Vixen (20 page)

“More than that,” Dad takes Mom’s side, of course, “Eudora implied Hans would be attracted to you. You’re not going. You’re not going anywhere near there. Ion and I will go alone, with Eudora as a guide.”

“But what about me?” Felix and Rilla ask almost in unison.

Dad stands and holds his hands up, shushing everyone. “This is essentially a reconnaissance mission. We’re learning what we’re up against. There’s no saying we’ll actually act on what we find. But since we don’t know how dangerous it might be, I’m not taking any unnecessary risks. Ion and I will go with Eudora. That’s my final word. Now if you’ll all excuse me, I’m exhausted from our journey, and I need my rest.”

Dad’s halfway down the hallway when Rilla stands.

“I need my rest, too, regardless of what’s to happen.” There’s a glint in her eye that says she’s not necessarily staying home, as instructed.

Felix offers to help Mom clean up the dishes. I rise to help, as well, but Ion takes my hand.

“He’s right, Zilpha. I don’t want you anywhere near Hans Wexler’s place. It’s far too dangerous.”

I pinch my eyes shut. Much as I want to argue with Ion, to insist I must go, not only because it is my duty to finish what I started, but to keep Ion and my family safe (I could never forgive myself if anyone got hurt). And there’s still the thing Eudora said about me, her prediction that I’m the one most likely to succeed. I should go.

But no matter how strongly I feel it, that doesn’t erase the reality of my circumstances. “I can’t fly. I’ve been trying to change into a dragon for days now, and I’ve yet to change anything at all. I can’t even sneak away and follow after you, no matter how much I want to.”

“Good.” Ion doesn’t exactly smile, but the agony on his face eases. “You’ll be safe.”

I squeeze his hand, then rise to help my mom and Felix clear the table.

Safe.

Right.

Except that I started this mess. It’s not fair that someone else should finish it.

And what was it Eudora said?

Zilpha’s the only one here who has any chance of getting past Hans.

Yeah, that. But more than that.

Life for life, Ion. You promised me Zilpha.

Ion may have been lying when he made the promise, but that won’t make any difference to Eudora. And sure, my family members brought Eudora here in order to get information out of her, but that’s not why she came.

She came to claim me…so I can get past Hans and destroy the yagi operation?

Maybe I should be terrified. Okay, so I sort of am terrified, but I’m also oddly relieved.

I need to finish what I started.

And Eudora’s going to help me.

Ion helps me clear the table. While Mom and Felix finish with the dishes, I volunteer to go outside and make sure our cooking fires are fully extinguished. Ion follows me.

I shoot a look at my mom to see if she’s going to do anything to prevent the two of us from spending time alone together. She sends me a little shrug that seems to say
I don’t know
. Cryptic as that might seem, I think I understand the vibe she’s sending.

She doesn’t know if Ion can be trusted. She doesn’t know where a lot of things stand right now. We just had Eudora as a dinner guest, and might be plotting together with her to defeat a common enemy, and it all seems so strange. The world as we know it feels a bit upended.

So why should she try to stop me and Ion from spending time together? Will it do any harm? She doesn’t know. She’s past guessing.

In a way, so am I.

Though it feels much later, it’s still only early afternoon. The sun is bright. I prod the coals with a long stick, checking for any glowing embers. It’s much easier to spot them when it’s dark out. Then they glow like dragon eyes.

Silence weighs heavily between me and Ion. There is so much to say, so many feelings inside me that have been turned over and exposed, just as I am turning over and exposing the coals.

“You’re not a failure,” I inform Ion. “You didn’t flee that night. Eudora took you.” Maybe I’m stating the obvious, but I want him to know I understand the implications of what we heard.

Ion freezes. Realization flashes behind his eyes. The ashamed child of 1918 looks hopeful for a second, as though perhaps his guilt has been assuaged and he no longer has to hide. But then he blinks and his expression clouds, snatching back his tattered veil. “The Romanovs still died.”

“But you’re not a coward. You’ve got it stuck in your head that you’re a bad man who does bad things, like fate has bound you to evil and if I get too close to you, it might stick to me, too. But you know what? You haven’t made me worse. You’ve made me better.”

“You’re injured—” Ion starts.

“No.” I cut him off before he can make the erroneous claim again. “I was injured because of choices I made—choices that flew in the face of every wise warning I’d heard. My injury is my own fault, a result of my own choices. You saved my life. In my eyes, you’re not a failure. You’re a hero. I want you to see yourself the way I see you.” I step closer to him, willing him to look me in the eye, to understand how sincerely I mean what I’ve said.

