Page 104 of The Heart and the Hawthorn

So many magical creatures like this, in such a small radius?

Sea and skies, the magic glowed.

Alive, the glitter cried. We’re alive! Like a pressure cooker behind her eyes, it had the gravity of a storm rising. The air tasted of hot metal and starlight, coating her teeth with petrichor, lilacs, snuffling things, wet sand, forest loam, wild wind, ocean spray, fire, lightning, and salty popcorn. Yes, the world seemed to howl. Yes. Yes! Perhaps it was only the canopy of the wood above that stopped all this power from bursting out, rushing to the four corners of Melody-Upon-Sea and beyond.

With a nod to each other, Frida and Dian quickly slipped out of the shadows and approached the terracotta dragon. She was waiting, ensconced in a pile of leaves that Lucky was trying to aggressively rearrange to make more comfortable. When they came to a stop before her, she eyed them down her long, cat-like nose.

‘Hmm.’ The sound seemed to reverberate through the very roots of the world.

‘I-uh-I . . .’ Frida stammered.

The dragon emitted a dour puff of steam. ‘I see time hasn’t improved your eloquence.’

A stifled snort came from Dian. Frida flushed, glaring askance at them. But they were already stepping forwards. The fairy was the picture of elegance, except for their crown of hawthorn blossoms, which was adorably askew. But when Dian gazed between Lucky and the terracotta dragon, a flood of grievous pain shone in their dark eyes. When they spoke, their voice shifted with the sound of infinite leaves rustling. ‘I do not know how to express my gratitude. You have both made such terrible sacrifices.’

The terracotta dragon eyed Dian, whilst Lucky flapped his wings. ‘As have you, tree-born,’ she murmured gently, after a long moment. Her gaze lifted to the sea of leaves high above their heads and chuckled. ‘I thought it was all a bit glitzy for my liking, at the start, but it has rather grown on me. And I cannot fault you for your work ethic.’

Dian ducked their head, looking radiant and a bit embarrassed. ‘Thank you.’

Then the terracotta dragon turned her gaze to Frida.

Frida froze, her mouth open. Dian nudged her.

She jerked. ‘Oh yes. Yes!’ Quickly, she thrust her hand into her pocket and pulled out the Jewel, the translucent pieces that Dian had hidden in a niche far below the roots of the hawthorn. Dian had told her, as they’d been digging, that without the Jewel, they wouldn’t have been able to make the wood. They’d spent centuries learning to work the latent magic inside the Jewel’s shattered pieces until, when they thought they might have been the last fairy left on the continent, they’d slipped inside the hawthorn tree to wait for what Frida had said would come to pass. But when the tree had been uprooted, they’d gotten stuck. That, they hadn’t expected. Without Lucky’s lightning, they may never have gotten free.

Round and round it went.

With shaking knees, Frida opened her palm. ‘They’re yours,’ she whispered.

The terracotta dragon stared down at them.

‘You knew.’ Frida’s voice was barely audible as understanding registered. ‘You knew they were here all along.’

A smoky laugh pealed from the dragon’s scaly throat.

‘I-I don’t . . .’ Frida stammered helplessly. ‘Sorry, what can I call you? I don’t want to call you Fireheart, and Ma’am feels—’

‘Do not call me Ma’am, by all the sacred dragon fire. I do not care for that at all.’ The dragon clicked her teeth absently. ‘I do not mind Fireheart, azizam, dear. It is not terrible. It is not embarrassing, at least, hmm. Not like some of the others.’

‘But Sir Joshua . . .’ Suddenly, Frida baulked at his very syllables. ‘That man . . . the one who brought you here, he was the one who gave you that name!’

‘Yes perhaps,’ Fireheart snapped. ‘But he does not choose what I do with it.’

Frida shook her head, baffled. Her brain was still spinning. ‘Why didn’t you just go up to the tree decades ago and dig up the pieces yourself? I don’t understand!’ But even as she spoke, she thought about it. Really thought about it. She gazed between Dian and Lucky and Fireheart. This plot has so many twists and turns it makes my head ring. She thought about the pink light that had entwined with Dian’s watery glitter. She thought about Lucky’s magic, snaking towards the tree where the Jewel hid, she thought about the fearsome storms of the Jellies, the oceanic rush of the Nuckelavee, and then all the thousands of sleepers, sending their dreams up into the sky too. Perhaps Fireheart couldn’t have done any of this on her own. Just as Dian couldn’t have done any of it without Fireheart, without Lucky . . . without her. Maybe they’d all needed each other more than a little bit, in the end.

The confirmation in Fireheart’s milky gaze was all she needed. The sigh that came out of her was very, very long, and very, very sulphurous as she said, angling one slitted eye up towards the twirling, spinning glitter, ‘It was time for a change, don’t you think, hmm? I’d been here so long, I’d almost forgotten how.’ She shot an appreciative glance at Dian, her charred nostrils flaring. ‘The dreams were a nice touch. The dreams helped me to dream too.’

‘They helped all of us.’

Frida spun to see Hamish standing only a few yards away. Wondrous tears running in rivulets down their cheeks. Suddenly, she drew in a gasp. She hadn’t realised that everyone was there. Antony, Zuzka, Cliff, Gloria. Basilisks and zookeepers and children and teenagers and ghost-lynxes and storm monkeys and manticores, all crowding in to listen. Not extraordinary creatures – just plain extraordinary, every single one of them.

‘We dreamed of you, Fri,’ Antony said, and Frida almost broke down to see him holding hands with Hamish, the white and pink hawthorn flowers dusting their hair.

‘Of me?’ she said, wonderingly.

Antony, with a dimpled smile, gestured to Dian and Fireheart and Lucky, her motley crew of co-conspirators. ‘All of you. And the trees.’ He raised his face to the woodland sky, lifting his free hand so that one of the coils of magic could twist through his scarred fingers. ‘It was beautiful.’

Hamish leaned their head on Antony’s shoulder and agreed dreamily, ‘So very beautiful.’