Sir Callie and the Dragon's Roost, page 16
“Pioden? What’s Pioden?”
“Alis’s castle. It’s where all the big things are decided and the conflict strategy—all the scary things—take place. Alis is determined to keep it separate from the rest of The Roost, to protect those who don’t want to be a part of the fighting.”
“So it’s a choice? A real choice?”
“Of course,” says Teo, fangs poking out of xir crooked smile. “No one’s forced to fight.”
“What about you? You chose to fight that day?”
“I did.” Though xe looks away when I narrow my eyes. “I did choose. I did agree. It wasn’t my idea, but when it was presented…I was glad for the chance to pay my way. Dumoor has given me so much. And if she thought I was ready—”
“Who? The Witch Queen?”
Teo nods. “It’s a huge honor to be noticed personally by Alis. Apparently she used to be more present in The Roost, but since the fight with Helston got worse, she rarely leaves Pioden. She doesn’t have time to meet every single person herself. If she knew about me, it means I’d stood out.” A proud flush ripples across the scales on Teo’s cheeks. “I know some who have offered their services for years but never received an invitation to Pioden. I got lucky.”
“Doesn’t sound very lucky,” I reply bluntly. “You got captured, and no one came looking for you. How’s that lucky?”
Xir smile drops. “It wasn’t supposed to be like that. It wasn’t supposed to be a battle. We got taken by surprise and I panicked. That was my fault. I could’ve said no. I should’ve said no. Kensa tried to warn me, but I was too excited. I figured if Alis thought I was ready, it meant it was true. She trusted me. I didn’t want to betray that trust, and Kensa always worried extra about me. I figured they’d never think I was ready. I wanted to prove them wrong. It was my fault. I should’ve known myself better.”
My heart thrums furiously in my chest. It feels too familiar. Grown-ups taking advantage of kids. Making them feel special and grateful so they can’t say no.
“She shouldn’t have put you in that position,” I growl. “Grown-ups in power…they’re just the same everywhere.”
“That’s not true, Callie,” Teo insists. “Alis isn’t like that. She would never make anyone do anything against their will. I didn’t get tricked. You wait till you meet her and then you’ll understand! You’re gonna love her. Everyone does! And I know she’s going to love you.”
It still doesn’t sit right, the thought of the Witch Queen knowing we’re here in her domain. In my mind, she’s a fearsome shadow with big teeth, looming over the moors like a storm cloud full of thunder.
“We’ll be gone before then,” I say with as much conviction as I have energy for. “We’re not sticking around.”
Teo’s ears flatten with disappointment. “You’re really set on that?”
“Yes. That’s the plan. That was always the plan.”
“Oh. Okay. I guess I was sort of hoping you’d stay once you learned what it was really like here.”
I grimace. I want to. It feels so perfect, and El and Willow are so happy.
But…
“It’s not safe,” I tell Teo. “Not for us and not for you. Helston’s coming, if not tomorrow, then soon. Look, the day you got captured, it was like the whole place exploded. They’re all totally convinced that it’s a matter of kill or be killed, and we may have slowed them down, but not for long. Helston’s coming, and we can’t be here when they do. They mean to get revenge.”
Teo flinches. “Revenge for what?” xe whispers. “We haven’t done anything.”
“How can you say that? You’ve killed just as many of our people, if not more!” I freeze the moment the accusation falls from my tongue, and my face burns. Our people. As if I can possibly claim any part of Helston as my own anymore. As if me and Teo are on opposite sides of the bridge. “I’m sorry,” I mumble, sinking deeper into my seat. “I didn’t mean that. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fight. I just mean…Dumoor’s not innocent either. It takes two sides to start a war.”
“Is it yours?”
I squint up at Teo. “My what?”
If the dragon’s offended by my explosion, xe doesn’t show it. “You said it’s not my fight. Is it yours?”
I shrug. “Dunno. Maybe.” Everything is too loud and too bright, and there are too many people and I can’t think. “It was, at least.”
“What changed?”
