Shana Abe - The Deepest Night

“No, it isn’t.”

“Quieter,” I noted, adding one of my finished rolls to the pyramid I’d been building on the table.

She tipped her head to the side, musing. “Less …”

Death, I might have said. Suffering. Dying men wasting away in their beds with nothing to be done.

“Fuss,” she finished, flat, and I nodded.

She placed her empty glass on the nearest shelf. “Where is Armand?”

“I don’t know.”

And I didn’t. That was one of the things that had changed. It wasn’t that I couldn’t feel him around in a general way. I still did. But he’d become less than even a specter to me now. He’d become someone who shunned me. No more swimming lessons; he’d told me that since we weren’t likely to drop into the Channel, I didn’t need them. No more taking meals together; Sophia’d overheard the butler informing the chatelaine that Lord Armand was much too busy to formally dine.

When we met now at night, I noticed how he kept a firm distance between us. How he would stand at the edge of the cliff and watch me fly, but never touch me again, not even to offer me my clothes.

I was accustomed to his bridled admiration, I admit. I’d come to expect it.

Losing it irritated me.

“Lovers’ quarrel?” Sophia inquired, rising to get more tea.

“We’d have to be lovers for that to happen.”

“You’re blushing.”

“I am not. I am hot.”

“Yes, indeed. Rolling bandages must be such awful exertion!”

“Perhaps you’d care to try it,” I shot back. “Then you could find out.”

She sent me a cat’s smile. “No, thank you. I’m quite content over here with my nice, cold drink.”

I slapped my latest roll on top of the pyramid, destroying its fragile unity. It broke apart into bouncing pieces, bandages unfurling down the table and all across the room.

“Lovers’ quarrel,” Sophia said wisely, and left it to me to pick everything up.

“This time I’m flying with you,” Armand told me that night upon the cliff.

He said it without inflection, without even looking at me, standing with his arms crossed to confront the rising yellow moon.

No mist tonight; the moon threw a flickering path along the waves that led straight back to us.

“I don’t know,” I hedged.

“Don’t argue. It’s past time for it. You’ve done fine for the last two nights, haven’t you? No unexpected changes?”

“That doesn’t mean they won’t come now.”

“And it doesn’t mean they will. What are you scared of, waif?” His eyes glanced back to mine, heavily shadowed; I couldn’t read them at all.

“Killing you,” I said bluntly.

He shrugged. “Everyone dies sometime.”

“Oh, am I supposed to be impressed with that? You’re so brave and noble, willing to leave me with your blood on my hands?”

He looked at me fully. “Is that what you envision will happen?”

Yes. No. I couldn’t bear thinking about it long enough to decide.

“Tonight,” he ordered, in that cool, distant tone he used with me now.

I turned on my heel, stalking back toward the motorcar. “Fine. Your funeral.”

“We’ll find out.”

I Turned without waiting to reach the car, smoke to dragon, just like that. I stepped carefully around my scattered garments, my talons scraping against the hard-packed dirt.

I had no words in this shape; I’d discovered a while ago that I didn’t have any manner of voice whatsoever. I couldn’t even growl. So I lowered my head to glower at him and thought my dare.

Come on, then. If this is such a cakewalk for you, come on.

He walked over to me and placed a hand upon my shoulder. Damned if I was going to make it easier for him by bending down. I felt his feet slip for purchase on my scales, some tugging, and then he was up, straddling me.

I wiggled in place, adjusting to the weight of him. His feet hooked in the space behind my front legs and in front of my wings. His fingers entwined with my mane.

“Golden Eleanore,” he said quietly, leaning forward along my neck. “Fairest of the fair. I’m so tired of waiting. Let’s get on with it, shall we?”

My irritation drained away. I flicked my ears at him, took an uneasy step. He remained perfectly balanced.

I opened my wings. I tried a few tentative beats, letting him get the feel of it, of how my muscles would shift beneath him. I didn’t like his grip along my mane but couldn’t imagine how else he was going to hang on; my scales were slick as glass.

Suddenly the saddle didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

“Fly with me, love,” Armand whispered, a warm and urgent pressure upon my spine.

