Page 16 of Ignite the Infernos

Why me and not them?

“The morale around here has been pure boar shit. Everyone’s in a dark place while they come to terms with the possibility that we’ll never shift, never be whole, never leave this place,” she tells me, gesturing around the room. “Then you show up out of the blue with a dragon mark, and it’s sparked hope and a barrage of endless questions none of us can answer.”

“So none of the Syphons here felt any change in their magic?” I press. “Nobody passed out or—”

“No,” Enslee cuts in, and I look over and find worry etched in her features. It’s the same worry inscribed in mine.

“Craith thinks it could have something to do with our protections here. Maybe the wards are keeping us from revealing. Amadi suggested it might be a proximity-to-dragons thing, since you were around them recently and we weren’t. But we have no idea. We never do.” She laughs, but it’s empty.

“Why can’t anything just be easy?” I groan, dropping my head into my hands and rubbing my temples.

Enslee sighs. “Honestly, I don’t know what I would do with easy. Probably poke it with a stick and declare it severely boring. Then again, that might not be such a bad thing. I could seriously go for some boring these days.”

I raise my hand like I’m flagging down a waiter. “We’ll take boring for two,” I call out, and Enslee snorts.

“Can we also get a bottle of humdrum for the table and some perfectly ordinary for dessert,” Enslee fake orders, and my stomach grumbles loudly like it thinks we’re actually onto something.

With a groan, Enslee gets up and stretches her back. She offers me her hand and I take it, letting her pull me up.

“Let’s go get some real food, and then you can fill me in on everything that’s happened since the first ambush,” Enslee announces.

My affinity perks up like it’s been waiting patiently to remind me we have unfinished business. I sense my dragon languidly unfurling in my chest, and then it just sits there . . . waiting.

“Deal,” I agree, as we step out into the metal hallways of the stack. “But after we gorge ourselves, I need to do something.”

“What?” she asks, heading for the ladder that leads down to the kitchen and dining hall.

“Nothing crazy,” I lie, trying to be sensitive and not make a big deal of things. “I just need to pop over to the arena real quick and reveal my dragon.”

Chapter 9

Ever

“SEE ANYTHING?”

The question snaps me out of my wandering awe, and I drop my gaze from the blanket of stars above me to the shadowy sand dunes all around.

“Shit, sorry,” I murmur. “I got distracted.”

“Get your head out of the clouds; you’ll be up there soon enough,” she teases, but then she tilts her head back and offers her own appreciation of the breathtaking view. “I’ll miss this when we leave.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think there’d be much I’d miss about this place when we put it behind us once and for all, but I thought about this view a lot while I was away.” I let myself marvel for a minute longer, admiring the celestial sparks as they dance in their own pockets of space.

Enslee exhales a melodious sigh. “It doesn’t feel real. We’ve been planning for so long, and yet I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that it’s actually happening.”

I nod, knowing exactly what she means. “I don’t know how it all worked out, but it did. Maybe they’re looking out for us after all,” I note, gesturing up at the stars.

Enslee tightens her ponytail, and then she rescans the dunes around us, getting back to the task at hand. “Okay, we haven’t seen any patrols out here for days, but knowing our luck . . .”

She doesn’t have to finish that thought before I stop letting myself get distracted and start scanning the night sky for any dragon-shaped dark patches doing Mach 2 in our direction.

“We’re clear,” Enslee declares a couple minutes later. “Ready?”

“Ready,” I chirp.

“Go!”

We shove through the wards protecting Syphon Central and sprint toward the base of the closest mountainous dune. The dark sand glitters under the speckled sky, and for a moment, it looks like we’re running on water instead of carving a path through the sand.