Everything. Everything changed.
Or maybe it didn’t and I just woke up from a long, convincing dream.
I wish I could go back to sleep.
“I think I’m gonna head to bed,” I mutter, wriggling out of the armchair that seems determined to consume me. “I’m wiped out. Will you tell El and Willow where I’ve gone so they don’t think I’ve wandered off on my own?”
“Of course.” Teo hops off xir perch, eyeing me anxiously. “Do you want me to help you upstairs?”
Xe’s already reaching, about to take my arm, when I step away. “Nah. Thanks, though.”
Teo’s hand drops. “If you’re sure.”
I am.
* * *
The stairs are a monumental undertaking, and I just about make it to the top with enough energy left to get to my room. But the second I touch the handle, I pause. Every door down the long corridor is open and empty except one. And I know who’s hiding inside.
Edwyn is the only person between Helston and Dumoor who might understand a little of what I’m feeling right now.
I’m so exhausted by the time I reach his room, I’m just about ready to slide down the wall and fall asleep right here on the floor. Luckily, slumping against the door achieves the same goal as knocking.
A soft click and the door cracks open less than half an inch.
I grin blearily at a single dark blue eye. “Hey.”
The eye narrows, and when the door opens fully, I tumble into the room, landing solidly on the rug. I’m not even cross about it. It feels so good to be horizontal.
Edwyn peers down at me, and I can’t tell if he’s confused or annoyed. Probably both. He’s usually both. “I thought you were Willow.”
“How’d you figure?”
“Elowen doesn’t knock, and I didn’t think you’d— I thought you were Willow.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“No, it’s…That isn’t what I mean.”
“I know. Relax. Teasing.”
He closes his eyes like he’s praying for enough fortitude to deal with my nonsense. “Of course you are. What can I do for you? Why are you here?”
I lever myself up onto my elbows and fix him with a look. “Everyone else is downstairs having the time of their lives, and you’re up here—what? Being a goblin?” It sure feels like a goblin cave—dark and stuffy, with the curtains drawn and the window closed. Nothing like the light, airy bedroom I was gifted. “Truth is, I’m feeling pretty gobliny too, and I figured you might relate. Except now I am worried about you. You look terrible.”
It’s true. He looks all pale and waxy, like he hasn’t seen sunlight in a hundred years.
“Thanks,” says Edwyn tightly. “But there’s no need for concern. I’m fine.”
“Sure you are.”
The smile he gives me is the worst I’ve ever seen. “I’m fine,” he repeats in a voice that sounds like a poor imitation of Willow’s. “See? I’m happy. Nothing to worry about.”
“Well, now I’m double worried. What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” His voice gets sharper and higher, and his chest is starting to heave as he struggles to breathe. “Callie, please, I am fine. Go back with the others before they come looking for you. I can’t be around them. I’m just…tired.”
“No, but same, though,” I insist. “It’s way too much down there. Like, it’s great. But it’s a lot. Exhausting. I’d rather just hang out up here and be a goblin with you. Is that okay? We don’t even need to talk.”
Edwyn stares at me, utterly baffled that I would choose his company over anyone else’s. “If you…really want to.”
“I do. Your floor’s comfier than mine.”
He shakes his head hopelessly and returns to his nest of a bed, which looks like he hasn’t left it in days, where he lies on top of the blue-and-brown patchwork quilt and gazes at the ceiling.
I keep my promise of not talking for an impressive eighteen seconds before I blurt out, “Is this what you’ve been doing since we got here?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to,” says Edwyn in his dry monotone. “Isn’t that the point of being here? So we can do what we want?”
“The point of being here is to heal and rest. At least, that’s what people keep telling me.”
“You don’t believe it?”
I lie back down and copy his position, counting grooves in the ceiling. If I relax my eyes, patterns start to form. I guess this is pretty entertaining. “No, I do. It’s good here. It’s…weird. And the others don’t seem to get how weird it is.”
“This is what Elowen has always wanted,” says Edwyn softly. “Willow too.”
