Page 84 of The Infirmary for Dragon Burns and Midair Mishaps

“I do trust you.” She kissed me hard. Kissed me like the brush of her lips might be able to seal a ring of protection around me. But Cai’amar was a land without magic. All I had were my wits and my strength and my heart.

Her heart now.

“Come back to me,” Eden said as she released me.

My pulse hammered desperately beneath my breastbone, every cell in my body screaming to hold on to her.

“Where else would I go, woman?” I bussed my lips once more against her forehead. “Min will protect you. Trust her, too.” Then I turned and pressed my hand to the side of Min’s neck. She lowered her head, blinking slowly as if to say she understood what Eden now meant to both of us.

“Just come back to me, Vaela Frixsar.” Eden’s arms tightened around me from behind. “I mean it. Or I’ll follow you into the next life.”

“Is that a promise?” I asked.

“It’s a threat,” she said. “You won’t know the real heat of a burn until you’ve tasted the heat of my rage.”

I laughed into the wind as Min dropped through the clouds. Stars, I loved this woman. And then I was sliding, falling, thudding down right between the Wretch’s massive, spiked shoulder blades.

28

EDEN

“Ahhhh!”

I screamed as Min shot straight up into the clouds like a geyser. We were going so fast it felt like we might collide with the moon. I curled my hands around her shimmering scales, clenching so hard my fingers bruised.

Min twisted at the last second, zipping around in some sideways loop, turning the stars blurry as my head spun.

I was going to puke and it was going to smack me in the face as we zipped around in circles. I swallowed the terror on the back of my tongue. I needed to get a hold of myself. Vaela needed us.

Ember Ridge needed us.

“There,” I called, pointing to the dark shape moving beneath us. The Wretch covered entire buildings, its limbs crashing through homes. Min darted around like an arrow fired from a bow, unleashing a fireball the size of my head. It drew the Wretch’s attention, a menacing growl echoing through the sky.

“I think you just pissed it off,” I called.

Min replied with a growl of her own.

The Wretch stopped moving long enough to zero in on Min, pearly black eyes narrowing. Its jaw opened suddenly, wide enough to swallow a small house, and I glimpsed my final moments. Then a spear whizzed through the air, clanking against the dragon’s teeth. I spotted Matty on a nearby rooftop, cheering at having made contact.

The Wretch shook off the blow, hissing in confusion. It turned, head snapping in Matty’s direction as Vaela scaled the ridges along its spine. Those bolt cutters flashed from where she’d strapped them to her back.

“Let’s go,” I cried. We needed to do something before Matty was charbroiled.

Min shot off again, hovering out of reach of the Wretch’s massive tail, releasing a narrow spire of flame at the top of the Wretch’s skull. It snapped its long neck to the sky, dark eyes locking on us. It opened its jaw wide, and this time I stared down into the vortex of flame that stirred at the back of its throat. My breath left me in a rush.

Was this the last thing my father had seen before he died?

The Wretch sucked in a whistling breath, breaking me from that horrible thought. “Minnnnn,” I shouted. “We have to move!”

She hesitated and my heart thumped nervously.

“Min!”

She waited, wings flapping…

Waited.

Blinding orange light gathered beneath us.