Page 87 of The Heart and the Hawthorn

But Dian had got their hand loose now, the raindrops slipping away in a rush. They stepped away from her across the grass. Their bare feet left no trace as they flashed her a beaming smile, all white teeth and canines, and Frida’s insides turned to water.

‘No!’ she breathed. ‘You don’t need to—’

‘Frida Rose, let me do this,’ they said, cutting her off, and there was a blurriness to the way they were looking at her now, an ocean-breath intensity.

Frida opened her mouth to argue, but suddenly Dian leaned down, a soft, wistful look in their eyes, and their breath was warm, smelling of moss. ‘I am glad I met you, Frida.’

Then Dian was gone.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Frida cried out as Dian slipped out of her sight, flickering in and out faster than she could follow. She swore under her breath. They were going to get captured! They were going to get killed. Their cobwebs were going to end up in a jar in the Old Forge. They were going to have their lungs carved out, their tongue stolen, their magic ripped away.

Flicker, gone. Flicker, gone. Like a firefly.

Suddenly, Dian appeared in the middle of a shaft of moonlight. ‘You!’ they yelled, in clear English, barely twenty yards from Charles’s bench.

Charles’s chin jerked towards the fairy.

Tumbling hair, green as a forest canopy at night. Bioluminescent cobwebs. Curling sensual lips. Hooded dark eyes, nearly all black. Wood-mottled skin. Total Pink Flamingos.

Charles gave a low chuckle that Frida heard in her somersaulting guts. He stood up in a leisurely fashion, as if he was used to people waiting on his pleasure. Frida wanted to beat him over the head with his own shotgun. ‘It’s about time,’ he said quietly.

Dian’s eyes flashed. Frida saw it even from where she was hiding. Charles began to advance, his long shadow arcing ominously across the grass.

‘Run, Dian,’ Frida hissed, sinking deeper into the sheltering trunks of the yews.

Dian didn’t move. In that suspended second, they didn’t look afraid. They looked exhilarated, the ghost of a hawthorn leaf crown framing their rosy, flushed face. A current of electricity shot through Frida, and she didn’t know if she wanted to hug them, throttle them, kiss them, or just stare forever at their blindingly perfect jawline.

Charles took a step, then another. He hefted his shotgun in capable hands. ‘Are you going to cause me problems?’

Dian gave a high, pealing laugh. ‘Oh yes.’

Charles’s mouth twisted into an ugly smile, and he charged.

Fuck, he was quick!

Dian was quicker.

The fairy disappeared. Charles roared, his blond hair near white in the moonlight. A split second later, Dian flickered back into existence, a few metres away. When Charles lunged again, Dian dissolved, reappeared on the other side of the cage.

‘Over here!’ Dian taunted.

Charles threw himself after them. ‘You can’t do that forever!’

Dian paused, just for a moment, and gave Charles a slow sad smile. ‘You think?’ Dian whispered, and then they turned on their heel and sprinted away down one of the gravel paths, their silvery webs shifting to water, blurring in and out of space. Charles, pale with rage, set off after them at full tilt. But Dian was faster. Of course they were. They were a fairy. A stubborn, brave, infuriating, interminably graceful fairy.

Frida knew she didn’t have a lot of time. She shot out from underneath the yew needles. There was a padlock on the cage, but she made short work of it after finding another weighty stone. A few thwacks and it was off. Without hesitation, she pushed open the metal door, wincing at the squeak of its hinges. Inside, the ground was pure ash. Only when she was close enough to the dragon to see the thin rise and fall of her frail chest did Frida stop, her boots sinking in the burned ground. Before, she’d just seen the mess of her wings. But as the moon played over her scales, Frida took in the long sinuous shape of her.

‘Terracotta dragon, of the desert and the sky, can you hear me?’ she cried, marshalling her courage. ‘My name is Frida. I have something that belongs to you.’ She was gripping the Jewel so tightly, she could feel what she thought was her own blood pounding through it, but it might have been the dragon’s heartbeat too. The two of them syncopated – two rapid, excited hearts. Ba-dum, ba-dum. Ba-dum, ba-dum. She inched closer. The dragon’s scaled face remained hidden beneath her bony paws, but Frida could have sworn she saw the slender curve of her tail twitch just a tiny bit – more muscular than at the LEZ, but just as scarred. In a few moments it would all be over. In a few moments, the pain of the next two hundred years would be wiped away.

‘I have your Jewel.’ Her voice gained strength. ‘I was sent to give it back to you.’

Nothing. A heavy silence stretched between them. The dragon’s breathing was ragged, rising and falling, the network of welts like a blue map over the terracotta hue of her back, the colour of baked bricks. No fire blazed in her belly, no hot forge. Frida moved closer, confused and afraid. Why wasn’t she responding? Was she too hurt to do so?

‘I have your Jewel,’ she said, louder.

Suddenly, she felt the rumbling of dry earth bursting up from the ground. And then the dragon erupted upwards, a mountain lifting, her scales blazing into fire.