Something pulsed in my palms.
Wrong.
Hungry.
Not mine.
I crawled a few inches, dirt packing under my nails. The trees blurred, doubling, smearing into streaks of black.
A shrill ringing built in my ears.
I gasped—and the sound that tore out of me didn’t sound human.
My vision flooded white.
Then black.
Then both at once.
The ground lurched and I collapsed onto my side, shaking, fingers clawing at the leaves as if I could dig the fever out of myself.
My gloves—
I didn’t have my gloves.
Where were they?
The world caved in around me. Like the shadows were taking form. For one wild, impossible moment, I thought I saw a dragon — black as midnight — soaring above the trees.
I fell again, tears pouring down my face before I even realised I was crying.
Where was I?
What happened?
It was this power. It was sick. Wrong. I had to expel it.
But it felt like death.
I fell, this time for the last time, down a bank. I tumbled, never stopping, like an endless loop in hell.
I hit what felt like water. My head smashed against a rock. And as I lay there I looked up at the shadow growing ever present above me.
The dragon.
“I’ve seen you before,” I whispered out loud.
Long ago.
It was the last thing I saw before I completely blacked out.
And I dreamed.
**
Sable slipped the copied key into the lock on my window bars — a tiny click that always made my heart lurch. I wasn’t supposed to use the roof. I wasn’t supposed to leave my room at night.
But with Sable, rules felt further away.
