Page 22 of Fire to the Stars

One final gulp before I shove the flask away. Months of scouring the black market for the doses I need gave me jitters I doubt I’ll ever shake.

The embers pop and flare into a full campfire.

“You’re all right, Luce,” Abel soothes, gently holding Lucy near the fire’s edge. Her whiskers twitch. Her eyes peel open. Weakly, she nibbles the flames. Steam rises from her coat as it dries. Once she has her fill, Lucy struggles free from Abel’s grip and curls up beside the warm stones. Her coat settles into a bright shade of red.

“Did she eat enough?” I drape my coat over a low tree branch, then bring more twigs to reinvigorate the fire. “Shouldn’t she turn gold?”

“Her color isn’t ideal, but she’s not in danger anymore. Just exhausted.”

“Good.” I glare at him across the crackling flames and sniff with my runny nose. “Aren’t you going to thank me for thinking to hide your pack?”

Abel moves suddenly. He digs through his pile of items and shoves the mask, sickle, moondaggers, and wad of spare clothes aside. Our wet maps fall apart, but his focus is beyond that. He unwraps a square of wax-treated canvas, revealing his journal. Hurriedly, I circle the fire and peer over his shoulder as he flips through the pages. Judging by the sound of it, the journal is mostly dry. He rubs his face with a long, foggy sigh.

Before I can glimpse so much as a word, Abel rewraps the journal and stuffs it tightly away. He didn’t have the waterproof skin back in Bourlin. Purchased it before we left, did he? Hopebubbles through me. If he went that far to protect it, that journal must contain valuable findings. He even alluded to them when he charged into Ravinfort with his hunting gear. I was right to take Anne-Sophie’s advice and search for him.

“Before you ran into the fire, you said you proved that dragons could transform after Ignition Day,” I say. “How?”

“Not transform.Keeptheir form.” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. They can’t do it without slayer intervention.”

“But you’ve intervened.”

“I did. Once. And I won’t do it again.”

I tense. “What, exactly, did you discover?”

“Nothing civilians need to concern themselves with. I’m back to work, all right? End of story.”

It isn’t the end ofmystory. Abel knows things that other slayers don’t. It’s all inside that journal. I’m sure of it.

I wish I had dug through his pack earlier instead of assuming the journal was ruined, but there will be other chances. Exhaustion has me in its talons, and we should rest. So I watch while he sorts the rest of his belongings, wrinkling my nose at his dripping tent canvas and camping furs. That’s the only bedding we have, and it’s useless for the night. Lovely.

The dropping temperature sends shivers along my skin. My sneeze makes Abel examine my hovering presence. I’m a mess—hair plastered to my face, breeches stuck to my legs, bodice clumsily laced. I look at my goose-bumped arms, only now realizing that I’m hugging myself.

“What next?” I hate how miserable I sound. “You’re the camping expert.”

He stands, gesturing for me to take his place beside Lucy. “Sit. Get warm.”

Then he sheds his dragon-scale overcoat and sets it on my shoulders.

Goose bumps double across my skin. The stiff, cold material might as well be human flesh on my shoulders; it came from another person like me. Mercifully, the lack of an absorbent fabric lining allows the scales to trap my warmth and ease my shivers within a few heartbeats.

“Are we safe?” I ask, wiping my runny nose with the neckline of my chemise. Normally I’d find that disgusting, but I’m too wet to care.

“It’s too dark to move. We’ll have to camp here for the night.”

He sounds certain of his decision, but his body language doesn’t exude confidence. His stare lingers on the sky, then skips to each treetop.

“I doubt any attackers willflyin,” I quip.

He startles, as if remembering himself. “I’m…checking for owls.”

I roll my eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those people who believe owls are harbingers of bad luck just because Noctu made that constellation look like one.”

“My luck doesn’t disprove that theory,” he mumbles.

So cynical. EvenThe Tale of Starssays to dismiss the constellation as Noctu’s petty, vengeful taunt.

“We survived drowning, didn’t we?” I offer. “That’s lucky.”