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“So you suffered from profound memory loss after your family was lost in this village?” Healer Elycia perked up. “And did you see a healer to discuss what had happened to you? Perhaps with the right treatments—”

“No, you still don’t understand.” I put my palms flat on the table, trying to stay calm. “I’m not explaining this well.” I lifted my hands and touched the tips of my ears. “You see these? My ears? My hair? The traits you think of as marking me as a dragon rider? That very first day I tried to tell you all, they don’t mark me as a rider where I come from. They mark me as being fae. I’m halffae.” I glanced at Florence. She’d ingested my blood in a dark-magic ritual Rodriguez had worked. Now she was developing fae traits, too. “In my world, there are many fae people, and they all have ears like this. And believe me, they are not dragon riders. There are no dragons in Aercanum.”

“Aercanum,” Rodriguez repeated. He was staring at me. “Is that what the place you’re from is called?”

“Yes,” I answered, relieved that he wasn’t trying to diagnose me with memory loss like Elycia. “I’m from the kingdom of Pendrath. But Aercanum is the name of our world, just like this one is called Sangratha. Aercanum is much larger than Sangratha.”

“How did this happen exactly?” Sankara demanded. “How does one simply travel from one world to another?”

“I still don’t know that exactly. If I did, I probably wouldn’t be here.” I shifted uncomfortably. “In my case … well, I died.”

“You died?” Florence squeaked.

I nodded. “I thought I had died, yes. I was fighting someone. Someone who was, well, a lot like Viktor. It’s a long story, and we don’t have time for me to tell it. But when I died, I wound up here.”

Elycia was opening her mouth, and that wasn’t good. I was sure she was going to diagnose me with insanity next, and really, who could blame her?

I held up my hand. “Wait, please wait. Look, I wasn’t alone when I woke up here. There was a voice in my head.”

Elycia pressed her lips together.

“I know how that sounds,” I said hastily. “I know how insane it sounds. Why do you think I never told anyone before now?” I looked at Florence beside me, staring up at me owlishly from behind dark-rimmed glasses. “Not even my dearest friend.” There was a lump in my throat. “I couldn’t risk it. Couldn’t risk that she wouldn’t believe me.”

“Did you tell Blake?” Rodriguez asked, his voice flat.

I shook my head. “Yes and no. I told him parts of my history, but not about the voice in my head. Not about how …” This was it. This was the hard part. I took a deep breath and shoved the words out. “Not about how my dead mother’s spirit had somehow saved me from dying, brought me to another realm, and then gotten stuck in my head. No, I didn’t tell him that part.” I rubbed my forehead and closed my eyes. “Just the part about being from another world and being fae,” I mumbled. “And he believed me.” It was too quiet. I looked around.

Healer Elycia glanced back and forth between everyone. “There is a lot going on here right now. I’m not sure I can take it all in.”

“Miss Pendragon’s story is completely ludicrous,” Rodriguez agreed. He paused. “But I believe her.”

I stared at him. “You do?” Then I laughed. “Of course you do. You probably already knew.”

He had the decency to look uncomfortable. “Of course I didn’t.”

“You knew parts,” I said bluntly. “You must have. There’s no other way.”

Professor Sankara looked back and forth between us confusedly. “No other way what?”

“He helped me, he told me things,” I exclaimed. “The kinds of books he has stashed away in his office?” I shook my head. “You already know he knows things about dragons no other person in this world seems to.” I eyed Rodriguez suspiciously. “So when I tell them about the Veil … ?”

Rodriguez said nothing.

“Right. You already knew about that, too, didn’t you? When were you going to tell them?”

“May we just pause for a moment? I do wish to hear about this Veil,” Lysander said coolly. “But Medra, can you please clarify for us to whom exactly have you been speaking?”

“And what is the Bonewood?” Evie exclaimed. “She just dropped that name as if we might know what it means.”

Rodriguez and I still stared at one another. “Rodriguez does know,” I said softly. “Don’t you, you lying bastard?”

“Watch your mouth, Miss Pendragon. And I think you should go first,” he said shortly. “Why don’t you finish telling us your little story?”

“Fine,” I spat. “My mother’s voice was in my head. I did a ritual to get it out. Her spirit was transferred to a dagger. I stabbed Molindra with the dagger, and well, you can all figure out the rest.”

Elycia’s mouth had fallen open.

“Are you saying you put your mother into a dragon?” Professor Stonefist asked, leaning forward, her eyes wide.