Page 101 of Fire to the Stars

How many people are in this cellar? Fifty? Sixty? Claire won’t turn—sheshouldn’t—but someone else could. In a city this populated, there’s no safer option. Packed against so many people, unarmored and injured, I feel the terror of death by dragon finally sinking in after all these years.

“Monsieur. Is she all right?” whispers the person next to me. “I saw her faint on the way in.”

“She worries more than most,” I lie. “Happens every Ignition.”

“I would too, if I had that scar.”

Claire breathes softly. The sleep powder will work. It alwaysdoes. Combined with my calculations, there’s no room for error. Still, I keep my ear close to her face to monitor her breathing. The lack of a weapon in my hand has a way of shaking my faith in myself.

Sixth rule of dragon hunting: Keep all resources easily accessible.

I draw the one moondagger I stashed in my coat pocket and angle the blade across her jugular.

Anyone in this cellar could turn. Most likely Claire.

Gods, I can’t slay her.

During my experiments, Micah’s dragon form consistently ignored me when he saw Noctu’s owl constellation. Tonight, Claire demonstrated the same behavior in the palace gardens, and again at our hotel window. Thinking back, I’d seen her do it once before, when we camped at the Tordou River. She called it stargazing, but to me she looked hypnotized.

Once is a coincidence. Twice is a pattern.

That was more than just stargazing. And her fixation on those owls—as if she suddenly bought into my bad luck superstition—that can’t be a coincidence, either. I’ve observed similar behavior from two dragons now. Only in Claire’s case, she was in human form, and she said something about it.

I want to go north.

Those words sobered me instantly.

No slayer has ever bothered to research dragon behavior beyond the purpose of hunting them. I’m the only exception. Even then, I kept Micah in chains. I focused on his behavior in dragon form and ignored his human words. Claire is free to interact with the world. Her environment is completely different from Micah’s. Variables like that can change the outcome of any experiment.

We wait in silence. My back aches. Lucy whines for freedom. Lack of sleep weakens my grip on the dagger. Fear strengthens it. The hours drag toward dawn like a cart stacked high with corpses.

Eventually, the city bells ring.

The civilians rustle with movement—then still. Wait. Silently count the number of tolls.

One. Two. Three. Four.

We release a collective sigh of relief. Four tolls. Safe to emerge. If any dragons were killed, it happened swiftly and cleanly.Lucky.I tip my head back against the wall and clench my eyes shut against the sting. The innkeeper pushes the doors open. Sunslight filters inside. Claire remains asleep and unaware.

No more experiments. That’s forbidden ground.

I must keep my promise to show mercy to Claire.

A slayer should never know the terror of waiting in a fire cellar. Better to face a dragon than your own helplessness.

—Official slayer training curriculum

Chapter Thirty-Four

Abel

In the following hour, guests reclaim their personal belongings. Housekeeping moves their inventory back to the rooms. The fire cellar empties until it’s just me, Lucy, and Claire who remain where we are.

Claire finally—finally—shifts in her sleep. Absentmindedly, she drapes her arm across my stomach.

“Ma belle.” I tap the knot between her eyebrows. “It’s time to wake.”

Her eyelashes flutter. Those cherry-brown eyes turn from bleary to clear in the space of a blink. Lucy takes that as permission to dive in and out of the folds of her skirts. Claire gathers her close and laughs while she licks her cheek.