Silver - By Kailin Gow Page 0,37
believe the fact that you aren’t dead yet. You simply need the right conditions.”
Behind al the fear and loathing, a smal burst of hope flickered in Briony. “And those are?”
“You need to be in the right place, you need to find the action to activate the gate, and you need the help of a dragon.”
Right, because that would be so easy to get, given how the one at the gate had behaved the last time. Yet it made sense. Aunt Sophie had been so adamant that they needed to fol ow the creature. And then its human form had forced the rest of them to stay back from the gate until it closed. It wouldn’t be easy, but even so, part of Briony felt better knowing that there was a way through.
A way through that meant something huge about her, of course.
“Does this mean that I’m…”
“Not human? Of course you aren’t. I’l admit, I wasn’t sure that this particular gift had been passed on until I saw how protective Sophie was of you, but now I’m certain. You are no more human than I am. Less, in fact, because at least I started out that way.”
Once perhaps, Briony would have reeled at the news. Now though, with almost everyone around her turning out to be something other than human, it was no more than one more shock among so many others.
“What am I then?”
“And spoil the fun?” Pietre moved to the window.
“For now, let us just say that you are a young woman who needs to find a dragon if she is ever going to get dear Sophie back.”
Briony tried to stand firm. “I won’t do anything unless you tel me al of it, Pietre. Unless you tel me what I am, I’l … ”
“What? Abandon your great-aunt in another world?”
Pietre unlatched and opened the window. “That is the beauty of this, Briony. You don’t have to trust me. You don’t have to want to work with me. Yet you wil do what I want, because I want Sophie back just as much as you do. Of course, I could make threats to you and those you love, or say that I wil drag you bound and bleeding to the gate if I have to, but the fact is that I won’t have to, wil I?”
Pietre stared at her, and eventual y, reluctantly, Briony found herself forced to shake her head. Pietre laughed once more.
“Oh, I wish you luck, Briony. I real y do. If you need me… wel , I’l be watching.” With that Pietre hopped up onto the windowsil , gave Briony one last look, and leapt out into the dark below.
Briony closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She was shaking. Briony waited a whole minute before she did anything. Then she grabbed her cross, put it firmly around her neck, and slammed the window shut. She went over to the bed and gathered up the sheets, carrying them with her as she headed downstairs. No way was she going to be able to sleep in there tonight.
Instead, she settled onto one of the armchairs in the lounge, sitting there and staring into the darkness as sleep refused to come. Even when tiredness final y claimed her, she found herself dreaming of gates, and Aunt Sophie, and of Pietre’s eyes somewhere out in the dark fol owing her every move. Somewhere out beyond al those things lay a dragon, and now she needed to find it.
Chapter 14
School the next day was hard. Briony was too tired to concentrate, and even the drama teacher Miss Smith pul ed her up on it when she yawned in the middle of rehearsals.
“Busy social life is it, Briony? Come on, concentrate.
It’s bad enough that we’ve had to put things back because our star suddenly had to take time off.”
“Sorry Miss Smith.”
Briony did her best to concentrate harder. After al , everyone else in the production of Little Red Riding Hood was counting on her to do her part, and it was very good of Miss Smith to wait for her to come back rather than simply giving the role to an understudy.
Yet it was hard to concentrate when her mind kept flashing back to what had happened yesterday. Briony was lucky to be alive, and she knew it. If Pietre hadn’t needed her to find Aunt Sophie… wel , he had already said exactly what he would have done. Just the thought of it made Briony want to check the