Chapter 18 Watching the Watchers
Daisy barely made it ten yards before the world changed again. Not magic this time, but something meaner: the crackle of human voices, sharp as a stick to the ribs. She dropped flat behind a mound of rotting leaves that covered her scent, cursing the boots she'd left on to save her feet. The voices grew, two men, maybe more, cutting through the undergrowth with the careless noise of people who'd never been prey.
She peeked between layers of fern. Two handlers in the estate's livery, black coats crusted with mud, both armed: one with a wand, the other a stick thick enough to break a grown man's leg or worse, her whole body. They stopped within spitting distance, right where Daisy's boot had left a print in the soft dirt.
"You see this?" The first man jabbed at the mark with his stick. "Something's been through here. Bigger than a fox."
The other spat. "I told you we needed another ward post. After that mess with the bonehounds, the Lord's paranoid."
"Paranoid? I watched a hound eat its own foot last week. If the big one gets out, we're all dog food." He grinned, yellow teeth and all, then stepped closer to the spring where Daisy had left her signature. He squinted at the glowing water, then kicked the moss around it, smearing the tracks.
Daisy listened, keeping her breath shallow, her fingers clenched around the satchel.
The first man leaned on his stick, voice dropping. "You hear they're starving the thing?"
"The dragon?"
"Supposed to make it docile. Extraction's easier if it's weak. Lord Ravensworth's orders."
The second man barked a laugh. "It'll eat his face off before it gets weak."
"Hope it does. Bastard's overdue for a comeuppance."
The men moved on, stepping over Daisy's hiding place without a glance. She waited, counting heartbeats, until their voices faded into the trees. Then she rose, careful to match the silence of the woods, and scanned the ground for new prints.
She followed the men at a distance, keeping to shadows, moving only when the wind shifted. Her city instincts kept her invisible: stay low, move when the others' heads turn, stop when they pause. The handlers' patrol was sloppy, distracted by their own complaints, but Daisy never trusted luck. She watched, mesmerized, then used a handful of pebbles to map their circuit in her palm, rolling them from finger to finger as she crept forward.
Twice, one of them turned without warning, and Daisy froze, every muscle tight as piano wire. She could feel the blue water pulsing under her skin, the new scales on her arm tingling in the cold. When the men finally looped back toward the estate, she pressed onward, following the path they'd trampled into the ground.
The eastern enclosures came into view, marked by a ring of metal stakes and blue-glass lanterns. Daisy skirted the edge, noting each ward post, the rhythm of the lights, the gaps between patrols. Inside the ring, the world was different: trees gnawed to stumps, earth churned and flattened, the stench of ammonia and bleach cutting through even the sick-sweet magic. She saw cages, most empty, some with things inside that didn't move. At the far end, a low barn squatted under the trees, its roof patched with slabs of hammered copper.
Daisy crouched, counting heads. Four guards here, all bored, all with wands. She tucked that information away, then circled back toward the thicker woods, searching for a place to hole up.
She found it at the base of a massive yew, its roots tangled aboveground, forming a natural cave half-hidden by brambles. Daisy scooped out a nest in the dry leaves, set her satchel as a pillow, and let her body melt into the earth. Her arm ached, but not badly. The scales caught the dusk, throwing back a dull, almost purple light.
She waited until full dark, then drew out her mother's journal. The pages looked ordinary, but when Daisy touched the spiral on her wrist to the one drawn inside, both marks glowed. She angled the book, tilting it until the glow lined up: east, toward the barn, and farther, into the center of the woods. The skin beneath the scales throbbed in time, like a second heartbeat.
Daisy tapped the journal. The next step was obvious.
She tucked the book into her shirt, pulled her knees to her chest, and closed her eyes. Sleep came fast, dragged under by exhaustion and the springwater's blue heat. But even in dreams, she could feel the pull, winding tighter every minute, like a hook set in her gut.
Tomorrow, she'd go to the center. Tomorrow, she'd see the big one for herself.