Ember Hill: Age 16. Mother: Kate Hill, deceased. Father: Joseph Hill, deceased.

Both parents, dead. In a fatal car accident, apparently. Everything below that was fairly normal. Ember and her brother, Dante, were born at St. Mary’s Hospital in Pierre, South Dakota. Their birth certificates listed them as twins, with Dante being born three minutes ahead of his sister, making him the eldest. They appeared to have had a normal childhood, though there was little information beyond where and when they were born and how their parents had died. Though that might mean any number of things, most Talon sleepers had one thing in common. They were all “orphans,” living with relatives or guardians, or adopted into another family. their human records meant nothing; all Talon operatives had birth certificates, records of where they were born, social security numbers, everything. Talon was nothing if not thorough, but the orphan thing always stood out.

“So,” Tristan went on, as I picked up the second pair of binoculars and joined him at the edge. “I’ve been thinking. Of those three girls we met yesterday, did any of them scream ‘dragon’ to you?”

“No,” I replied, raising the binoculars. “They all seemed perfectly normal.”

“Yes,” Tristan agreed. “And Talon has taught them to blend in. but of those three, who would the one you would pick for the sleeper?”

“Ember,” I said immediately. There was no doubt in my mind.

She was pretty, she was intelligent, and she had a fierceness that the other two lacked. “But she has a sibling,” I went on, glancing over at him. “And it’s been proven that dragons only lay one egg at a time.

So it can’t be her.”

“That’s true,” Tristan said slowly. “But here’s the thing, Garret.

There are exceptions to the rules. Just because it’s highly improbable for a tiger to have a white cub doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. Just because whales only have one calf at a time doesn’t mean they’ve never had twins. There are anomalies in every species, so who’s to say that a dragon can’t lay a pair of eggs at once? We know that dragons are loners, and that they plant only one sleeper at a time. But our own understanding could be holding us back.” Tristan lowered the binoculars and finally looked at me dead on. “What if we accepted the idea that there could be more than one dragon in Crescent Beach? Now how does that girl look to you?”

A chill ran up my spine at the thought. “Are you saying that Ember is our sleeper?”

“No.” Tristan sighed. “Not yet. We can’t make a move, of course, unless we’re absolutely sure. That means you have to see the sleeper in its true form, or have indisputable evidence that it’s a dragon. If we guess wrong and expose the Order to the public, or worse, take out a civilian…” He shuddered. “Let’s just say we’d better be damn sure we have the right target.”

“I’m still not entirely sure how I’m going to do that,” I admitted, finally voicing the concern that had been plaguing me since I’d received this mission. “Yes, we have a few leads, but I have no idea how I’m going to convince a dragon to show its true self. I mean, isn’t that exactly what Talon trains them not to do?”

I felt very weak then, admitting that I was unsure, hating that there wasn’t a tangible enemy I could take down. I wasn’t like Tristan, patient, calculating, willing to wait as long as it was required for the target to show itself. I wanted to see the target right then, to know what I was up against, what I could shoot at.

Tristan shook his head and returned to scanning the sky.

“Trust,” my partner murmured, “is a very powerful thing. If you can get them to trust you, they’ll share their thoughts, their fears, their friends’ secrets, anything. They’ll tell you if their best friend can sometimes breathe fire, or if they saw some strange creature flying across the moon one night. Everyone slips up, makes a mistake.

We just have to be there when they do.”

I didn’t say anything to that, and for several minutes, we scanned the horizon in silence. I thought about what Tristan had said and wondered, vaguely, how I could get a perfect stranger to open up and trust me when I could never reciprocate.

Suddenly restless, I stepped back from the edge, causing my partner to frown at me. “Where are you going?”

“This is useless.” I gestured to the sky. “We don’t need two people looking over the same spot. We’ll have better luck if we split our efforts. You stay here, keep an eye on the beach. I’m going out to scan the cliffs.”

“By yourself? And if you see the sleeper flying around, you’ll…what? Take it down alone?” Tristan shook his head. “Even hatchlings are a two-person job, Garret.”

“If I see the sleeper, I’ll observe quietly from a distance and inform you immediately.”

“Charred corpses have a notoriously difficult time placing a call.”

“It’s not going to attack me right out in the open. And when did you get to be such a mother hen?” I walked back toward the stairs, pulling keys out of my pocket. “I’m going. If you see anything, let me know, and I’ll call you the instant I spot anything remotely interesting.” Opening the door, I glanced over my shoulder. “I’ll be back at oh-five-hundred. If you don’t hear from me in a couple hours, I’ve probably been eaten by a dragon.”