he had only just found out, which made us feel a bit better. I think Ryu would have wiped all of our minds again, but Iris and Caleb talked him out of it, since everyone and their mother had already seen the dragon footage with you in it.’
I swallowed the bite I’d been chewing, then looked at both Grizzie and Tracy.
‘I hated lying to you, I really did. But it was such a big secret, and it would have sounded so crazy.’ Grizzie looked ready to protest, and I knew she’d tell me that I could tell her anything.
‘But more important,’ I said before she could interrupt, ‘I didn’t want you involved, because everything about this new world is so dangerous. If the psychos we’re dealing with thought you knew something important, then gods only know what they would have done to get it out of you. I didn’t want to risk your safety just because I wanted my friends.’
That seemed to pacify both women, and Tracy was staring at her distended, very pregnant belly. She and Grizzie were having twins, and that probably put a different spin on things for the two women.
‘But I did want my friends,’ I added, my voice small. ‘I wanted them very much, and I’ve hated not being able to ask for their help, or their advice.’
‘And now you can,’ Grizzie said, her eyes glazing suspiciously as she placed a hand on Tracy’s stomach.
Tears burned again in my own eyes as Nell’s voice came from her rocking chair, which she’d set up, as usual, near Anyan’s big fireplace.
‘Now tell us what happened, child.’
And so I did. I told them all about our trip to the UK, and how everything had started out so straightforward. I felt something akin to shame as I talked about how easy I thought it would be. All we’d had to do was keep the Red from recovering the relics, the bones, from which she could cobble together her consort, the White. But between our constantly being a step behind and the political machinations of the Great Island, what the humans called Britain, what should have been easy never was.
And then I told them about that last, horrible day in the seaside town of Whitby, when we’d been betrayed by one of our own. The rebel leader’s own beloved brother, Lyman, had not only freed Graeme, the rapist-incubus, to warn Morrigan of our plans, but had delivered her chosen vessel, my arch-enemy Jarl, to become the White.
Even in those first, chaotic moments after Lyman’s betrayal, things seemed to be going our way. Blondie killed Jarl, and I thought it was over.
Which was very stupid.
I’ll never forget telling my friends, in a dark, grief-stricken voice, about the Red’s tail lashing out to strike Anyan’s shields, or how he flew through the air to land on the bones, or how she chanted something and it was like a nuke went off in our midst.
When I told them how I’d struggled up from where I’d fallen, my older friends – my father, Grizzie and Tracy, Iris and Caleb, Nell and Trill – all cried for me. My new friends, Magog, Gog, and Hiral, who either had been at the site or had helped mop up the carnage, sat quietly with inward-looking eyes.
I’d sat up to find Anyan sprawled out, and I’d thought he was dead. I told them of my relief when he sat up. But then he’d turned vivid green eyes on me, and I’d felt my world torn from under my feet.
Then he shapeshifted into a dragon and flew away, and I’d discovered that our greatest ally, Blondie, the Original, was dead. She’d bled out from a cut made by the Red, whose claws made wounds that couldn’t be healed.
When I’d finished talking, everyone sat in silence. My dad had long since put his arm around me, and I was grateful for its weight.
‘Well, shit,’ Trill said. That seemed to sum the situation up for everyone.
‘We need to start at the beginning,’ Nell said, her sage little grandmother’s face looking into the fireplace as she thought. ‘First of all, we need to list our assets. What do we still have?’
‘We have all of us, here,’ Iris said. ‘And we all have special knowledge and stuff. Plus Jane’s the champion.’
‘And we have the creature,’ I said. ‘It’s with me all the time now.’
‘With you?’ Caleb asked, his craggy face startled. ‘Like … living inside of you?’
I nearly said yes, till I realized