“Not you?”
“I don’t think about things like that. Never have. Wanting hurts when you don’t get it, and when you do…” His voice cracks, and when I sit up to look at him, his hands are fists in his quilt and his face is screwed up in pain. “I—I can’t do this. I shouldn’t be here. I don’t belong here. I’m going to ruin it. Just like I ruined everything at Helston. You should’ve left me behind.”
I sit up properly. “You really believe that?”
Eyes squeezed shut tight, Edwyn nods. “I was thinking of going back. To Helston. But I’m…not even brave enough to give up.”
“Adan would kill you, Edwyn.”
“Yes. I—I know.”
I relinquish my comfy place on the floor and stand over him, hands on hips. “You are not going back, and you do belong here. Just like everyone else.”
Edwyn snorts, turning his face away. “As though you would ever tell me anything else.”
“Hey!” I’m glad he’s got his eyes shut so he doesn’t see me wince. “You think I’d lie to you? You think I’d go through all that if you weren’t worth saving? Give me more credit than that. Willow might lie to save your feelings, but I wouldn’t.”
Edwyn cracks one eye open to fix me with a scowl. “Why aren’t you angry?”
“Angry? With you? About what?”
I can hear his teeth grind before he answers. A tear makes a track all the way down to his ear. “I ruined everything. I ruined your dream. You worked so hard. You had everything you wanted. So did El. And I ruined it.”
“You didn’t—”
“I did!” Edwyn shouts, sitting up to face me properly. “Stop lying to me, Callie! It doesn’t help! It doesn’t make me feel better when I already know the truth!”
“Which is what?”
“That I’m…” He shivers. “Poison.”
I hold myself very still and very calm and breathe through the worst of my anger before I tell Edwyn softly, “Those aren’t your words. Those are your father’s.”
More tears follow the first. “Maybe they are. Maybe he’s right. Maybe we need to stop pretending that he was wrong about everything.”
“He was wrong about you.”
“That’s not true. I let you convince me it was. I made myself believe it. I thought once he was gone, everything would be better. I thought I would be better. But he was gone and I still ruined everything. That means it was me.”
“Edwyn, what happened, it wasn’t your fault. It was Peter and Adan and—”
“I can’t keep blaming everyone else!” Edwyn snaps. “Besides, I’m not talking about that. At least, not entirely. I’m talking about the apartment. Everything Sir Nicholas and Captain Neal did for me. I couldn’t be happy with what I had. I made everyone feel awkward. I spoiled it for Elowen. I ruined it for you. And it will all go the same way here. I can’t do that. I won’t do that. You deserve to be safe and happy.”
“So do you!”
Edwyn covers his face with his hands with a frustrated growl. “No, I don’t! Don’t you get it yet? How do you not get it? I’m the corrupt one. I’m the abomination. Stop trying to turn me into something I can never be! It won’t work! That’s why everything is broken! Just let me fix this in the only way I can, and leave me alone!”
His raw fury freezes me. He’s so determined, I almost believe him. All the good—all the little stitches we made since Peran left Helston—they’ve all came undone, leaving Edwyn’s wounds gaping and exposed. The scabs grown from a lifetime beneath his father’s fist, a small protection against the rawest wounds, are gone. We did that. We knocked them off before he was ready. We half healed him and left him more vulnerable than before.
“I’m really sorry, Edwyn.”
His hands stay plastered to his face. “Don’t. Don’t apologize.”
“I hurt you. I’m gonna apologize.”
“It was my fault,” he mumbles. “I should’ve been smarter. I should’ve been more careful. I should’ve listened. I should’ve stayed away from you and Elowen and Willow. Everything that happened was because of me. My fault.”
I don’t even know if he’s talking to me or if he’s caught up in the perpetual whirlpool of blame and guilt. I know that feeling. I recognize those thoughts.
I stick my hand right into the middle of the pool and hold tight.
“My mama used to make me feel like that.”
Edwyn peeks between his fingers to glare at me.
