to the west, the river sizzled, waves crashing outward, as the dragon continued to struggle and cry. A second beast was perched on top of a building farther inland, its head hanging below its feet, snarling and burning the street. The third and fourth were circling, swerving in the sky as though anticipating an attack.
As Aurora stared at them, the world stilled. The screams faded away, until all she knew was the heat, the creatures that burned before her. She could feel them, deep in her chest where the magic burned, as though their anger was part of her, and she was part of them.
She could feel all of it. The rage, the hunger, the desire that drove the creatures forward, a desire for something indistinct, unnamed, unattainable. A desire that just was. A pounding beside her heart, tiny and irregular and strong, and she could almost taste the sliver of muscle on her lips again. Power and fury and fire.
The dragons paused. Their heads snapped in her direction.
“Stop,” she said, her voice quiet and steady. “Stop. Go home.”
The dragons did not move. Did not attack, did not retreat. And Aurora felt curiosity grow inside her, tugging at her ribs. Curiosity at this girl who was a dragon and yet was not, a girl with the same fire, the same blood, with the heart they had lost, or something like it. They listened to her, but Aurora knew her control was tentative, incomplete. They listened because they wanted to listen.
One of them snapped its jaws, and its eyes were black like scorched flesh. Its tongue flicked around its teeth. “No!” Aurora screamed. Fire crackled around her feet. “No. Go home.”
She did not move, did not flinch. She stared at them, Finnegan close to her shoulder, the air burning around her.
“Go,” she shouted. “Or I’ll tear out your heart too.”
The creatures still watched her. Then the one on the building took off, ripping part of the roof with it. It circled once, twice, dodging the barrels and stones with ease.
Something caught Aurora’s eye. A flash of blond hair, familiar and terrible. She whipped her head around, knowing in her gut that she would see Celestine, that the witch would smile, and curtsy, and mock her. But when she turned, there was no one there, nothing except a small scorch mark on the stone, forming the now-familiar shape of a dragon.
A dragon swooped and paused above them, rising and falling several feet with each beat of its wings. Aurora stared at it. It stared back. Then, with a final snap of its jaws, it spun and took off east over the water. The others followed, screams tearing through the air.
Aurora watched them leave, until they were nothing more than specks against the morning sky.
“You did it,” Finnegan said.
She collapsed to her knees, all the strength rushing away. Her hands shook. “No,” she said. “It wasn’t just me. There was something . . .”
Celestine, she thought. She had been here. She had interfered, unleashed the dragons and then reined them in once her point had been made. The fire, this attack . . . it had meant nothing. A laughing attempt to show them what she was capable of, now that Aurora had helped her. Now the dragon blood pumped through Celestine’s veins as well.
She had lied about her intentions. She had lied about everything.
“Aurora,” Finnegan said. “What did you do? How did you help me?”
“I made a deal,” she said. She forced herself to keep looking at him, to face what she had done. “I had to.”
“What sort of deal?”
“With Celestine. She told me that she’d give me the magic to save you, if I returned to the waste and fetched her a dragon’s heart.”
“And you did it.” It wasn’t a question.
“I got her the heart. And it killed the dragon, the dragon died, like . . . like it couldn’t contain its own fire any more, like it burned from the inside out. And when Celestine took the heart, she—she ate it. Like she was absorbing its magic.” And she told me things, Aurora thought. She told me what I was meant to be. “And then she gave me the magic to save you. With a kiss, because she’s cruel, and—and mad. She’s insane, Finnegan, absolutely insane, and I don’t know what she plans to do, but I helped her anyway, and now—”
He cut her off with a kiss. Lips burning into hers, frantic, pulling her so close that she could