Page 46 of Into Ember

I stop dead, because I am looking at a familiar.

A familiar.

Familiars are extinct. Extinct like female dragons and changing lands are extinct.

Which, as of a few days ago, is apparently a very negotiable word.

They live in the same stories that she does — the ones you stop believing right when responsibility shows up.

But I’m looking at one.

It’s small — small enough to fit in her arms — armored in those leaf-shaped scales from nose to tail, little hooked claws, eyes too bright and too smart, like it’s been listening for years. Because it has. It’s been sitting in a pot in her apartment listening to everything, this whole time, disguised as its own damn self, and not one of us caught it.

Elara has gone so still I’m not sure she’s breathing.

The familiar picks its way toward her, slow, careful, and she folds. Knees in the dirt, arms out, and it’s in them, and the sound she makes—

Two days I’ve known her, and this is the happiest I have ever seen her.

I am not jealous of an extinct animal.

I am a little jealous of an extinct animal.

I come in slow. The familiar’s head comes up before I’ve taken two steps, and then it pours out of her arms, curls, and rolls to me — rolls, an armored ball across the forest floor — and unwinds at my feet and puts its nose against my knee. Sniffs. Makes a sound I don’t recognize. Does one full lap around my boots like it’s checking my references.

Then it steps back.

Apparently I pass. I’ll take it.

Elara’s still on the ground, face still wet, and she’s wearing the kind of smile I usually have to work a whole room for. The familiar got it for free.

Noted.

I hold out a hand and she takes it before she remembers she’s mad at me. I pull her up. Her knees are covered in dirt, so I brush them off, because her hands are shaking and mine aren’t.

“You know,” I say standing back up, “I never said I didn’t like being in your nest.”

“Gunnar. Don’t.”

I take a step toward her.

She takes a step back.

“What? Can’t handle the truth, Beautiful?”

Another step. Another step back.

Her back finds a tree.

Her chin comes up, and there she is — red-eyed, dirt on her hands, cornered against a tree on a strange world, and reaching for a comeback anyway. “I know exactly how to handle men like you.”

Her face changes in a second flat.

Angry.

I love it.

I lean down until my mouth is an inch from hers.