Ember jerked, eyes widening, and my mouth dropped open. Mr. Gordon smiled. “I think you’ve earned a bit of a break,” our teacher said, finally glancing at Ember, who appeared stunned into speechlessness. “You are correct. It can’t be training and exams every hour of every day. If you pass the final stages of your exams tomorrow, we’ll all go into town to celebrate. Is that motivation enough for you, Ms. Hill?”
Ember stammered an affirmative, and Mr. Gordon nodded. But his gaze met mine over her head, and in that dark glare, I could see the echo of his thoughts. This is what power is, Dante, it said. This is what you could have, if you do exactly what Talon wants. At the top, no one will tell you what to do, ever again.
At the top, you could be free.
Ember tried talking to me after we were dismissed, but I barely heard anything she said as we walked across the dusty yard to our rooms. My mind was spinning, and I suddenly didn’t care about the movie, or our ill-fated adventure, or anything but the upcoming test. I knew what I had to do now. I had a clear path, and I would not stray from it until I reached the end, at the very top. Even though the journey would be hard, and I would have to let some things go. It might be painful, but in the end, it would be worth it.
Sacrifice was necessary, but I would be free.
“Riley,” said a voice out of the darkness.
I turned, shooting a bleary glance at the clock on the wall as the soldier appeared in the door frame of the cabin’s tiny kitchen—4:50 a.m. Apparently, I wasn’t the only early riser of the group. That, or St. George hadn’t gotten much sleep, either. Yesterday had been an exhausting, mind-numbingly long day of travel, the five of us—me, Ember, Wes, St. George and the Eastern dragon—stuffed into an old black Jeep that was not designed with comfort in mind. We’d taken shifts, both in driving and getting to sit in the front passenger seat, while the rest of us huddled in the back. A couple hours from our final destination, we’d pulled into one of the many small campgrounds scattered at the base of the Ozarks and had rented a cabin for the night. It had been a relief not to have to share space in a tiny hotel room, though my mind wouldn’t shut off long enough to let me sleep. Finally accepting that sleep was not an option, I’d risen and headed into the kitchen for the strongest black coffee I could make, when the soldier appeared in the doorway, wide awake, as well.
I ignored him, reaching for the coffeemaker. Well, what do you know, someone—probably St. George—had already made a pot. I poured myself a mug and took a swallow. Black and strong enough to strip paint from the wall—perfect. “What?” I mumbled.
A pause, then he took a quiet breath. “I never got the chance to thank you.”
Surprised, I turned away and opened the cupboard that held the meager supplies we’d brought. “Let’s not make this awkward, St. George,” I muttered, pawing through cans of soup and ravioli, jerky packages and bags of candy, anything that could be heated up quickly or eaten on the road. Ugh, maybe I would just grab something later from a drive-through. I didn’t see how Ember could eat Skittles for breakfast every day. “You don’t owe me anything.”
“You saved my life,” the soldier insisted. “You didn’t have to. There was nothing anyone could have done, not with how far away we were from the city. You could’ve let me die.”
“How much of an asshole do you think I am?” I growled, shutting the cupboard door to glare at him. “I didn’t do it because I like you. I did it because it was the right thing to do. Because you’re a decent shot, and you’ll back us up when we need it. Because you know about the Order, how it works, what goes on in their screwed-up heads, and it’s easier to stay alive when we have insider information. I did it for any number of reasons, St. George, and all of them outweighed the desire to watch you bleed out in the dirt.” I narrowed my eyes, taking a sip of bitter coffee to swallow the anger. “So don’t make me regret that choice with stupid questions about why I decided to save your sorry ass. Hard as it is to believe, I don’t let any of my team die if I can help it. And I’d be a piss-poor leader if I let personal feelings get in the way of anything. You don’t know me as well as you might think.”
For some reason, that made him close his eyes in a grimace. “Ember told me the same thing once,” he said. “She was right. I didn’t know anything about your kind back then. Everything the Order taught me was wrong.” He drummed his fingers against his arm and glanced down the hall, where Ember, Wes and Jade still slept in quaint, woodsy rooms. “I want to know more,” he said quietly. “I’m trying to understand. Even with Ember, I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface.”
“If only you had a dragon around to explain these things to you.”
He smiled, though his expression remained shadowed and distant. “I don’t want to fight you, Riley,” he said after a moment, and we both knew what he was referring to. “You’re not my enemy. I don’t want to feel like I have to watch my back with any of my teammates. I love Ember.” He said it simply, like he was telling me the weather. “And I know there’s something between you and her, something...Draconic, I guess, that I might not ever understand. It’s not my place to ask—she’ll tell me when she’s ready. But I’m here to stay. I’m not going anywhere.”
I swallowed the growl and pushed Cobalt down from where he was rising up, bristling and indignant. “And you’re telling me this why?”
“It needed to be said.” He stared down the hall again. “We’ve been dancing around this for too long. I’m done hiding. I’d rather have everything out in the open. You saved my life,” he continued, obnoxiously sincere and calm. “I thought I’d give you the courtesy of knowing where I stood.”
Anger boiled, but I forced a smirk and pushed past him, into the living room. “Near-death experience making you sentimental, St. George?”
“Maybe.” His voice remained the same. “But it doesn’t change anything.”
“What are you two talking about?”
Ember walked out of the hall, yawning as she came into the kitchen. Her crimson hair stuck out at every angle, and Cobalt stirred at the sight of her. With a brief smile at St. George, she walked to the coffeepot, poured the contents into a mug and padded back to join us in the living room.
“Did we wake you?” the soldier asked, ignoring, I noticed, the previous question. Ember shook her head and brought the mug to her lips.
“Couldn’t sleep. Heard the two of you out here and thought I might as well get up, go over the plan or something. Ugh, that’s awful.” She pulled the mug away from her lips, screwing up her face, then took another sip. “I assume it hasn’t changed, right? We’re still keeping to the same plan?”
I sighed. “Yeah.” I nodded, taking a bracing swallow myself. “Same plan. As soon as the others are up, we’ll head out. We need a few things before we can pull this off.”
* * *
“All right,” I said, pulling to a stop on the narrow, winding road that cut through the mountain. Up ahead, a yellow barricade blocked both lanes, and a single police car sat beside it, lights flashing blue. “There’s the security checkpoint.” I glanced at Ember and St. George in the backseat, seeing a pair of strangers staring back. Like me, both wore black suits—or monkey suits as Wes so elegantly put it—and dark shades, the “few things” we had to pick up for this plan to work. I resented the fact that Wes didn’t have to dress up for this stupid mission; he got to stay at the cabin. I hated G-man suits; the tie around my neck felt like a noose, and the jacket was tight in all the wrong places. St. George, obnoxiously, seemed perfectly at ease in a suit and tie, probably used to being in uniform, but I wanted this over and done with as soon as possible.
“Remember,” I told them and the Asian dragon sitting in the passenger seat, “I’ll do the talking, but if anyone