I walk over to greet her, but Bitey lowers on his lion haunches as I approach.
“Careful. He’s a little protective of me.” Protective is one word for it. Her own hands are covered in blood.
“It looks like you found a way to pass the time while you waited,” I say. “How did you guys meet?”
Octavia scoffs, setting Quinn down on a boulder. “This monster attacked us when we entered the canyon—”
“He was just defending his territory. Kira hasn’t been here in months. Someone new must have moved in.”
“And then Red here insisted that we try to approach it, but of course she conveniently can’t walk, so she’s begging me to go over to it—”
“Red?” I interject.
Quinn rubs her red hair, and I try not to squeal at the fact that Octavia, as annoyed as she sounds, gave Quinn a nickname.
“I didn’t beg her; I just told her if we had two griffins, it would make travel a lot easier. A lot less carrying me around if I can ride one or the other most of the time. And Tave couldn’t really argue with that—”
Tave.
“So I’m walking over there, and he’s looking at me with those big golden eyes, as curious as our darling Kira, and I’m thinking, ‘How bad could it really be?’ And he lets me approach—”
“And then he bit the shit out of her hand. It was just a little warning bite!”
“It was agouge!”
Ronan comes over at the mention of the bites and heals both of their wounds, Octavia’s eyes lighting up at the casual use of his magic.
“But he did let her get pretty close. So we worked on it for a while. I was talking to him, and Tave was working up to touching him when Kira started getting upset. She didn’t want us to ride him.”
“But Red here was determined. So I brought her over—”
“And he loved me right away.”
“Loved?” I ask as Taran conjures some water to wash the blood off of Quinn’s hands.
“Can you do my pants next?” Seth asks Taran, pointing to the rusty stains on his knees from our crawl through the drains.
Taran scowls. “You’ll be freezing.”
“Not while they’re on my body. I have other clothes.”
“I amnotwasting my magic washing your clothes for you—”
“He loved me, Sylvie. He just wasn’t crazy about the straps, but they really are intelligent. When I showed him I can’t walk, I think he understood. We just started flying when we heard you guys in the canyon. Isn’t he great?”
Bitey and Kira are still eyeing each other suspiciously, but Kira eventually turns her back on him to greet her favorite person, Ronan.
“Hello, girl,” he says. She nudges his shoulder, and he hugs her neck sadly.
Quinn gives me a meaningful look. “I take it you saw the city on the way out?”
I nod. “It’s bad.”
“Damn,” says Quinn. “I can’t believe she actually did it. I didn’t think she’d have the nerve.”
“Adria? Not having the nerve?” I say, shaking my head. “I can’t believe we didn’t see it coming, to be honest.”
“She’s never been this reckless,” insists Seth. “It’s the kind of thing I would have done—”
