Chapter 11
The following afternoon, the ground was soft from an earlier rain, and the clouds looked as if they might open again at any moment as we jogged across the grounds, per Luther’s instructions.
Vanya and I were halfway through our second lap around a dark lake tucked behind the school when a frantic-looking Camille raced toward us.
Prescott Gregory, Covington’s dark-haired friend from our house, and Covington were already about to pass us on their third lap.
“Did you hear any thunder?” Vanya asked, staring at the sky. “Please,” she begged. “Then we can stop.”
Camille shouted from across the lake, waving us all toward her. “Physical training has been canceled this afternoon. We’ve got to get you all inside. Right away. Where is everyone?”
“Some are still out on the trail,” Clarence called, wiping sweat from under his glasses from where he’d stopped a few paces ahead of us.
Camille shooed us back toward the main school building. “Stay together,” she yelled.
“What’s wrong?” Vanya asked, sucking in deep breaths.
“A wild dragon was spotted over the grounds.”
My gasp wasn’t any louder or more conspicuous than Vanya’s, so Camille ignored it. Had Myth come for me?
“Get inside the school, now,” Camille ordered. Prescott Gregory and Clarence Vaughan took off, but Covington was just coming up the trail. “Inside. Wild dragon spotted!” Camille barked, waving him on toward the main building.
“What about the others?” I glanced at the faces around me. Scarlett and Mabel were still on the trail in the woods.
“They’ll just have to be informed when they get here,” Camille said with a worried shrug, finally catching up to us.
“They like to walk on the trail when no one else can see them,” I said, matter-of-factly rather than in a tattling way, but Vanya lifted her brows at me.
Before anyone could say anything, I turned and sprinted back down the way we’d come, hoping to catch them faster this way. Rain had started to fall again.
“Wait,” said a voice behind me. In a matter of seconds, Rushland Covington had caught up to me. “I can get to them faster.”
He was right, but for a few steps, I kept pace with him, not sure if I trusted him to actually warn the others.
“I’ve got this, Miro. Get inside.”
I slowed, my breaths heaving from the sprint, and hurried back up the gravel path toward the school.
Every first year from House Ruby and Emerald, who were training outside, raced toward the back entrance to the school.
Hurling ourselves up two steps at a time, we reached the back terrace, clattered across the stones, and hurled ourselves through the door that led into the back atrium, less grand than the main foyer but still floored with marble and topped with a chandelier far overhead.
We spilled inside, splattering the floors with rainwater.
Clarence walked after Camille. “Where was the dragon?” he asked.
“About a mile from here, over the forest,” she replied, counting heads in the atrium.
The members of House Emerald drifted away when all of them were accounted for, but not a single member of House Ruby left the atrium, our attention fixed out the windows.
“There!” shouted Prescott, pointing.
Covington jogged alongside Scarlett and Mabel as they ran up the path from the lair. A minute later, they burst through the door. Camille exhaled with relief.
Once inside, Prescott slapped Covington on the shoulder. His hair was soaked, and he flung it from his face. Scarlett and Mabel collapsed onto a bench in the atrium, as if they’d just been taxed with climbing the world’s highest peak.
Covington briefly made eye contact with me as he strolled by with Prescott and Clarence. He offered me the slightest nod.
Eager to know if my dragon was the reason we’d been sent inside, I moved toward Camille, who was walking down the hall toward the library. “What did the dragon look like?” I asked.
Camille shrugged. “They didn’t exactly give us details.”
At that, I spun back toward our dormitory, where dry clothes waited. If Myth was in trouble, I wondered if I would know, somehow. If I would feel his fear, or if I could lose him without ever knowing it.
“They got him!” Shep shouted in the common room later that night.
My heart jumped into my throat and my hands shook as I tried to hold the cards Vanya had dealt me. I was losing miserably in the game of hearts, my mind too worried about Myth to be thinking about tricks.
When all eyes turned to Shep, he added, “The wild dragon was killed. You’re safe to go outside again.”
“You okay, Ari?” asked Vanya as my cards fell from my hands to the table.
I nodded. “I’m tired; that’s all.” It was late, after all, and I hadn’t slept well after Luther’s rude intrusion.
