“All right, let’s move. And Sebastian...” Talbot nodded at me, but it was a gesture of silent approval. “Don’t think you’re off the hook if your arm falls off,” he said. “We can’t have our youngest dragonslayer hanging up the gun after his very first kill.”

I breathed out slowly. “No, sir.”

The squad began to move out. I looked at Tristan, and he held out an arm, indicating the path forward. “After you,” he said, the hint of a smirk on his face. “Partner.”

EMBER

I found Garret in the hotel’s business center a couple hours later.

I’d left Riley and Wes checking the status of their safe houses, slipping out of the room when their attention was diverted. I felt a little guilty, knowing Riley still wanted to talk, but I couldn’t face him right now. I could still see the Archivist, the ancient, unstoppable Wyrm, wrapping his fingers around Garret’s throat, and there had been nothing I could do to stop it. I could feel the utter terror, thinking I was going to lose him. He was more than a friend, I realized, more than the steady, unshakable soldier I could always count on. I was a dragon, and Cobalt was my Sallith’tahn, but I couldn’t ignore what I felt toward Garret any longer. Even if I had no idea what it was.

Peering through the door of the business center, my heart pounded as I saw him, sitting in the computer chair with his back to me. I didn’t know what I wanted to say, if I should say anything. But I slipped through the frame, walked across the room and slid into the seat beside his. His gray eyes shifted to me, wary and puzzled, and I swallowed hard.

“Hey,” I greeted, glancing at the screen in front of him. It was blank, all the windows closed out, leaving no clue of what had been on it. “Did you get in touch with Tristan?” I asked. He nodded shortly.

“I sent him a private message,” the soldier answered. “Using an old secure channel. He should see it and know who it’s from.”

“Do you think he’ll agree to meet with you?”

“I don’t know.” He gestured to a small black phone sitting on the desk beside the computer. “I gave him the number of the burner phone. As soon as he contacts me, for whatever reason, I’ll destroy it and we can leave the premises. I’m sure Riley is eager to move out.”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “We’re just waiting for Tristan’s answer.”

He fell silent, staring at the phone, as if willing his former partner to call him. His eyes were bloodshot, and his normally close-cropped hair was getting kind of shaggy. He looked...tired. More than tired. World-weary. The kind of deep, bone-crushing exhaustion that descends on you when you’re out of options and all your choices suck.

I understood. The last few days I’d caught only snatches of sleep here and there. Between crappy hotel beds, taking watch every few hours and being paranoid that the Order would kick down the door at any moment, I’d spent more nights awake than not.

Of course, that assumed I could even sleep anymore without the nightmares. I had killed again; it seemed I would never escape that now. Those men in the Vault, those strangers I’d never met, they had died so easily. One moment they were standing there, shouting at me, the next they were gone. Alive, and then dead. Just like that.

Life was so fragile, I mused, shivering. Anyone could be taken away; gone in the blink of an eye. I was terrified that, very soon, I would watch it happen to someone I cared about. Add to that the continuous stress of being hunted, sharing a room with two people who made my insides dance in different ways and the whole future conversation with Riley hanging over my head, and I wasn’t in the most cheerful of moods. I was weary of running and weary of being shot at. I missed Crescent Beach, where I’d had friends, a brother, a real home. I wondered if Garret felt the same.

“Do you miss it sometimes?” I asked softly. His metallic eyes flicked to me, and I nodded at the phone. “That life? Being part of St. George. Do you ever wonder what would’ve happened...if you never came to Crescent Beach?”

“If we’d never met?” Garret’s voice was emotionless. “I’ve always thought about it.”

I looked away from him, stunned. That hurt a lot more than I thought it would. Though I didn’t know what I was expecting. Garret was an outcast, on the run from the Order he once called family, hunted and hated by Talon and St. George alike. Because he’d met a dragon in a tiny town called Crescent Beach, and his world started to fall apart.

“But I don’t have to wonder,” Garret continued before I could say anything. “I know exactly what would’ve happened. I’d still be with St. George, hunting and killing dragons because the Order told me it was right. I’d be out there gunning down rogues, maybe hunting Riley himself, because I wouldn’t know there’s a difference. I’d still be killing indiscriminately. And I...would have never met you.”