I crouched, bounded, and took us up into the heavens.

It was a very different thing to fly with another. I learned that right off.

He slipped back some but held on tight, which was good, because if he’d fallen off as I ascended I didn’t think there was much I could do about it. I climbed and climbed so there’d be time for me to twist about and catch him if I needed to, then had the grisly thought that if I went too high, I might suffocate him.

I chanced a look back. Armand was windblown, beaming. He met my eyes and blew me a kiss.

Cheeky, but the relief danced through me light as bubbles.

I leveled out, unwilling to try anything too daring. I felt him adjusting in place; every movement threw me off by degrees, and I had to compensate by tilting this way or that.

I caught a stream of wind and the roar in my ears subsided into something close to silence. There was only the hiss of my wingtips scraping edges off the air. His breathing. Mine.

The sea was a reflective floor, occasional ships adding dollops of light. We skimmed below clouds plated in gold, because the moon was huge and lovely, pulling me toward it with a yearning that tugged soul deep.

Fireheart. Lora-of-the-moon.

I was meant to be here. I was meant to be this way. And even with Armand clinging to my back, I was glad. Up here I was as free to be myself as anywhere in creation. No rules meant to bind me, no gossip meant to make me feel small. No adults chiding me for never being quite what they hoped; no toffee-nosed girls mocking me for what I’d never have or never become.

Beyond the clouds, the stars had been arranged in a high, brilliant lattice of glitter. They were singing without words, a symphony as glad and ferocious as I was.

I gazed up at them and imagined plucking them one by one, wearing them as debutantes did diamonds: a necklace of stars, a coronet, a glinting fan of them trailing behind me like the train of the most breathtaking gown. The queen herself would weep with envy.

There was one star in particular that caught my attention, brighter than all the rest. It blazed with light, a rare green and gold. I’d wear that one over my heart …

Wait …

“Jesse?” I gasped, and then screamed.

Because I’d Turned to girl, of course.

We tumbled down together, two bodies pinwheeling, the air sucked from our lungs. For a few long, terrifying seconds—much too long—I was trapped in the black breathless vortex of my impending death. I was senseless, powerless. The words Turn! Turn! screeched through my mind with no results.

Then I went to smoke, instantly suspended.

Armand continued his tumble, smaller and smaller against the waiting sea.

I Turned to dragon and plummeted after him.

I’d done something like this once before. I knew to fold my wings as close to my body as I could, to keep myself stiff and straight, a knife blade, a sword. He had his arms and legs spread out, which gave me the only small advantage I had; I was gaining on him, but not swiftly enough.

He toppled upward, his face toward me. His eyes had that same blue glow that had thrilled me days ago, but now only served to fill me with an infuriated fright.

He was not going to die. I was not going to lose the lone person who understood what I was and liked me anyway—

The sea was so near. I was too far. Armand reached up an arm toward me and in desperation I reached back, my claws flashing.

I felt the pull of him, an abrupt yank of weight. I opened my wings and tried to rise but couldn’t get high enough in time. Armand hit the water and then so did I, but the difference was that I broke apart into smoke as it happened, shattering far and wide.

I didn’t know what had happened to him.

The pieces of me bobbed about, gradually mustering back into one. Seawater splashed through me, atoms of mist adding to my vapor.

Where was he? I funneled up, searching, seeing only pewtered water and slippery waves.

Where is he? I called silently to the stars. Jesse, help—where is he?

As if in answer, I felt myself beginning to solidify. And even though I tried to stop it, I Turned into girl again.

I splashed down almost gently. It was almost preposterous how leisurely it happened, and how utterly unable I was to keep my head above the water.

My one brief lesson in swimming deserted me. I thrashed about, sinking fast, the entire world sheathing me in smothering dark.

Sophia had been correct. I was useless.

My lungs burned. My limbs had gone to stone.

Smoke, I commanded myself, but it seemed like such an impossible feat. All my magic was cold and lifeless, already drowned.

My lungs were on fire. My heart was a dying ember. I had to breathe. I had no choice, I was going to breathe—