But he doesn’t. Ion flicks a burning ember from the fire onto the patio, where its light slowly dims. He changes the subject. “Your father said this is going to be a reconnaissance mission. I don’t know what we’ll find, but I fully intend to destroy the yagi operation as soon as I can, if not on this trip, then shortly thereafter.”

“Eudora said I’m the one most likely—”

“I won’t endanger you.”

“I endanger myself.” I’m not keen on the way he refuses to acknowledge everything I’ve said.

“Can you change into a dragon? Can you fly?”

“No.”

“Then you cannot go without my help, and I will not take you.”

I pace toward another fire pit and beat at the coals with my stick, frustrated with everything. And not just what we’ve been discussing, either. While Ion has been gone, I’ve been thinking. Maybe it’s craziness, but when he kissed me that day in Madagascar, I felt revived. I’d been utterly weak up until that point, but the moment our lips touched, my strength returned to me.

It’s occurred to me that since Ion is a dragon, maybe if he kisses me, I’ll get my skills back, too.

But considering that right now he doesn’t want me to be able to turn into a dragon (so I won’t be able to follow him into danger) I don’t dare tell him my theory, or he’ll refuse to kiss me.

So I stop beating the coals, and I glance around to make sure no one’s looking.

We’re alone. Better than that, we’re at the fire pit farthest from the house, which is all but out of sight from any of the windows. I reach for the lapels of Ion’s jacket and tug him after me to the corner of the garden, out of sight.

“I missed you,” I tell him, looking into his eyes, and I mean it. Maybe Mom doesn’t know if Ion is trustworthy, but I don’t share her doubts. If Ion and Eudora are playing us, or outsmarting us, or whatever, then they’re doing a dazzling job of it because I am completely blind to whatever they might be after.

Besides, as Ion looks into my eyes, it’s like he’s communicating to me without words. And he’s saying that all this mess and everything he’s suffered since the moment I showed up at his doorstep, has all been worth it.

This is my chance. I rise up on my tiptoes and press my lips to his.

For half a blissful second, I feel certain my theory is going to work. Feelings course through me with fiery zeal. I feel more alive than I have since before I was injured.

Then Ion pulls back from me and looks in the direction of the kitchen, as though he fears someone will come stomping out to chide us any second.

“I need my rest. I’m weak and you are far too tempting.” He hurries away into the house.

Stunned, and still mentally mostly in the midst of the kiss, I watch him go. Should I go after him?

No, he’s right. He needs his sleep.

And I need to see if the kiss worked. I try turning into a dragon.

I try really, really hard.

My fingernails lengthen almost to talons.

Almost.

I redouble my efforts.

Now I have a headache. A very human headache, and nothing else to show for my efforts.

I look at my hands. They look like human hands. Did I only imagine my nails turned almost to talons? Maybe my kiss theory is right, but it’s going to take a longer kiss to get the full effect.

Or maybe it’s all just wishful thinking on my part, and I should go ahead and share a bottle of wine with Eudora.

I spend some more time with the embers, making sure they won’t be stirred to life by an errant breeze. Then I return to the kitchen, where I find my mom wiping up the last of the dinner mess, alone.

“Can I help you?” I ask.

“I’ve about got everything taken care of. I sent Felix off to bed. He looked exhausted. You could brew us some fresh tea.”

I set the water on to heat and putter a bit until Mom looks around the room and sighs a satisfied sigh.

“Long day?” I ask.

“Weird day. I could have sworn when I saw Eudora, that she was here to kill me for revenge. I wouldn’t be surprised if she tried it yet.” Mom pulls a couple of mugs from the cupboard and we rifle through an assortment of tea bags.

But my mind is not on the tea. “So, Mom,” I begin with a deliberately casual tone, “I remember, in the story of how you and Dad met, you couldn’t turn into a dragon for a long time.”

“I didn’t know how to turn into a dragon.”

“What changed? I mean, how did you…learn?”

Mom pours hot water into her mug and dunks her tea bag, watching it bob repeatedly while she scowls a thoughtful scowl. “I hadn’t accepted that I wanted to be a dragon until then. I was scared of them, scared of embracing that which I’d always considered to be my enemy. But then I realized I loved your father, and since he was a dragon, that meant I could love a dragon. That broke the wall, I guess.”

I dunk my tea bag repeatedly, too.

To my knowledge, I don’t have any walls against becoming a dragon. I want it desperately. And unlike my mom, who didn’t know how to make the change, I’ve transformed countless times throughout my life. I know what to do.

I just can’t do it.

Maybe this is a pointless conversation. Still I feel like it’s worth pursuing, like there’s something there, some useful clue. I only need to shine the light in just the right spot. “So, how did you finally do it? You just tried really hard?”

