Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 147649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
“Shut! Up!”
OK. Clearly, my sweet Madeline needs a moment to process. So I zip it.
We stare at each other for a moment, her wild eyes and my loving ones. Honestly, I just want to wrap my arms around her and give her a good, long squeeze. But as I’m thinking these thoughts, she snarls at me.
This makes me smile.
“What are you smiling about? There’s nothing to smile about!”
“Oh, there is so much to smile about. You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for someone like you.”
She holds out her arm. She’s covered in scales. But for some reason, she’s fixated on this arm. Probably because that’s where the scales first started to appear long before I showed up. “What is this?”
“You’re a dragon, darling.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You did this to me.”
“I didn’t. I wouldn’t, Madeline. I like you. I would like to spend the rest of my life with you. But you can’t just turn someone into a dragon. You know that, right? You know that. It was inside you before I got here. The scales.”
Again, she glances down at her arm, then looks back up at me, waiting for… something.
“But hear me, dear. Even if I could do this kind of magic, I never would.” I shake my head at her. “I never would.”
She starts to cry again. But this time, when I approach, she doesn’t have the will to push me away. So I put my arm around her, lead her over to the nest, and help her sit down on the edge. Then I fold her into my chest and stroke her hair, which was always a beautiful strawberry color, but is now an even more brilliant shade of fire.
We sit there like that for a good while. She’s got her face buried against me and she continues to sob, but quietly now. And I watch the eggs as their outer shells ripple with colors as they transition between wicked shades of thunderstorm blue, seafoam green, and bruised purple.
Eventually, she rests her head on my thigh with her face turned away from me and asks, “What happens now?”
I let out a long breath. “Well. Everything.”
“That’s not an answer. What happens to me?”
“You will… change completely.”
“Explain this.”
“You will turn into a dragon.”
She sits up a little and faces me, blinking. “You mean, like you?”
This is what she wants to hear. That she will jump right to chimera stage. But… that’s not how it works. I don’t even know what I am. Maybe one gets to be a man again after a few thousand years of burning things down, being imprisoned, turning into a part-time ghost, and then being a full-time chimera.
But then again, perhaps that’s not how it works at all. Perhaps what happened to me is just a right-time-right-place kind of thing.
“No. I don’t think that’s what comes next, darling.”
She’s growling now. “Then tell me what does!”
“You will turn into a dragon.”
She’s shaking her head. And while I would prefer that we not have this conversation for a few decades, she’s asking. So it’s my duty to tell her.
“You will grow big. And long. And wide. And one day, you will have wings and a burning sensation inside you. And then, when you’re not even expecting it, you will open your mouth and out will come fire.”
She just stares at me. Unblinking. Like she’s trying to wrap her head around all this. Then she’s shaking it. “No. No. This is not going to be my life. I would rather kill myself.”
I gasp. “Madeline!”
“What?” And again, she’s snarling. “I don’t want to be a monster like—”
She doesn’t say it. But she doesn’t have to. “Like me, you mean.”
She breathes. That’s all. Doesn’t answer.
“Well, I’m not trying to be mean here. I’m really not. But when one is dwelling in the realm of fantasy”—it comes out a bit mocking, because I’ve got feelings too, but then I rein it in—“one needs the truth more than ever. And here is the truth, my dear Madeline. You were already a monster. You were born a monster, just like the rest of us.”
“Rest of… us?” Her poor face. She’s so vulnerable and confused. “Rest of who?”
“Well, Pell and me, of course. And Pie. And, well, all the monsters here at Saint Mark’s. It’s our sanctuary.”
“A sanctuary for monsters?”
I pan my hands wide with a smile. “Welcome, Madeline. Welcome to the monsters of Saint Mark’s. You will be perfectly safe here—” But no sooner are these words out of my mouth than I realize it’s a lie.
“What?” she asks. “Why did you stop?”
“Well, truth be told, it’s not safe here. The curse is ending, the whole place is crumbling, and honestly, shit’s really fucked up.”
Again, she blinks at me. But then, a moment later, a chuckle rumbles out of her. Like it came from deep within her belly.