“See you in the morning,” I said, ignoring Prescott’s outcry that I couldn’t quit mid-game.
He’d only invited me to play because Vanya insisted.
I doubted he cared if I left the room or the school.
The halls were quiet, everyone inside their common rooms waiting to hear the news about the wild dragon.
We’d been confined to the school, no one even allowed to go to the lair to check on their dragons.
The professors assured the students the dragons would be kept in the lair and safe from the flames of the wild dragon.
Who was now dead.
I rubbed my chest, wondering if the ache there was a sign that Myth was really dead. He’d followed me to West Haven, so it was not impossible that he’d followed me here, even though I doubted Fairfax would have let him come before the first years’ dragons were scheduled to arrive.
In a near trance, I walked aimlessly through the halls.
I wound up in a corridor I hadn’t yet visited, down a flight of steps from the library.
This hall was stark and cold, with a tile floor rather than the warm wooden floors in the halls above.
Footsteps clacked on the tile, and I instinctively edged to the side, assuming it would be an upperclassman passing.
Instead, it was Covington who peeled around the far corner and stopped short at the sight of me. In his arm was a wrapped brown package. He shifted it behind his back.
“What are you doing down here?” I snapped, a little surprised at how violent my words sounded.
He tilted his head dramatically. “I should ask you the same thing.” The parcel peeking out from behind his back looked about the size and shape of a book.
“Come to the basement for some reading?” I asked, eyeing the package.
He tucked the package farther behind his back.
“Oh, I see. You want to keep it a secret that you can read.”
“Hey, shovel girl, you forget that I know your secret.”
Every muscle in my body went rigid.
He chuckled. “Fairfax’s niece. Nice try.”
My lips pressed together briefly. He knew I wasn’t Fairfax’s niece, fine. It was better than knowing the truth about Myth. But I needed to attempt to play my role here. “You started that rumor about me? You’re much more intelligent than they give you credit for.”
A quiet chuckle escaped his lips as he started backing away, the package carefully concealed behind him. “Go to bed, Miro. You look tired.”
That was odd.
He looked like he didn’t want to be followed, so, naturally, I went after him.
But by the time I reached the corner where he’d disappeared, he was nowhere in sight.
There were no doors down here, but he couldn’t have crossed the entire hall that fast. He’d simply vanished.
At the end of the corridor, a narrow stairwell led back to the upper floors.
My footsteps clunked on the old wood as I ascended, mimicking the pounding of my heart.
I had to know if Myth was okay. Wandering the school wasn’t helping.
I could send a telegram to Fairfax; he’d reply quickly, I hoped.
Around the next corner, I nearly ran into Vanya.
“There you are! You weren’t in our room, so I got worried.”
“Sorry.” I couldn’t think of what else to say. “I wanted to send a telegram.” At this point, I’d have to sneak out in the morning and send it.
“You seemed upset about the wild dragon. We’re safe now, Ari. It’s gone.”
That soured my stomach even more. “Did…did they give any more details about him?”
“It wasn’t a he; it was a she.”
My face lit up. “Oh.” The word trembled on my lips. I wanted to sink right to the floor and weep for joy, but I forced my relief into what I hoped was a casual curiosity. “I saw Covington sneaking around back there. He all but admitted to creating the rumor about me.”
Vanya shook her head, and I turned back toward the common room with her.
“Insecure people are the only ones who make up rumors about others,” she said.
“If the son of a duke with the best chance of winning this year’s student race is insecure enough for that, then he’s even less worth your time than the rest of them. ”
We wandered, arm in arm, back through the halls, and my mind, while relieved over Myth, snagged on the words about Covington having the best chance of winning this year’s race. If I was going to uphold my end of Fairfax’s bargain, I needed to find out how he was going to win.
The rest of the week, we learned what Bryce called the basics.
We learned how to properly saddle a dragon—each of us taking turns with Bryce’s dragon or Professor Indigo’s.
We learned how to meticulously clean a leather dragon saddle, and while I was rubbing one down one afternoon, all I could think about was climbing up in a saddle for the first time.
“You said you’ve never ridden, right?”