I gesture out the door. “We can’t both go. It’s not safe to leave George alone.”
“Well, good thing a new bodyguard just arrived.”
The voice fills the small storage room with warm bravado. I shift to the sound, and my chest beams with brightness.
Standing in the doorway, skin bronzed from the sun and with a giant smile on his face, is my brother by choice, Dayton.
15
Dayton
The bare skin of my back is itchy from the straw mattress, andI can’t seem to get comfortable. It’s bloody hot in here, and not the bright, beautiful warmth of Summer, where it feels like you’re being warmed from the inside out. This is the cloistered, stifled heat of sitting too close to a fire with no open windows.
This sorry excuse for a bedroom is far too small for me, even though I’m the only one in it right now. During the day, while the sun shone overhead and Draconhold Forge swarmed with workers, we locked the door and stayed hidden in the dark. The smell of four grown men who had been working by a hearth all night isnotfor the weak of stomach.
I arrived yesterday evening. My heart sparked with joy to see Ez and George again after these four long weeks apart. I filled them in on all the progress in Hadria, and they told me about their work on the rose. Truthfully, it felt a bit like joining a long-standing club and not knowing the rules. George, Ez, and even Kairyn were all so in sync, feeding off one another’s energy and finishing each other’s sentences. I could barely keep up when they started on the properties of mythkarite.
I’ll admit, my fist still itches to slam into Kairyn’s face every time I look at him. But I owe him for keeping Ez alive when I was doing everything I could to kill him in Keep Wolfhelm.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I force away the memory, reminding myself Caspian’s not here.He can’t control me. I am myself. Caspian has no power over me here.
When will Ez be back? He and Kai left at the break of nightfall to do some repair work on one of the airships. It’s just been me and Papa all night.
George barely spared me a word, immediately heading back to his workbench, muttering how he’s closer than ever before. I tried to help him, like I’d seen Ez and Kai do, but he kept telling me I was in his light.
“You’re making me nervous, hovering about like that! I’m so close to the end now, boy. Go find something else to do,” he said with a wave.
Alright, so smithing isn’t my forte. I passed a couple hours trying my hand at juggling hammers. Then when they kept crashing on the stone floor and George yelled that I was “breaking his concentration,” I switched to playing with the bellows. It was entertaining at first, until George reminded me that they werenotto be used as giant accordion lungs.
Now, I’m back here, in this cell of a bedroom, counting down the minutes until Ez returns.
If Farron were here, he’d have found a way to occupy himself. George would have loved him as an assistant, or he’d be reading a book on smithing and trying it himself. He always finds something interesting, no matter where we are.
Stars, I miss him. Miss his incessant curiosity. Miss the way he made me want to see the opportunity in things.
We could be together now if I hadn’t told him?—
But I needed to leave. If Farron wasn’t going to fight for himself, why should I?
I only hope he’s okay.
“Eureka!”
I jolt up and sprint out into the smithy.
“I did it,” George whispers. He’s got his dirty hands laced through his hair, standing back with eyes wide as saucers. Staring down at…
At the rose. All the shards, welded together, forming a perfect, intact rose.
A strangled gasp escapes him, then tears flood down his cheeks. “We did it. We did it!”
My chest bubbles with laughter, and I sprint over, grabbing George by the shoulders. “You did it!”
Joyous cries escape us as we leap up and down, hugging each other, slapping each other on the back. George pulls away and spins in a circle, rubbing his face with his hands and staring outward in disbelief. “It’s done. After all this time…”
“We’ve got you, Rosie,” I say. “We’ve got you.”
George drifts over to the workbench and looks down reverently. A glow emits from the rose unlike I’ve ever seen before: bloodred and radiant. I follow his gaze. It’s the most extraordinary thing…living and yet not, the way magic lives and yet it doesn’t.
