They get from one end to the other in what feels like a blink of an eye; then they come back and do it all over again—this time tossing what looks an awful lot like a Ludares comet back and forth between their claws.

They’re moving so fast, flying so straight, throwing so hard that I barely see the blur of the comet as it leaves one dragon’s claw and is scooped up by the next. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth they go, whizzing the comet among them like they’re in the Ludares game of their lives.

“Who are they?” Macy asks, her voice breathy with excitement as the golden dragons turn around and come back for one more lap over the street.

“Those are the Golden Drakes,” Eden says, and it’s impossible to miss the awe and respect in her voice as she talks about them. “They’re the most highly trained dragons in the world and they travel all over, putting on shows and helping train other dragons.”

“The first Golden Drake squad came together more than a thousand years ago,” Flint tells me, and there’s a similar reverence in his voice. “Back when Ludares was more than a game kids played. Back when playing it decided not just who sat on the Circle but who lived and died. The dragons gave their best flyers to the squad to be trained and, slowly but surely, they helped us come out of hiding and poverty. They helped us regain our status and become the Dragon Court who can do all this.”

One more time, the Golden Drakes loop around, and when they shoot straight down Forty-Fifth, they do it so fast that they break the sound barrier—a giant sonic bomb echoing forth from the end of the street, so loud and obvious that even the humans down below jump and start looking around for what possibly could have caused it.

The rest of us burst into cheers and applause that last until a whole new set of fireworks starts exploding over our heads, so fast and intense that they light up the whole street and make it look like the sky itself is raining gold.

92

Everything’s

Up in the Air

When the show finally comes to an end, Flint goes to work on the receiving line with his parents—it’s an exhausting job, one where he, Nuri, and Aiden stand on the official dais greeting everyone who wants to meet or talk to the royal family. He says it will probably take the rest of the night and encourages us to go out and explore the festival.

Luca goes with him—big surprise—so the rest of us wander down glass Forty-Fifth Street to see what we can find.

The answer is a lot.

The reason the parade route went straight down Seventh Avenue is because Forty-Fifth Street is lined with dragon booths selling everything from claw trimmers to fire enhancement pills. While we have no need for the above-mentioned things, we do find a ton of fun stuff to window shop, try on, and/or buy.

Hudson discovers some old vinyl that he insists he needs for his collection—N.W.A.’s Straight Outta Compton and Paul Simon’s Graceland. Macy picks up some dragon’s breath candles, and Eden buys a couple of leather cuffs for her wrists that she totally falls in love with.

I don’t find anything that I can’t live without until we run across a caricature artist. Then I beg and plead with all three of them to sit with me and finally—finally—they agree. The drawing takes about fifteen minutes, and when it’s done, my heart jumps to my throat.

Hudson is portrayed as a kind of paranormal band manager, his hair extra spiky and his fangs extra long, while the three of us are shown as his girl group. Macy’s in the front, her eyes big and soulful as she croons into the microphone. Eden is on her right, blowing into a saxophone and staring out of the page with suspicious eyes so much like hers that I can’t help but be impressed. I, on the other hand, am shown shaking a tambourine. But instead of looking out at the audience, I’m looking up at Hudson with seductive eyes…and he’s looking right back.

Macy and Eden laugh over the caricature, but Hudson is as quiet as I am about it, which makes me even more self-conscious. In the end, I roll it up and stick it in my bag for later. After all, the whole point of it was to have a fun memento of the night—nothing more, nothing less.

Flint texts us after about two hours, telling us that he’s still stuck and giving us information about different places along both Forty-Fifth Street and Seventh Avenue where there are access doors back to the street. But we end up following the dragon festival all the way down Broadway to Flint’s building, which is about three miles total. We don’t mean to go that far, but it’s so much fun walking around, checking out the booths, being normal people upon whom the fate of the world doesn’t rest, it’s impossible to resist.

When we get to the airspace in front of the Dragon Court, we find a DJ and a dance floor of sorts set up right outside of it. It’s loud and crowded and colorful, and it looks like a lot of fun. But we’re all thirsty after the walk and the snacks we bought along the way, so we grab one of the pop-up high-tops near the building and sit down for a few minutes to grab some water and watch what everyone’s up to.

About ten minutes after we get our drinks, I notice that Macy keeps shaking her shoulders and tapping her feet like she wants to dance. The old Macy—before Xavier—would have just jumped up and run out onto the dance floor without thinking twice. The new Macy is more cautious, less adventurous, and though I love her dearly, or maybe because I do, it makes me really sad.

I’m about to get up and ask her to dance when Hudson beats me to the punch. Macy is surprised but happy as she lets him lead her to the dance floor.

They pick a spot not that far from Eden and me, so I can’t help watching them. Can’t help seeing how good Hudson is with Macy, how careful he is and how warm and genuine. It’s amazing to me that even after all he’s been through, after everything he’s suffered, he’s managed to come out of it all a really nice guy.

I mean, yeah, he’s acerbic and sarcastic and he’s definitely grumpy sometimes, especially when he thinks I’ve done something to deliberately offend him. But when I see him taking care of Macy, trying to cheer her up just because being sad sucks, I can’t help but think how amazing he is. He’s had a pretty shit life—I think anyone who knows him can agree to that—but instead of getting hard and heartless, he still remembers what it feels like to hurt, and because of that kind of empathy, he makes sure he doesn’t do anything to hurt others if he can avoid it.

It’s hard not to respect that, harder still not to fall for it at least a little bit. And when he grins down at her and laughs, I feel it all over my body.

“He’s an asshole just on the surface, isn’t he?” Eden asks, and I realize she’s watching Hudson and Macy nearly as intently as I am.

“Actually, I don’t think he’s an asshole at all.” Especially when he’s beaming down at Macy like a proud older brother. Or when he’s laughing at himself like right now, when the opening notes of the “Cupid Shuffle” start playing, and she’s trying to teach him what to do. “Distant, yeah. An asshole, no.”

Now Macy’s laughing, too, really laughing, for the first time in a long time. And that’s when it hits me. Hudson is as big a pushover as I am for the people he cares about. He just hides it better.

As the whole dance floor lines up and starts doing the Cupid Shuffle, I grab Eden’s hand and say, “Come on, let’s go.”

I figure she’ll argue, but she’s grinning as largely as I am as we run for the dance floor. Macy and Hudson hold out hands and we line up right next to them, just in time to move “to the right, to the right, to the right…”

We’re a mess. An absolute mess. Half the time, Hudson is going in the wrong direction, and when he isn’t, Eden’s kicking backward instead of toward the front, and it doesn’t even matter. Macy and I try to keep them in some semblance of order, but by the end, they’re just kind of doing whatever the hell they want to, and it’s awesome.

When the song ends and Niall Horan’s “Slow Hands” starts to play, we pair off naturally, and suddenly I’m in Hudson’s arms. And I realize I have been thinking about it all day, have been thinking about him all day, all week, all month, even though it’s the last thing I ever expected to have happen.

And when he looks down at me with those bottomless eyes of his—so deep and blue—there’s nothing I can do but melt.

Nothing I can do but burn.

Even before he pulls me closer. Even before he presses his long, lean, hard body against mine. Even before he moves us across the dance floor, and it hits me as I look down…

“We’re dancing on air,” I whisper as another wave of heat moves through me.

He grins even as he pulls me closer and spins us across the dance floor. “Now you know what it feels like.”

“What what feels like?”

“Being next to you.”

Everything inside me stills at his admission, and I move even closer, wanting, needing, to feel all of him against all of me.