Marjorie Liu - Within the Flames

Lyssa frowned. “What? You thought what?”

Lannes hesitated. “Well, I thought he caused. .”

He didn’t finish. Eddie glared at him. “Where are the clothes you promised?”

The gargoyle’s wings shifted uncomfortably. “Er, bathroom. Down the hall.”

Lyssa stood and walked from the kitchen. She glimpsed a bathroom, door half-closed.

Eddie caught up with her. “Lyssa.”

Heat flared, wild beneath her skin. “Why did he think you caused the fire?”

“He assumed. I let him.”

“Why?”

Eddie grimaced. “I don’t know. I was trying to protect you.”

Her heart did a funny little jump. “You didn’t need to do that.”

“I know.”

Lyssa stopped by the bathroom door and made the mistake of looking at him. He didn’t appear any different than he had moments before — still scruffy, covered in soot — so handsome dirty, she couldn’t imagine how good he’d look clean. But it was his eyes that drew her in. They were her weakness.

His soul was in his eyes. And what Lyssa saw in his soul was mystery, and pain, and shadow. In her dreams, she had never seen such emotions in his eyes: just determination and a dangerous resolve.

He hurts, whispered the dragon. Like you, his heart has nowhere to fall.

You could fall together.

Lyssa blinked, swaying. Eddie seemed to sway with her — or maybe that was her imagination.

You are not alone, said the dragon.

“You,” she began, but her voice was hoarse, and she had to stop to wet her lips. “You lose control of your. . fire?”

Regret filled his eyes. “Yes.”

“Have you ever hurt anyone?”

“Yes,” he said again, and the pain in that one word hurt worse than it should have. She ached to touch him — but he stood so still, and so did she, her right hand clenched in a fist against her stomach, the other white-knuckled as she held his jacket closed.

“I’m sorry,” she told him, and found herself adding, “I’ve hurt people. I didn’t mean to, but the possibility I might do it again. . frightens me. . more than anything.”

“It’s the same fear I live with.” Eddie hesitated. “But you don’t have to be afraid with me.”

The truth of that was almost too much to believe — and heartbreaking. He was immune to her fire. She was immune to his. Something she had never dared imagine.

But there were other things to fear. . that he most certainly would not be safe from.

Lyssa pulled away, reluctantly. Warmth faded. Cold crept in. An insidious, bone-deep chill that made her feel as though she had stepped from a warm fire into the old Montana winter, with its hollow winds and ice.

Eddie made a small sound deep in his throat, like pain. It sounded like the same pain she felt, putting distance between them. As though she were stretching some part of her heart too tight — and it might snap.

She was afraid to look into his eyes. Gaze down, she turned and entered the bathroom. A small part of her hoped he would reach out and stop her. . but he didn’t. She should have been happy for that. Happy to turn the tide on whatever she was feeling.

He was a stranger. She did not know him. Whatever this was in her heart. . it couldn’t be real. It just couldn’t. She might believe in magic, but not. . trust at first sight. Or instant, devastating hunger for another human being.

But when the bathroom door was closed behind her, and she gazed at her reflection in the mirror, all she saw was a shadow. The soot didn’t matter, or her dirty hair, or the scrape along her jaw.

Just her eyes. Haunted, red-rimmed with unshed tears. Pained and lonely.

“Pathetic,” she whispered. “Toughen up, kid. Be tough.”

Deep breath. Jaw set. She could do this. Ten years, she’d been doing this. Now was no different.

So why have you not run? whispered the dragon. Do not deceive yourself, sister.

Go back to sleep, thought Lyssa. I liked you better when you were just a feeling.

I have been asleep too long. You need me now. You need him.

I don’t even know him.

A pity you are too much of a coward to try.

Lyssa exhaled sharply and spun away from the mirror.

The bathroom was small, white, and very clean. A white basket had been placed on the edge of the tub. Inside were clothes: faded jeans and an ivory-colored cable-knit sweater that was oversized and soft. Socks, underwear. . and a scarf. A pair of gloves.

She stared at the gloves, then, carefully, shrugged off Eddie’s jacket. She hung it on the hook that was on the bathroom door, then stripped off her clothes and placed them in the small garbage bin beneath the sink.

The shower felt tremendous. She slouched beneath the pounding stream, watching hot water hit her right arm and trail in rivers down her crimson scales. Golden claws glittered.

She imagined them around Eddie’s throat, and still felt the power of that grip, as well as her inability to let go.

Power is dangerous, she remembered her mother saying. Power over life and death is the most dangerous thing of all.

Anyone could kill. But to turn that death into something more. . to take a life and twist it into the otherworldly. .

Made her sick.

“Nikola and Betty,” she murmured. New women. New servants. As terrified as Lyssa was of having come so close to them, she wished she could have seen their faces.

How did they find me?

Eddie had found her through Estefan.

Lyssa shut off the water and dried herself — shivering the entire time. Not from the cold but from possibilities.

She needed to call Estefan and make certain he was okay. The older shape-shifter had been exceedingly kind to her, once upon a desperate time. . and for years they had traded e-mails. Not about anything important. Just little stories about life, his family. He loved talking about his wife, who had started out as a waitress and now ran a little café with him in Florida.

That little bit of contact with another of her kind had saved her, in more ways than one. Just a few words, proving to her that someone. . someone in the world. . knew who she was. Her real name. Not Liz, but Lyssa.

Never mind that she hadn’t told Estefan everything. Just the fact that he’d known she was a shape-shifter, a dragon, was enough to make her feel anchored.

How much did I tell him in my e-mails? How much have I let slip over the years?

Favorite coffee shops. That was how Eddie had found her. The fact she loved Columbus Circle and Central Park, which explained why he had been there, as well. She had told Estefan about her volunteer work at various homeless shelters.

Had she mentioned Jimmy and his mother? Yes. But not their address. Not where he went to school, or where Tina worked.

She hadn’t told him she was living underground, but he could have probably guessed the general area of where she made a home, just from certain details about places she liked to go. On occasion, Lyssa had even mailed him gifts. Some of her paintings, or little trinkets that could only be found in New York. She’d gone to post offices on the other side of the city, but still. .

I got sloppy, she decided. And Estefan, with his graying black hair, grizzled, toothy smile — and good heart — had finally gotten tired of just sitting idly by, something she had always known would happen, eventually.

Maybe, deep down, she had wanted it to happen. Perhaps she had needed for him to take the step she couldn’t — and find her help.

Bullshit, thought Lyssa, angry with herself. Bull. Shit.

The Cruor Venator had found her. And the timing of that. . just when Estefan had contacted strangers to locate her in New York. . was not lost on her.