Sapphira grabbed the coat and helped Roxil put it on. “Yes, you’re human, but you look very little like the Jasmine I once knew.”
After pushing her fist through the sleeve, she opened her hand. The egg, though remaining a beautiful crystalline gem, no longer glowed. “I am not Jasmine,” she said softly. “I want to be called …” Her eyes rolled upward for a moment, then returned to Sapphira. “I want to be called Abigail.”
Tears filled Sapphira’s eyes. “Abigail means, ‘My father is joy.’”
Ashley rose to her feet, still clasping her egg. She joined Sapphira and Abigail and spread out her hands. Her egg, too, had lost its glow.
Sapphira wrapped her fingers around Ashley’s wrist. “Your wounds are gone! And so are the stains!”
Shaking too hard to speak, she nodded. She reached into her pocket and withdrew the dime, the only remaining coin of the original three. As soon as she opened her hand and exposed it to the breeze, it crumbled to dust and blew away.
Intertwining her fingers with Abigail’s, Ashley pressed close and kissed her cheek. “I’m glad to have an older sister,” she whispered. “I need someone to keep me in line sometimes.”
Abigail smiled. “I will try to live up to your newfound confidence in me. I certainly deserved none before today.”
Thigocia lumbered to Abigail’s side. She spread a wing around each of her human daughters. “This is too much to take in. I have no idea what to say.”
“Hey!” Gabriel called. “Can we turn around now?”
Ashley laughed. “Our brother wants to join in.”
Zipping her bulky coat and pulling the bottom hem down near her knees, Abigail sang out, “You gentlemen may behold the new and improved dragon in your midst.”
When Walter and Gabriel turned, Abigail posed, dramatically spreading her arms. Gabriel laughed, but Walter just nodded grimly and slid his foot on the damp concrete. “That’s really cool. I guess with every disaster, we need something to give us hope.” He shuffled over to Karen and knelt beside her. “We’d better get out of here. No telling if Mardon will come back with his overgrown apes.”
Sapphira heaved a sigh. “You’re right. We’d better figure out who can ride with whom.”
Walter clutched Karen’s limp hand. “Thigocia’s in no shape to fly, so we’ll have to hoof it. Maybe we can find a cart and try to get Karen to a morgue or a funeral home.”
Sapphira continued her massage on Thigocia’s wing. “Abigail and I are the only uninjured ones here, so we won’t have a problem, but some of us are too weak to go very far.”
Walter set his thumb in a hitchhiker’s pose. “Then we might have to bum a smoother ride, if anyone’s brave enough to be driving on the highways right now.”
“And pick up someone who’s carting a dead body?” Ashley shook her head. “Not likely.”
“There was a truck at the guardhouse,” Gabriel said. “Finding the keys shouldn’t be a problem.”
Ashley leaned against Gabriel. “Does anyone else know how to drive? I think I’m too dizzy.”
“I have a learner’s permit.” Walter patted the wallet in his rear pocket. “But it’s not valid in this state.”
Gabriel stretched out his wing and gave Walter a light tap on the back of his head. “The state we’re in is the state of emergency, so it’s valid. If you can push the pedals and steer the wheel, you’re our driver.”
Walter shrugged. “Maybe, but if it’s not an automatic transmission, we might not get very far.” He scooped Karen’s limp body into his arms and stalked toward the turbine room’s exit. “Let’s get to the truck. We still have a lot of work to do.”
Sapphira ran toward the control room. “I’ll be right back. Ashley’s bag is still in there.”
As Walter shuffled away, Karen’s head bobbed limply over his arm. Ashley’s jaw trembled. She was dead. Her sweet, adorable little sister was dead. The ecstasy of the miraculous in the wake of tragedy stirred her emotions into a stormy sea. In the span of a few minutes she lost a father and an adoptive sister, but she gained a new sister, a dragon reborn. She opened her hands and gazed at her freshly healed palms, one with a diamond egg staring back at her. Most important of all, she had found the faith she had been seeking all her life. Her fear of Hell was gone forever.
Still weak in her knees, she followed Walter slowly, her feet heavy as she clumped along.