It takes one step closer to me, rumbling the earth, talons-for-nails clacking against the parquet flooring. Its mouth opens again, and it doesn’t take the third-highest GPA at Fairfield High to know what’s going to happen next, what’s going to happen if I don’t get out of here.
A familiar heat burns up my chest, and I slam it down hard and fast. I’m not even sure what’s happened until I’m ten feet in the air, looking down at the dragon’s fiery breath flaming below me. I’m flying! And from my new vantage point, I spot Bianca, Julia, and Mandy pressed up against the wall outside the bathroom. The fire sucks back into the dragon’s yawning mouth. Following my line of sight, it snaps its head in the direction of the girls. And oh, it’s so very tempting to let him have a snack and hope he’s too full for a main course. The dragon sniffs the air.
I sigh. “Get out of here!” I yell. “Run!”
Bianca stumbles for the door, Julia and Mandy staggering behind her. “I—I knew you were a freak!” Bianca yells.
A hard clapping sounds from deep within the shadows of the room. Leo emerges, smirking. “Brava! You’ve finally learned to fly. Thought you’d never do it.”
I press a hand over my heart; relief oozes through me like warmed caramel at the sight of him, of his marred cheek and half-frozen smile. It means that help is on the way. The break in pressure makes me falter in the air. I fall hard onto the stage, pain slicing up my spine as my crown clatters in front of me.
Leo misinterprets my reaction as fear. “What? You thought we weren’t watching? Oh no”—he shakes his head—“I’ve been watching everything you do, Indigo. I probably know you better than you know yourself. Favorite cereal? Cocoa Puffs. Favorite shampoo? Pantene Curly Hair Series. Your best friend is Paige Abernathy, your next-door neighbor, though it was Bianca Cavanaugh before that. You hate pumping gas, so you let your car run on empty for days until you fill it up. Let’s see, what else?” He taps a finger on his chin.
An involuntary shudder passes through me. “I get it,” I say. I stagger to my feet and push my sweat-dampened tendrils away from my face, sweeping my gaze around the room. Where are they?
Leo tips his head to the side. “Looking for your friends?”
“She doesn’t have to look far.” Bishop sits at a table with his feet up on a chair. He plucks a grape from a tray on the table and pops it into his mouth. And the fact that he isn’t panicked at the sight of a huffing dragon not twenty feet away makes my shoulders relax a tiny bit.
“Give us the Bible and we won’t kill you.” Jezebel enters through the kitchen doors doing her confident, swaying walk.
Leo speaks without even turning to face them. “I think it was you who once said that the one with the knife gets to make the rules. Well, I think the same principle applies here, with the dragon.”
“You think we’re scared of your crappy dragon?” Jezebel throws her head back and laughs.
Speak for yourself, Jezebel.
Leo nods. “Fair enough. But maybe one of my talented colleagues can summon more impressive magic for you. Shall we see?”
The double doors burst open, and men and women clad in suits almost as severe as their expressions file into the room. Ten. Twenty. Thirty …
A chill passes over me, despite the heat and sweat soaking the air inside the Athenaeum.
If Leo can summon a dragon on his own, I don’t want to know what dozens of sorcerers can do together. The Family—where is the Family?
Bishop stands.
“Oh, not so confident anymore?” Leo laughs. As if on cue, the dragon stomps closer to me, rattling dishes off the tables. It paws the air between us. I yelp and leap back, its claws narrowly missing my face.
Leo perches on the end of a table on the opposite side of the dance floor from Bishop. “Just quit being so damn stubborn, Indigo, and break the spell.”
I look to Bishop for direction. He nods at Jezebel, and not an instant later, they both materialize in front of me. Jezebel holds a hand skyward, and the roof of the Athenaeum blows out in a mass of white stucco shards and red cloth.
“Hold on tight.” Bishop grabs me around the middle, and the three of us dart straight up through the ragged hole in the roof, a storm of debris falling around us. We zip high into the cold air above the clouds, and I don’t bother pointing out that I can fly now, not wanting to test my brand-new skills when the Athenaeum is now just a white speck in the darkened cityscape below, and the hundreds of high schoolers milling around outside look as tiny as ants. A homecoming they’ll never forget.
Now that we’ve escaped, the full weight of reality hits me: we failed. My plan failed epically. Not only did we not get the Bible back, or kill Leo, or defeat the Priory, but I exposed witches to the public, ruined homecoming for my peers, and destroyed a city monument. I don’t even want to think about the consequences.
“At least we got out!” Bishop yells over the wind, as if sensing my disappointment and shame. He squeezes me tighter.