‘That’s just the side benefit.’
Essie had caught the scent of the wild dragons now. She backed away from the edge of the outcropping, grumbling with displeasure.
‘What’s down there?’ Felix asked, alarmed by the change in Essie. He craned his neck to see.
‘Wild dragons.’
‘Asta, are you serious?’ His back went straight.
Asta nodded. ‘Down by Doe Lick Creek.’ She looked down to the streamside. The whole brood was basking now, their wings spread and their heads resting on bright river rocks. ‘They’re– really beautiful.’
Felix got off Essie’s back, soothing her as he walked forward to look for himself. Asta got down, too, and looked with him. She wondered if Felix could hear her heart beating.
‘Aren’t they wonderful?’ Asta spoke in a whisper. ‘They’re so free.’
‘They don’t live as long, you know,’ Felix answered. ‘Wild dragons. It’s a hard life. They don’t have the benefit of regular feeding and medical care.’
‘I didn’t ask for a lecture about dragon husbandry, Felix.’ This was good. It was easier to hide her real feelings when he was being a know-it-all. ‘I just said that they’re beautiful.’ She shook her head. ‘You know, some of us would trade in the easy life if it meant there wasn’t someone tying strings to us.’
‘Is that why you came up here? To become a wild dragon?’
The image of herself sunbathing on the rocks below made Asta laugh. ‘Maybe.’
He fiddled with the string of magic in his hands. ‘Not all connections are bad, you know.’
‘I didn’t say that,’ Asta said quickly. She imagined Felix tying that string to her instead of to Carmine. She thought about it stretching between them, no matter where they were. She thought about him winding it around his hands and coming closer and closer. She felt dizzy. ‘I just want to do something on my own.’ She let out a groan of frustration. ‘I want to get into Pillar so bad.’
‘You will.’ He said it simply, as if it was settled fact.
Asta’s hope turned to rock and sank to the bottom of her stomach. He was just being nice. There would be no letter. One tear, then another, dropped down her cheek, and she rushed to wipe them away.
Felix put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed her. She could smell the Felix-smell of him. He smelled like the earth in the meadow, she thought. Like sunshine on grass. She wanted to breathe him in and hold that breath forever.
Get it together, Asta,she thought.Friends do not sniff friends.
‘Youhave toget into Pillar,’ Felix said. ‘What would I do without you?’
Asta’s heart beat hard in her chest. ‘You’re just saying that. It’ll be so amazing, and you’ll be like, “Asta who?”’
‘Is that what I’m going to say?’ Felix laughed. With a sudden movement, he wrestled her into a headlock. She laughed and struggled, but he had her pressed against his chest now, and her attempts to get free were futile.
‘Oh, look!’ Felix let her go, his hand sliding to the small of her back. His touch was the only thing that Asta could think about. It felt like all the cells of her body were conspiring to heighten the sensations of the exact spot where his hand sat. She could feel it in her eyebrows, her kneecaps. He pointed down into the valley.
Their roughhousing had startled the wild dragons, and they were disappearing into the forest on the far side of the creek, as swift as deer. Several of them let out bugling calls of alarm as they fled. Carmine reared his head and bellowed back.
Felix did not move his hand from Asta’s back. Mustering all the courage she possessed, Asta leaned against his body. He did not pull away but instead readjusted so that his arm circled her waist. The warmth of his body on her shoulder, the back of her arm, buzzed in her like whiskey.
With a wash of horror, Asta realized what she was doing, all that she was revealing to him. ‘We should go,’ she whispered.
His voice, when he spoke, was as thin and fragile as a dragonfly’s wing. ‘I want to hold you, Asta.’
She felt her body start to shake. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Had he just said what she thought he said? Did he mean what she thought he meant?
‘What?’ she rasped, her voice strained and dry.
‘Oh, no,’ Felix said, and he let go of her. He stepped away, and Asta turned to look at him. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. I’m so stupid.’ His face was too beautiful to bear.
Finding her tongue thick and clumsy, Asta shook her head at his words. ‘Not stupid,’ she choked out. She laughed desperately. Her brain seemed to have completely disconnected, and she felt like a calf trying to take its first steps. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m being like this.’