“No.” Mom laughs. “Haven’t I told you this story? We were on a cliff overlooking the Black Sea. The yagi had us surrounded. I tried to leap free of them, but I couldn’t see because of them, and I ended up leaping off the cliff. It was a high cliff, thankfully. Your father caught me, and then I caught the wind. I don’t know if I could have done it otherwise. I had to leap first and let the wind catch my wings.” Mom laughs again, maybe a bit self-consciously. “If that makes any sense.”

“It does.”

“I’m going to go check on your father. He needs his sleep, but knowing him, he might well be up plotting something.” Mom carries her tea away.

I take my tea to the library. There aren’t many books on dragon history. Those that exist are old and hand-written in archaic tongues. It’s heavy reading, but I don’t know where else to turn. Somewhere there’s got to be a clue.

The hour is late when I finally close the book I’m nodding over and head to bed. Sure, the reading was interesting, but I don’t know if I gleaned anything that will help me. Those old books predate the yagi. None of them knew about my problem, so they don’t offer any direct help in solving it.

When I wake up in the morning, I shower, dress, and head for the kitchen. I can hear raised voices echoing down the hall, and I’m just starting to walk faster when Ion grabs my arm as I pass the library. “Don’t go in there right now.”

“But I—”

“Here. Food.” He hands me a bowl of scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, while pulling me deeper into the library.

“What about coffee?”

“I brought a pot.” He nods toward a marble-topped side table.

“Mmm, where’d we get the smoked salmon?”

“Felix made it from the salmon he found in my freezer.” Ion pours me a mug of coffee.

“Why was he looking in your freezer?” I swallow a bite of the yummy stuff before asking.

“He and your parents and sister searched all through my castle for you after Jala called them.”

“Felix looked for me in your freezer?”

“It would seem your family does not have a high opinion of me.”

But I’m hardly able to hear him over the raised voices in the kitchen. Whatever they’re arguing about sounds interesting, though I can’t quite hear everyone. “Why can’t I go in there?”

“It’s a bad time. Your brother threatened to kill Eudora—”

“Felix?”

Ion nods. “Your father stopped him in time, but Eudora still has red finger marks on her neck. They might leave a bruise.”

I swallow a bite of eggs and try not to cough in my surprise. “So, by
threatened
, you mean—”

“
Attempted.
Murder. That’s her version of it, anyway. Felix contends he was only trying to get information out of her. In his defense, he hadn’t had any coffee yet.”

“I’m sure most courts would give him a pass, then,” I note sarcastically, and reach to top off my mug before I commit any similar crimes.

Eudora’s distinctive accent zings down the hallway, her shouted words almost a scream. “Life for life! If I hadn’t told Ion the secret to saving her, Zilpha would be dead right now.”

“You created the creatures that almost killed her!” My father shouts back.

And on the heels of his words, my mom adds, “Those creatures killed my mother. So by my count, you’re still down one.”

As I shovel eggs into my mouth, Ion puts his hand on my back and explains in a hushed voice (as though anyone could possibly hear us over the din in the kitchen), “I want to leave as soon as possible. The sooner we depart from here, the greater the chances your household will emerge from this challenge unscathed.”

“Great idea.” I gulp coffee. “I can be ready to go in—”

“Can you fly?”

“Well, no, someone’s going to have to carry—”

“You still can’t change into a dragon? You’re quite sure?”

“I’m sure. I tried again yesterday, but—”

“You’re not coming with.”

“Because I can’t fly?”

“No, you’re not coming because I love you and I don’t want you to get hurt. I merely asked if you could fly because I don’t want you attempting to follow us. Your father suggested we ought to put you in shackles to keep you home. I told him that probably wasn’t necessary.”

I set down my bowl of eggs and cup of coffee, and grip Ion’s shirt front in my fists. “Listen, what you’re doing is dangerous—”

“Which is precisely why I don’t want you anywhere near there. In fact, I’m going to do my best to make sure your father isn’t endangered, either. He can come as a witness. If, by some miracle, I manage to destroy the yagi operation, I want him to see that I did it, to know that I was always on your side, to know that I did it for you, for love. But I don’t want him close enough to get hurt.”

“Look, Ion, I started this—”

To my surprise, Ion cuts off my words with a kiss.

But it’s a quick kiss, barely brushing my lips.

Then he presses his forehead to mine and whispers, “You have given me hope. When you first came to my castle, I assumed your family had sent you to kill me, and I was ready to die. I had nothing left to live for. But you’ve given me a reason to live, to care, to fight. I can think of no greater gift to leave you than to make this world a safer place for the next generation of dragons. I will destroy the yagi, or die trying.”