the dragons plummeted toward earth. They went down on the other side of the clearing, shaking the ground like an earthquake. Mick’s outstretched wing shattered with a sickening crunch of bone.
I screamed again. My magic was ready to kill, and I sprinted for them.
I’d never make it in time. The clearing was large, and Aine and Bancroft had landed on Mick and were starting to tear him apart.
Drake was right behind me, but running with me. “This wasn’t what happened!” he shouted, as though that would stop the dragons. “This isn’t what happens!”
“What did happen?” I yelled back at him.
“Mick bested them.” Drake’s words came at me as he passed me, his legs longer, his muscular body in the best training. “He won his point. This time, they’re killing him.”
I tried to increase my speed, but even in a dream, I panted and gasped, trying to keep up with Drake. He ran like an athlete, the dragon tatts on his back moving as he sprinted toward the carnage. Dimly I knew it would take him longer to turn dragon than to simply run, but I wished he’d sweep me up and fly me over there.
Aine and Bancroft were peeling Mick’s hide from his bones. Mick fought, snapping and snarling, catching them with claws and teeth.
I gathered all the magic I possessed, grabbed at the lightning and hail, and hugged them to me. I shot enough magic at the ground to lift me and sail me through the air to land just behind Drake.
“Stop!” Drake was shouting at the dragons. “You must stop!”
Bancroft turned around and shot a ball of fire at him.
I jumped in front of Drake, shoving him aside and taking the ball of fire fully on myself.
The flames eagerly surrounded me and bit into me, plunging me into a furnace. My voice died, not even letting me cry out as my skin began to melt.
Chapter Sixteen
I was dying. Flames ate my body and liquefied my skin. I couldn’t even scream.
Even so, Mick sensed my anguish somehow. Through the red of the fire I saw him lift his head and look at me, just before my sight failed. I heard him bellow in rage and grief, and then I heard nothing, felt only pain so great it had no meaning.
I tried to draw on my Beneath magic, to dampen the fire as I had on the trees. Nothing happened. I didn’t know if I could do nothing because this was a dream, or the dragon fire had destroyed me too much for there to be a me anymore.
If the dragon fire consumed me in this dream, would I awaken? Would I be lying in my bed, with Mick and my friends surrounding me as they had the first time? Or was killing me in a dream Emmett’s only hope of taking the mirror?
Sweet dreams, Janet, he’d said.
I seemed to hear Emmett’s voice even now. “Don’t move,” he said in his cold tones.
Was he talking to Drake? I certainly couldn’t move as I burned to ash.
Something hit me. I felt cool earth on my face, then another wash of pain roared through my body. I gasped and inhaled dirt.
Then I floated upward, agony dragging through me. But it was the pain of my heart beating, my blood flowing, air flushing into my lungs. My skin solidified and swept back over muscle and bone until it was whole, tight, and clean.
Sight, sound, and smell came back to me, as well as taste. I spit dirt from my mouth and blinked at the flash of fire on a pristine pair of eyeglasses.
Emmett stood in front of me, his tie not even crooked. “You back with me, Janet?”
I took a long breath—that didn’t burn—spit out more dirt, and said, “What the hell are you doing here?”
He gave me a cool smile. “I’ll take that as a yes. Fireballs smart, don’t they?”
I recalled Emmett exiting his limo after Mick had flamed it, brushing off his coat as though merely annoyed. Had his skin fried off his bones with the same searing pain I’d felt before his spell saved him?
At the moment, I wasn’t much interested. “Mick,” I choked.
Aine and Bancroft were killing him. Drake had gone dragon and even now was attacking Bancroft in Mick’s defense, but I knew it was too late.
I gathered the storm to me once more and reached for the Beneath magic, ready to blast Aine and Bancroft to dust.
“That won’t work,” Emmett said quickly. “Not with dragons. They’ll eat