest?” I carried on conversationally. “What about an angel?"
"Nope," he answered immediately.
I stopped walking and turned to him. "Why not? Frost is an angel."
"So he says."
"You don’t believe him?"
"None of us really know what thatmeans.All our lore on the subject dives into morality and gets speculative. There are countless accounts of angels and zero real angels. Except for one. Frost is the only one anybody’s ever met. He won’t even say much about his species. For all we know he’s the only one left."
"Oh."
Were we the only two angels left? What if the rest of our people were all extinct? A few people in the supernatural world had referenced demons, but the only angel anyone talked about was Frost. I’d wanted to find the people like me. What if they didn’t exist anymore?
"Do you think we’re on the wrong track with dragons?” Lysander asked.
"No. How would I even know? I guess I just hoped I’d… know somehow. That it would make sense. Is that weird?”
Suddenly self-conscious, I sprang back into action and tried to plow ahead on the street. Lysander caught up to me easily. He caught me near the wrist with a questioning touch, not pulling me back but asking me to come back on my own. He removed his hand a second later. I took and a breath and faced him.
"It’s not silly,” he insisted, looking right into my eyes to reassure me. “Lucas expected the same thing. But he didn’t know about his fox side for years. There were no clues. He didn’t have some unexplained kinship with foxes all his life. He had no idea."
"Oh." I guess that should make me feel better. Somehow, it didn’t.
"But he knowsnow,”Lysander said. “It fitsnow."
That… did help. Even if my mind started to race at the thought ofangelfitting with me. I nodded, and after a moment, felt ready to resume our journey.
We only went a short distance when the front entrance of the rehab center came into view. Oh. We were back already.
The date was over. A date that involved me immediately canceling our dinner plans and then talking about myself and the stuff Agent Temple and I had dealt with on a regular basis. Nothing special or romantic there.
"Sorry, if this date sucked. I’m new.” Wait. “Did this even count as a date?"
He shrugged. Guess neither of us really knew.
"I had a really good time," I said next.
"Did you?" He sounded surprised.
