had done while she slept.
Beyond Finnegan’s rooms, she could hear people talking in low voices. Orla, she thought, and someone else. A doctor perhaps. She could not make out the words.
His bedroom door swung open without a sound. The room beyond was dark, the curtains blocking out the sunlight. Aurora summoned a small ball of light, making sure to keep the magic gentle and controlled. The flame flickered and danced as though caught in a breeze, but it did not grow larger, and it did not blow out.
She held the light aloft. Finnegan’s bed was piled high with blankets, but his head was visible, his black hair mussed with sleep. Aurora hurried across the room, her footsteps muffled by the plush carpet. She left dusty footprints as she went, dirt and ash falling from her clothes like rain.
The entire right side of Finnegan’s face was covered in thick white cream and sprinkled with herbs, but Aurora could still smell the deadened flesh beneath. Flakes of black lingered on his skin.
One kiss. Then he would be all right. He had to be all right.
She rested a hand on his shoulder. “Finnegan,” she whispered. “Finnegan, wake up.”
He groaned, but he did not move.
“Finnegan, I need you to wake up,” she said. “Come on. We have a deal, remember? You can’t abandon me now.”
He groaned again, and this time, he opened his eyes. “Rora,” he said. “Can’t you see I’m trying to sleep?”
“It’s after noon,” she said. “Time to wake up.” She sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress sank under her weight, and she tumbled closer to the prince.
He gave her a small smile, and then winced in pain. “Here to seduce me, dragon girl?”
“Not likely.” She reached forward, her hand gripping the edge of the blankets. “I wouldn’t need to.”
“You’re smart,” he said. “That’s why I like you.”
“I’m going to kiss you, though,” she said. “Is that okay?”
“It’s been a few days since you did. Started to feel like forever.”
She forced herself to smile. Then she leaned closer, brushing her lips against his. One soft kiss. His lips tasted hot, like a burst of dragon fire, but then the kiss deepened, and the heat faded away, melting into something soothing, like cool rain on a sweltering summer day. And she forced her thoughts away from fire, away from frantic kisses in the wilderness, away from witches grinning with blood staining their teeth. Instead, she thought of Finnegan with his arm around her, his face close, as the thrill of magic ran through her. She thought of him lying beside her in the park, and the intensity in his eyes as he told her that she would conquer them all.
She pulled back, his breath on her cheek.
“What was that?” Finnegan said.
She ran her fingers along the line of his jaw. Already, the skin was cooler, softer to touch. “A kiss,” Aurora said. “What did you think it was?”
“Magic,” he said. “You used magic.”
“Yes,” she said. “To help you to get better.”
“Don’t trust me to get better by myself?”
She kissed him again, and it was like it had been out in the waste, like nothing in the world mattered but them. He pressed his hands to the back of her head, running his fingers through her hair, and she grabbed his shoulders, barely able to stand a shred of space between them. Finnegan was there. He was there, and he was hers, for that moment at least. For that second, and the next.
When she finally returned to her room to sleep, her dreams were full of fire.
Aurora awoke to the taste of ashes. She blinked at the sunlight streaming across the wall. Her legs ached. Then she remembered. The blood on her tongue. The gristle between her teeth. The red on Celestine’s lips, as the witch laughed and laughed and called her my dear.
She had killed a dragon. She had given Celestine a dragon heart.
Aurora scrambled out of bed and grabbed a basin. She threw up, her muscles screaming, eyes stinging. Then she sat back on her heels. Acid burned her throat.
Her right hand was charred black.
She flexed her fingers. They did not hurt, but they were the color of the ruined cities in the waste. The nightgown she wore suggested that she had at least changed before collapsing, but everything after her kiss with Finnegan was a blur, irrelevant to her too-tired brain. Finnegan’s burns had healed under her fingers, and that had been enough.
Celestine had kept her promise, at