Chapter 30 It's a Deal
She dreamed she was flying.
Not in the lazy, drifting way kids imagined. No: it was hunger and speed, teeth bared to the wind, wings lashing storms out of a clear sky. The world below was a chessboard of rivers and roads, every living thing a pulse of red. She rode the air as if born to it, her own body remade, new and terrifying and right.
She woke with her mouth open and the taste of smoke on her tongue.
Dawn painted the cave's lip with colorless light. For once, Xeris wasn’t looming. Daisy stumbled outside, feeling the bite of morning cold. The valley below was a world away, and beyond it, shrouded in haze, she could just make out the city's towers.
She stood on the edge, scales on her cheeks catching the sun, and waited for her blood to slow.
She pricked her finger, just to watch the blood bead up. She whispered a name, and the drop shivered, hung in the air, and spun. Daisy clumsily shaped it, then steadier until it was a perfect, tiny sparrow. It beat its wings, hovered, then dissolved into pink mist.
Daisy grinned, teeth sharp. “They’d lose their minds if they saw this.”
Xeris waited in the shadows, pretending not to watch. She felt him in her head, restless, pacing the stone.
She called to him: “How far is it to the city?”
He answered with a snort. ‘Two days, for a human.’
She considered the math. “But not for a dragon.”
A pause. Then: ‘Not if you hold on.’
The thought of riding him, bareback, wild, sent a pulse of fear through her. She liked it.
“Can you still fly?” she said, glancing back at the mess the manticore had made of his wings.
He spread them, slow and deliberate, showing off the ragged edges. ‘It will hurt. But yes.’
Daisy shrugged. “What doesn’t?”
She packed what little she had, her mother’s journal, some bits of food, and a copper wire. When she finished, Xeris was waiting at the cave’s mouth, crouched low. The scales on his back caught the sun, turning him into a river of red.
She scrambled up, half-expecting him to buck her off. He didn’t.
“Ready?” she asked.
No answer. Just a leap, a drop, and the world peeled away.
They rode the thermals, higher and higher, the wind peeling tears from her eyes. Daisy whooped, the sound snatched away before it ever left her lips. The city grew on the horizon, the walls a snake curling through the haze. Xeris never slowed, never faltered, even when blood leaked from the rents in his wings.
He landed them miles out, in a copse of dead pines. Daisy tumbled off, legs shaking.
“Is this the plan?” she asked. “Just walk in?”
He curled his tail around himself. ‘You are a ghost to them. They think you died in the menagerie fire.’
Daisy let that sink in. “Good. I need to find my family.”
He said nothing, but watched her with eyes that burned.
She set off, keeping to the tree line. The city had changed, with more guards on the road, wards glowing blue at every checkpoint. The closer she got, the more she felt the pulse of the wards, a headache blooming at the back of her skull.
At the old aqueduct, she ducked behind a tangle of roots. In the mud beneath, she found the first of the blood-worms: tiny, silver, writhing, hungry for anything warm. The city’s new defense, probably courtesy of the mages.
She scooped one up, let it bite her. It didn’t hurt much. Instead, she felt the magic snap through her veins, an electric jolt that cleared her mind. She focused, thought of the spiral, and the worm exploded, spraying a ribbon of red into the air.
Daisy grinned. “Not so smart after all.”
She followed the old smugglers’ path, ducked under a collapsed wall, and made for the alleys she’d grown up in. It wasn’t home, not really, but it was the only place she knew how to hide.
She paused at the first cross-street, catching her breath. In the window above, she saw her reflection: face streaked with mud, hair wild, and the scales shining through the dirt. She looked dangerous. She liked it.
She pressed on.
Her family’s flat was boarded up. Daisy rapped the old code twice, three times. Nothing. She tried again, softer.
At last, the door cracked. A face peeked out. Delia.
She looked older, thinner, but the scar on her lip was the same.
Delia gasped. “Daisy? Is it really…”
Daisy cut her off, pushing inside. “No time. Where’s Ma?”
Delia pointed to the bed. Daisy crossed the room in two strides. Her mother lay curled up, thin as a wish, the spiral tattoo on her neck faded but still there.
Daisy knelt. “Ma, it’s me.”
Her mother blinked. “I saw you. In a dream.” Her voice was a rasp. “You were flying.”
Daisy swallowed, then smiled. “You always wanted to see the world from up high.”
She took her mother’s hand. The scales on Daisy’s skin shimmered against the papery flesh.
Her mother laughed, a wet, weak sound. “I told you it would find you.”
“What?”
“The curse. The spiral. Our family’s gift.” Her eyes fluttered. “You have to run. They’ll come for you.”
Daisy shook her head. “Not this time.”
Footsteps thundered above. Delia’s face went white.
Daisy stood. “Get her ready to move,” she told Delia. “Be fast.”
She opened the window and saw the guards already moving up the alley, four men in blue, faces hard as stone.
Daisy considered her options. Hide? Fight? Run?
She chose the third.
“Out the back,” she hissed. Delia threw a cloak over her mother and hustled her out. Daisy followed, keeping low, feeling the blood thrum in her veins.
They cut through the maze of alleys, past the rat pits, past the old bakery with the busted sign. Daisy felt the city reacting to her, the magic rippling under the surface. She remembered what Xeris said: Rule or die.
She’d spent her whole life running.
She stopped. Turned.
The guards rounded the corner, wands already drawn. Daisy smiled, teeth sharp.
“You want to see what a real monster looks like?” she called.
They hesitated.
Daisy held up her hand, cut her palm with the knife she’d stolen from the market. The blood arced out, twisted, and formed a perfect, burning spiral in the air.
The guards flinched, but one stepped forward, bold. “You’re under arrest, by order of the High Magus…”
Daisy flicked her wrist. The spiral exploded, a net of red energy wrapping the guards, binding them in place. They screamed, tried to move, but the blood magic clamped tighter.
Daisy laughed, the sound wild. “You were saying?”
She ran, catching up to Delia and her mother at the edge of the canal. They ducked into an old boat, paddled under the bridge, and waited in the dark while the city howled above.
After an hour, the noise faded.
Daisy looked at Delia, then at her mother, who slept now, breathing easier.
Delia shook her head. “What did you do?”
Daisy didn’t answer.
Instead, she watched the sky, waiting for the next threat, the next chance to fight.
She wasn’t running anymore.
Neither was the dragon.