I settle on the very edge of his bed, folding my legs up beneath me. “For years and years, I was sure I was the problem. I was the reason we couldn’t get along, and everyone looked at me weird. The reason that my parents argued and Papa always looked like he was on the battleground even at home. Everything bad was because I was bad. That’s how she made me feel, even when she didn’t say it. And she did say it sometimes. That kind of stuff sticks to you like hot grease and stays burning a long time afterward. I reckon I’ve still got burns even though I haven’t seen her in nearly three years. Sometimes I think I’m all fixed, totally scabbed over, but then something happens and one scab gets picked off and I’m all the way back there. But that doesn’t mean she was right. It just means that big hurts take a long, long time to heal, and sometimes they never go away completely.”
Edwyn’s hands drop like they’re too heavy to hold up anymore, and he looks so utterly defeated my heart twists. “I don’t know how to fix it,” he whispers. “I don’t know how to be what everyone wants me to be.”
“Which is what?”
“Happy.”
Oof.
“Well,” I say slowly, “I know for a fact that you can’t force happy, and trying just goes the opposite way. But I would bet a fair amount that holing up in the dark with only yourself for company probably isn’t helping all that much. Look, you’re not gonna poison the air and ruin everyone’s lives. Even if that was a thing, it would totally get canceled out by all the joy leaking from everyone else.” I grin. “It is frankly disgusting, and I definitely need a grumpy ally to fend off the worst of it. Wanna do battle with me?”
“You…really want me on your side?”
“Edwyn, you are on my side whether you like it or not. Might as well accept your fate.”
I hold my breath and hope. Those deep, wretched feelings in me took so long to disappear, and I had time and space and Neal. I don’t know if I can do the same for Edwyn by myself.
But—miracle of miracles—the slightest crack of a smile breaks across his lips. “I accept.”
I punch the air with a triumphant “Yes!” Then I hold out my hand to him. “I promise, cross my heart, you can goblin out whenever you like.”
He takes my offered hand and lets me haul him up. “That is all I ask.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
We are enveloped in the world of The Roost as seamlessly as if we were always a part of it, exactly the way Papa and I were welcomed when we first arrived in Eyrewood, lost and displaced.
On the third day of our joining society, Teo introduces us proudly to his brood, which is the Dumoor word for “family”: little pockets of people who make a home together in this collective. Turns out that they’ve basically adopted us too!
Sulio is the oldest, with dark brown skin and a soft, curly gray beard covering his chin. He immediately pulls Edwyn into a passionate conversation about birds—the species that can be found in these parts and the pigeons that are infamous in Helston and did you know that they’re actually more similar to crows than regular pigeons? To everyone’s surprise, Edwyn meets Sulio point to point, and I don’t think I’ve seen him so invested in a conversation. Ever.
Dolan is younger, though not by much, with forest-green hair that falls long over their shoulders—long and thick enough to wear as a cloak if they want to. Colorful tattoos speckle their tanned arms like rainbow constellations, and he and Elowen dive deep into a lengthy conversation about elemental magic that results in lightning sparking from their fingers and nearly setting the sofa alight.
Feena and Inis are a pair so in tune with each other, I can’t imagine them ever being apart. Their harmony is so fluid, even in their differences, just like Papa and Neal. They remind me of El, and I wish I could work out how to ask her thoughts on them. Feena is tall and pale, with freckles spattering every inch of her skin. Her fawn-colored hair is short and spiky, and if I didn’t like my long hair so much, I would definitely copy her. Inis, on the other hand, is short and stout, wearing loose brown breeches and a waistcoat made up of all the colors of the sea. I like her immediately. There’s a certain understanding only short people can have with each other.
Turns out Inis is responsible for the increasing length of Willow’s hair and the elaborate braiding styles he’s been practicing. On first glance, her shoulder-length hair is black. But in the right light, with the right movement, it flashes a dark rainbow, like the underside of a bird’s wing. She grins when she catches me gawking and winks. “Now, that’s what I’m going for!”
