“They’re angry with themselves,” he corrected.
“And me.”
“And you.”
I sighed, then wondered if this new proud-of-me dad would be open to an actual conversation. “They’re always angry these days. Everyone is.”
Dad resumed work on the wires. His big hands were quick with the delicate strands. He shifted from one computer to the next. “It is a difficult time.”
I took a deep breath. “Can you tell me—”
“No,” he cut me off. “It’s better if you don’t know.”
“Like the security system? Dad…the more I know, the safer I am.”
He now looked sad. “That is very much untrue. And the older you get, the more you will understand how very much untrue that is. There are many things that I wish I could unlearn about the world. Keep your innocence as long as possible, Sky. It’s a precious thing.”
“I’m not a baby anymore,” I said. “And she—”
“Enough.”
Charles might be able to imbue a name with disapproval, but Dad is the master at filling a single word with a wealth of meaning. That word had sadness, anger, and everything else lumped into it. I changed tactics. “Why were Charles, Liam, and Tuck trying to steal the piano? It’s too recognizable to be pawnable. If they wanted it just for the gold, it would have been easier to dismantle it in the room then head out the window.”
“That was the test. Entire piano.”
“Why?” I asked. “When exactly is that situation going to come up?” As far as I knew, not many people owned gold grand pianos.
His hands quit moving. “They needed a distraction fromtomorrow.”
“What’s—” I stopped myself. How could I have forgotten? Tomorrow. Mom’s birthday. “Oh.” It wasn’t quite an answer. I didn’t see how stealing Mom’s piano today could make tomorrow easier, but it clearly made sense for my father, and he just as clearly didn’t want to talk about it. But I had one more question that I wanted to ask, one I hadn’t dared ask since the day she disappeared. Today, though, he was proud of me, so perhaps I could dare…“Do you think she’s still alive?”
“Yes.”
I exhaled. He hadn’t ever implied that she wasn’t, but I’d been secretly worrying. No one had told me much when it happened. Mom had been off on a mission that was supposed to dramatically increase our wealth—you know, the usual. But then something had gone wrong. Or more accurately, she had done something wrong. And she hadn’t come back. And just like that, the whole family was disgraced.
I couldn’t help thinking: If she was still alive, why hadn’t she come back or sent word or made contact of any kind? Didn’t she care about us? “Does she need help?” I asked.
“No.”
I wished I could force him to tell me. Surely the truth couldn’t be as bad as all the various scenarios I’d conjured up, most of which involved my mother dead, hurt, trapped, or subjected to horrible science experiments in some human supremacist’s illegal laboratory. Whatever she’d done, we could fix it together, couldn’t we? Like the security system. We just needed to know which wires to mend. We were a formidable family. I’d always been told if we stuck together, there was nothing we couldn’t do. And now I wasn’t even supposed to ask questions.
I thought of Ryan and how I’d thought we were a formidable team too, through thick and thin and all of that. I’d counted on us being together forever. Even used to daydream about our wedding day—the whole stupid wedding dream, complete with a marshmallow-fluff dress and a bouquet that matched the table arrangements, as if this was anything I’d normally care about. Emma and Emily, my best girl friends (orformerbest girl friends), had already dubbed themselves my co–maids of honor. All Ryan and I had to do was stick together another few years. Instead, we’d quit just shy of eight months. Well, sixteen years, really, but less than one of them spent on kissing terms.
I’d known Ryan since we were both in diapers. Not that I remember that. But I’ve seen pictures. I’d had pigtails. He’d had an adorable potbelly. Our families used to summer together in the California Stronghold, one of the wyvern-run states. The two of us learned how to swim together, and how to evade doing chores. I remember holing up for hours and hours in secret hideaways that we’d find on the beach, creating elaborate games and practicing breathing fire. We even had a secret alcove on his family’s estate here in Aspen, tucked behind the gardens at the top of a cliff. It had a view of the mountains and a lake. That was where I’d first kissed him, age six, a peck full on the lips. He’d wiped it off.
When I was eight years old, I decided I was going to marry him. I was careful not to tell him, of course, since everyone knows boys can’t be trusted with secrets like that. I did inform my parents, in case they wanted to make arrangements. They weren’t interested. Our kind likes to do arranged marriages, mainly to make sure the genetic pool stays strong enough to keep the were-dragon traits but not so inbred that we end up born with scales instead of human skin. Since Ryan is only half were-dragon—his mother is human—and I’m full, I thought it would make sense for everyone if he married me.
Mom hated when I used the word “were-dragon” to describe us. “We’re wyverns,” she used to say. “Be proud of it. You can trace your heritage back generations, to before our family’s exile from Home.” But ever since I first heard about werewolves, I’ve loved the word were-dragon. It describes us nicely, plus it has a neat double-meaning with the word “were.” Our ancestorsweredragons. And now we’rewere-dragons—humans capable of turning dragon.
Or dragons capable of turning human.
Semantics.
Of course, the fact is that no wyvern had transformed into a dragon since Sir Francis Drake sank the Spanish Armada with his dragonfire in the 1500s. Our shapeshifting skill was lost generations ago. But all of us had training in the useful art of breathing fire. And we were all pretty much fire resistant, which is an awesome plus when it comes to fresh-baked cookies. No need to wait for them to cool. Or use oven mitts. Just go straight for the still-in-the-oven cookies. And no worrying about scalding the roof of your mouth either. We’re rated up to about 2,000° F. In other words, we can toast a marshmallow on a finger, but a blowtorch would hurt us. (Average propane torches burn at 3,600° F, and oxygen-fed torches routinely reach up to a searing 5,000°F. You get to know these fun facts when you’re born with literal firepower.)
We also, as I mentioned, all really love gold. And that was what made it so odd that Dad had chosen the piano as my brothers’ target. Dad may have wanted to smash it, but he wouldn’t want that much gold to leave the property. “What were they going to do with the piano once they stoleit?”
“What wouldyouhave done with it?” Dad asked.
