She laughs. “It’s New York, baby. Shawarma, fries, dolmas, and cheesecake. Everything a dragon needs to go into a food coma. But the vamps are on their own.”

I empty out the bags on the dresser and steal a fry. Okay, a bag of fries.

Less than a minute later, Luca and Flint pop their heads in the open doorway. “God, it smells like home in here,” Flint says with a happy groan. “You’re my favorite, Eden.”

He gives her a giant, smacking kiss on the top of her head, but she just rolls her eyes. “Who said I got any for you?”

“The text you sent me less than five minutes ago telling me to get my ass to Grace’s room.” He holds up his phone as proof.

“I must have had an out-of-body experience,” she shoots back—right before she tosses a wrapped sandwich in his general vicinity.

Hudson catches it as he walks in the door, snagging it right out of the air in front of Flint. “Eden, you shouldn’t have,” he says dryly.

“Bro.” Flint narrows his eyes. “Unhand the shawarma and no one gets hurt.”

“I am, quite literally, quaking in fear.” Hudson holds up the sandwich—in a rock-steady hand.

I toss Flint a giant piece of cheesecake. “Eat dessert first. He’ll get bored with tormenting you eventually.”

“You think so?” Flint asks doubtfully.

“He always gives up messing with me pretty quickly.”

“That’s because he doesn’t want his mate to hate him,” Flint argues, even as he digs his fork into the piece of cheesecake. “He doesn’t care if I hate him.”

“True story,” Hudson agrees, flopping down next to me on the bed.

I start to offer him a bite of cheesecake—I only ever give advice I’m willing to take myself—then blush as I realize what I’m doing. “Sorry. I…forgot.”

He shakes his head. “No worries.” But there’s something in his eyes when he looks at me, and I know that it makes me squirm in the best possible way.

“So what happens tonight?” Macy asks in between popping fries in her mouth. “Like, what do we need to wear? Are we going to be walking around or—”

Flint laughs. “Probably not much walking. But wear something comfortable—just make sure you bring a jacket.”

Macy makes a face at him. “That tells me absolutely nothing.”

“I know.” He looks very happy with himself.

“Luca, will you please do something with your boy?” I whine.

“I’ve done lots of things with him,” he shoots back. “So you’re going to have to be more specific.”

“Hey!” Flint looks embarrassed but also really pleased, and Macy cracks up…and so does everyone else.

Eden even says, “Niiiiice,” then leans over and bumps knuckles with Luca, who looks quite proud of himself, too.

And I just watch the whole thing with a giant grin on my face. Because this is what I was saying to Nuri yesterday. This, right here, is what I’m fighting for. And what I’ll die for, if I have to.

90

The Sky’s the Limit

“This is unbelievable,” Macy says three hours later as we walk through Times Square after dusk, the sun just about to dip completely from the sky so it’s lit up in dark purples and blues.

“It is,” I agree, because there’s something totally surreal about strolling through New York City less than a week before I graduate from high school. And not just New York City but one of the most iconic parts of the city: Times Square and Broadway.

My mom was a huge Broadway musical fan, and she kept telling me that the summer after I graduated, we’d come spend a week in New York and see Hamilton and Kinky Boots and whatever other shows struck our fancy. My being here now, so close to gradation but without her, breaks my heart just a little.

I managed to ignore it all day yesterday—everything with Hudson and Nuri helped with that—but standing here, right outside the Richard Rodgers Theatre where Hamilton is performed, suddenly I can’t not think about it.

I can’t not think about her, singing show tunes in our kitchen as she spread out her herbs and flowers all over the table and made her tea blends.

I can’t not think about the fact that she won’t be doing my hair for graduation in a few days.

I can’t not think about how much I miss her…and how many things I want to ask her about this new world I’m living in, including did she know. And if she did, why didn’t she tell me?

Most days, I’m learning to live with them being gone. But every once in a while, it creeps up on me, and this is one of those times, when the pain sinks through me like a stone hitting the water, ripples widening until they cover every part of me.

“Have you ever seen it?” Hudson asks, and I realize that I’ve been staring at the front of the theater for way too long.

“No.” I turn away, sweep my eyes across Times Square in an effort to find something, anything else to concentrate on.

“Hey,” Hudson asks, concern replacing the lightness of his tone from just a few moments ago. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” I tell him, because I am.

Because I have to be.

“What happens next?” Macy asks as we look out over the neon cacophony that is Times Square. Billboards stretch up the sides of buildings, flashing colors and pictures the size of small buildings. People and cars are everywhere, the sound of their voices and horns filling the street. It’s organized chaos that isn’t actually all that organized but somehow works anyway.

But all I can think as I look at the thousands and thousands of people crowding the area is, How on earth are they going to be able to host a dragon festival here?

“I think we wait for Flint to get back,” Eden says as we squeeze between a hot dog vendor and a taxi driver having an argument with a passenger.

“Yeah, but how is this going to work?” I ask. “There are so many people here.”

“So many,” Macy echoes.

“I’m sure the dragons have something up their sleeves,” Luca says. “They wouldn’t bring us up here for nothing.”

“I know,” Macy agrees. “But where?”

We all stand in the middle of the street and look straight up—at the top of the W and the Marriott Marquis and a bunch of other buildings I haven’t bothered to identify. The purples and oranges of dusk have started to descend on the patchwork pieces of sky directly above us, and I can’t shake the feeling that the dragons are out there somewhere, waiting for something. I just don’t have a clue what it is.

“There he is!” Luca points toward the crowded street area right in front of Junior’s restaurant, and sure enough, I can see Flint wading through the crowd, a huge grin on his face.

“Sorry about that,” he says as soon as he gets to us. “I got hung up helping the Court organize a few last details, but it’s all good now. You ready?”

“So ready,” Macy tells him. “But where is it?”

He winks at her. “Come on. I’ll show you.” And then he walks straight through the door of the Marriott Marquis.

The rest of us look at one another, but in the end, we follow him through the revolving door and into the hotel.

Hudson is walking beside me, his hands shoved in his pockets like he’s done this a thousand times. My eyebrows shoot up, and I whisper to him, “Have you been to this festival before?”

He meets my gaze and smiles. “But of course.”

The others move ahead of us, and I turn to Hudson and grin. “You can tell me. Is the festival here?”

“Kind of,” he answers, and I think he’s enjoying the mystery.

“You’re not even going to give me a hint?” I plead.

“Nope.” He grins.

“You suck, you know that, right?” I tease.

“I’ve been known to,” he answers with a wink.

And I have nothing to say to that. Heat creeps into my cheeks at his meaning, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t notice that things had shifted between us yesterday. In the basement, actually. We were both dancing around this thing between us, but we knew…we were headed for a reckoning soon.

We catch up to the others and take the glass elevators all the way to the forty-fifth floor, and when we get out, the entire hotel is laid out below us. I don’t know if it’s a money thing or a dragon thing, but they sure do like being high up.

There are no ballrooms here, only rooms, and I’m totally confused now because I have no idea how a festival could take place in a hotel room—even a big hotel room, which this is, I realize as soon as Flint swipes the key card. And when I say big, I mean BIG. There’s an actual grand piano in the middle of the sitting room, for God’s sake. You don’t see that in a New York City hotel every day…or any day, really.

The suite is filled with people drinking champagne, eating hors d’oeuvres, laughing, and apparently having a fantastic time. It looks more like a party than a festival, at least until Flint brings us over to one of the huge picture windows that overlooks Times Square and asks, “Do you guys trust me?”

“No,” Hudson answers immediately. “Not even a little bit.”