direction. He found a huge hollow tree. “Would you do the honors?” he said as we peeked inside.
I lit up my hand like Blake showed me and the fire lit up everything in front of us. The inside was massive but creepy too.
The first thing we made was a fire and then we set up our tents inside the tree. Cheng took out tinned food and we each had a can of soup. I couldn’t help but think of my dreams again. Why had Queen Catherine wanted me to come here?
“What’s on your mind, Elena?”
I shook my head and saw him frowning because he kept staring at me. “I might as well tell you. I dreamt of this place.”
“What?” He looked at me, surprised. “When?”
“Ever since I came to Paegeia.”
“I thought it might be something like that. You came up with that plan of Becky dreaming about Tanya way too fast.” He smiled. “What happens in the dream?”
I wanted to tell him about Queen Catherine but for some reason I had a feeling that Cheng was much safer not knowing. “Not much. I keep waking up when the trees try to pull me in.”
He smiled. “It means then that you are on the right path, maybe we can go home after all of this.”
“I’m not going to chase my foretelling, Cheng. People around me keep dying when I do. I can’t lose you.”
“Elena, you don’t need to worry about me. I can look out for myself and I don’t believe in that kind of destiny. You shouldn’t need to get punished for the wrong choices you make, well not like the way you do. I can’t tell you what to do, but answer this, would you rather go back to the other side? What if we could never come back?”
“I thought that is what you wanted?”
“We are different from the humans, Elena. We don’t age like they do and we would be on the move every couple of years or so.”
I smiled. “I like the ‘we’, it means that I don’t have to face whatever is waiting for us alone.”
“I’ll miss Andreas,” he said in a soft voice.
I’d never thought about that and what it was he would have to give up. “I’m sorry Cheng. I should’ve never mentioned your name in that meeting.”
“Are you insane? You wouldn’t have been able to do this by yourself. I’m happy to be here. It makes me feel important, as if I’m finally going to be part of something big.”
I huffed and smiled. “Guess you weren’t wrong about seeing my name inside that museum,” I joked and we both laughed. “Thank you, Cheng.”
“You’re very welcome. So what exactly did that foretelling say? ‘A day will come and a day will go…”
“A choice I’ll have to make, otherwise the truth will never be known.”
“Any speculations to what it might be?”
I shook my head. “First time I thought it had to do with finding the sword, proving to everyone that dragon offspring can be worthy of the mark. Turns out the Viden was right. It was only a birth defect.”
“You can’t say that, Elena.”
“I’m a dragon, Cheng.”
“I think I know your reason the second time: it had to do with Paul. That’s why you were so angry with me, wasn’t it?”
I nodded.
“I’m so sorry, Elena.” He blew a gush of air out. “To have something that big in the Book of Shadows, not knowing what it means, it can’t be easy.”
“It’s a curse. I don’t know why everyone wanted theirs to appear inside that book. I never wanted it.”
“The ones that usually don’t want one, are the ones worthy enough to handle it. You will find what it means, Elena. I’ll help you, even if…”
“Don’t say those words.” I stopped him before he could say it. “Lucian said the same before he came here, and it turned out to be exactly the last thing he did. I can’t lose more friends, Cheng. Not like that.”
He nodded. “We should try to get some sleep. I’ll take the first shift.”
T WAS HARD to fall asleep. I jumped at every noise in the forest. At twelve I heard a huge growl and it woke me up. Cheng was peeking out of the tree.
“What was that?” I whispered.
“Don’t know,” he said, still looking outside. “Master Longwei said that there are really dangerous creatures here at night, that was why I had to turn around. Go back to sleep. I’m sure whatever that was is way too big to get