Page 55 of The Heart and the Hawthorn

Can’t you feel it, zookeeper?

Shakily, Dian had managed to get to their feet. Their harrowed eyes had shifted beyond the fence now, to where the misty smoke was beginning to clear. Frida made a little noise, an inarticulate whimper as the keening in the back of her mind grew louder. Like sheets of hot metal being rubbed against each other. Deep down she already knew who was in this cage, with growing horror she didn’t want to admit to herself. It was hard to think beyond the clawing at her skull.

Frida forced herself to take another step towards the fence, the hurt immediately spiking higher. But as the smoke shifted, on the other side of the burnt structure, she could see a dark heap emerging, sounding a tormented, never-ending, gut-wrenching cry.

A dragon with terracotta scales.

She sank to her knees. In her peripheral vision, Dian was racing up and down the fence, trying to get closer. ‘Do something!’ Moth was yelling. ‘We have to do something.’

She’d come here to find Fireheart. Now she’d found her.

‘Oh god,’ Frida whimpered.

Fireheart’s terracotta scales were streaked with soot, and blood. Frida could see the rich wine-dark stains, could smell the unmistakable metallic tang. It coated Fireheart’s emaciated frame, her heaving sides, her – her wings. Frida swayed. The wounds were raw. She’d always been told that it happened far, far away – in some distant inconceivable desert. But these wounds looked as if they’d been done yesterday. Bile rushed up the back of her throat, and she vomited violently all over the grass. Dian had located the cage door and was frantically lunging to open it, but the moment their fingers made contact, they whipped their hand back as if they’d been burned. They hissed, cradling their hand to their chest.

‘It’s the wards,’ Frida said hoarsely, pulling herself back up. She wiped her mouth, too horrified to be ashamed.

‘Wards?’ Dian snapped.

She felt another surge of bile. ‘I don’t think you can touch them. They’re meant to protect us.’

Dian’s onyx eyes blazed. ‘Protect us?’

Frida swallowed hard.

‘You open it then,’ they hissed.

Frida nodded and obediently reached out a hand towards the door. But a fresh dart of agony shot through her before she’d even got close, and she wrenched her fingers back. She gazed at the fence, the pain almost incandescent.

‘I –’ she stammered. ‘I – can’t.’ She shook her head blankly as the disbelief roiled through her. What good was a zookeeper who couldn’t even touch a fence? But she tried to keep the thought to herself as a snarl curled in Dian’s throat.

Frida took an involuntary step backwards.

‘But you’re human,’ they growled. ‘This is your magic.’

Frida could see the sparkle of a spider skittering by Dian’s left ear, and she stood there helplessly. She could feel her boots sinking into the chalky soil, as if it was quicksand. It had been late summer in 1835, she remembered with an ache in her chest, when Sir Joshua and another member of the LEZites, Edward Caval, had brought Fireheart from the North Arabian Desert – the vast arid steppes of the Badiya – with her wings in shreds.

Now Frida had gotten over her initial shock, she reasoned that Fireheart’s injuries couldn’t have just happened. But the dragon couldn’t have been here long for her to look like this either. Days? A week or two at most. Frida couldn’t see the house from here, but she felt it. Despite everything, she couldn’t help the unbidden thrill. Sir Joshua might still be here! She couldn’t imagine him leaving if he had a dragon in his care, not in a state like this. It had been Sir Joshua who’d given Fireheart her name.

‘Talk to her.’

Frida startled.

Dian was half hidden in the grainy light, but she could see the pallid hue to their skin. ‘Talk to her,’ they said again. ‘Ask her, how is she here? What can we do for her?’

Frida nodded dumbly. Although she tried her best to focus, the pain was blinding when she drew closer to the fence. She rubbed her face, trying to force back the terrible realisation. If it hurt her this much, how much more must it be hurting Fireheart? How much must it have been hurting all the animals in the LEZ, every day? Animals, as a rule, didn’t really like going too close to the fences, but she’d always been told it was because they were electrified. Not because of the wards. Un-magics, Lucky had called them. Guilt wrapped steely fingers around her heart. She had to tell someone. She had to get help. She had to go to Forge House.

Dian grabbed her arm, wild with urgency. ‘Ask her!’

‘Ok!’ she cried, wincing. ‘Yes.’

Dian dropped her arm.

Frida crouched shakily, quietly hyperventilating. Thinking she might be sick again, she closed her eyes and tried to draw in a long breath. She could feel Dian’s raging, ferocious energy vibrating off their heated skin. If she’d wanted to convince them of the LEZ’s good intentions, this was not a good place to start. Their emotions were so sharp, she was finding it difficult to identify what was hers and what was Dian’s. Whoever had been caring for Fireheart must have no idea what to do with her – of course they didn’t know dragons could speak every language in the universe. And from the other side, Fireheart – maybe she had no idea what had happened to her either. Maybe all she needed was for someone to explain.

Maybe it was all one horrible, tragic misunderstanding.

Frida had no clue where to begin, so she tried the simplest option. ‘Uh, hello?’