Turns out getting their location is easy, if you have a photographic memory and know how to read coordinates. They shouldn’t have shown that radar screen to Sofia. She has the place up on her Map app in no time, showing us Zhran and Comet are heading straight for the Molosia Isles, a set of floating islands off the English coast. It’s a nature reserve, the islands a safe haven for rare animals. It’s too small to sustain a human settlement, but two dragons could definitely make it work.

We sneak past the living room, up the stairs towards Izaak’s room. He shares it with his sister, but his stuff’s strewn throughout the room. The walls are a sunny orange, which Phoebe only agreed to so she got permission to hang her posters. Sofia empties her letter bag all over Izaak’s bed—she’d expected trouble and packed for the occasion. There are a few potions, cheap ones with minor heals or mild poison nullifications, but most of her stock are crude figures carved from bone, cheap versions of the beautiful statues Coven Witches use to summon Nature. They learn to craft them at their schools, which sell their students earlier works for extra revenue.

Sofia checks them for nicks, turning the dozen or so figures around until she’s satisfied they’ll hold up. She holsters them in her heavy belt made for this exact purpose, preventing her from having to search through her bag.

“You know,” I say, “I think you could make your own way better than that.”

Sofia clicks her belt in place. “Probably, but I like using these. Maybe people will stop throwing them away if they see someone using them to kick ass.” She brushes her hand past the exposed part of a bone Wendigo. “They try that much harder if you treat them with respect. These totems aren’t broken.”

“I suppose.” Still, if it’s a question of raw power, these fall flat compared to the real thing. Not that Sofia doesn’t know that, of course. She has to.

Meanwhile Izaak changed into more combat-friendly clothes, a formfitting T-shirt and combat trousers, one side custom cut above his residual limb so it won’t interfere with a prosthetic. He has both Raphael and Michelangelo—his running blade—splayed out on Phoebe’s bed. He can sort of run on all four of his prosthetics, but the joints made for walking don’t hold up well in the motion. If they did, walking on them would be a nightmare.

“Can’t decide?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “I’d like to bring Raph for the firepower, but then the actual fighting would be difficult… Mikey doesn’t do much except move.”

“Why not bring both?” I grab Raph by the foot, swatting him around like a baseball bat.

Izaak grins, pulling the prosthetic out of my hand and mimicking my motion. “I love it. Mum’s absolutely going to kill me.”

“She’ll do that anyway.”

“If you survive until then,” Halley says. She followed us upstairs and jumped right on Izaak’s closet, peering down at us like only a griffin can. “Zhran is going to try just as hard, I’m sure.”

Izaak laughs, putting Mikey on. “You clearly don’t know Mum.”

Halley doesn’t blink. “But I know Zhran. He will not hesitate to kill.”

That sobers us into silence.

“I believe in us,” I say, “but—”

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Izaak shushes me. “Do not add a ‘but’ to that sentence. We got this.”

“Let’s go out in a blaze of glory,” Sofia adds.

“Let’s not,” Izaak and I chorus.

Halley glides down from the closet. “Let’s go. If we take too long, RISE might very well act before us.”

“You up for this?” Izaak asks me. His eyes rake over me, trying to catch me in a lie. I get his hesitance. Before, lifting even one person, let alone fly them to the Molosia Isles, would be near impossible. Now I feel the magic already responding, unburdened by Kiera’s buffer. It’s free to ebb and flow wherever it needs. But with every rush of the tide, more magic disappears past the edge, lost beyond the boundary separating mine from the world.

“I’ll be fine. More importantly, where are we going to take off from?” The agents ordered us to stay inside, so this might be a problem. Halley and I might be able to climb the roof, but Izaak’s running blade isn’t fit for it, and Sofia’s belt would get in the way.

“How about the yard?” a new voice says from the door. Raysa leans against it, an amused smirk on her snout. “I heard some little mice scurry on upstairs, so I thought I’d go look.”

“You’re letting us go?”

“Well, no. I think you sneaked out back when I went to check on Hardy, didn’t you? He has been due for a rubdown after the flight I asked of him this morning.”

We stare at her in disbelief. I want to ask why a RISE agent would let us go, but I worry that asking will stop the brittle peace.

Raysa pats down her uniform. “Well, I’ll go see Hardy then. You,”—she points at me—“get everyone back alive and we’ll talk again. That Sable doesn’t know duty from delusion, and I prefer her alive so she can kill me for getting her kids involved.”

We wait until we hear the front door shut, then we tip-toe downstairs, holding our breath past the closed kitchen door. The other agents might not have supernatural hearing, but we’re not supernaturally quiet.

Izaak’s garden isn’t much beyond a patch of grass, kept functional for kids to play on. Outside the rain passed, its dark cloud making its way to another part of the city. The cold has no bite, but I know how it gets up high, so I make both of them wear thick coats.

“So,” I ask, “what do we want? Hippogriff? Griffin? Manticore? Roc?” It all feels easy, as easy as my sparrow.

Or it did, until Sofia asks, “How about a dragon?”

“No.”

“You’ve never been true before, haven’t you?” Halley says. “It might be good to get it over with. You won’t match Zhran if you’re holding back.”

I glance around awkwardly, but all I meet are determined faces. Izaak nods, a smile creeping past his lips.

I can't help but let doubt out. “But what if it’s ugly?”

Halley lets out a screeching laugh. “Then you’re ugly. We all have something.”

“I’m sure you’re fine,” Sofia says, glancing back towards the house, “as long as you do it now.”

Kiera explained being ‘true’ to me, but in the same breath they told me to never do it. There’s a convenience in blending in. What’s another bird, or even another griffin? But another dragon, one completely unknown to the authorities? If RISE didn’t know me already, that would’ve got the ball rolling for sure. I never fought their decision. Because secretly I worried. You fantasize about so much that you get scared the real thing won’t hold up. But my friends are right, I’ll never save Kiera by hiding.

There’s no secret to being true. It doesn’t grate against your skin like my transformations used to before I got the hang of them. There’s nothing to concentrate on but letting go.

My head soars up. I focus on Izaak, whose chin rises as he follows my eyes. I don’t look at myself until my wings reach for the sky, and I feel vulnerable but whole.

“You’re beautiful,” Izaak says with a shocking sincerity.

Words struggle in the back of my throat, I love you mixed with are you insane? “Thanks,” I manage. The scales on my legs shine white and pearlescent, reflecting with every movement. My limbs feel nimble, though I must be twice the size of a horse. The sensation of wind against the translucent membrane of my wings feels alien. I still prefer bird wings over draconic ones, though that may change if this lightness persists, this feeling that all I have to do to soar is let go of the ground.

I present my back to Izaak and Sofia. They climb on easily, hooking their hands and feet on my ridged scales. Sofia sits down first, pulling Izaak up behind her. The pressure on my back differs from when she insisted I play horse, as they perch not on my back, but where my shoulders meet my neck. Halley jumps up last, snuggling into Sofia’s coat.

In my mind’s eye I see Zhran, back at the construction site, spreading his wings and leaning down to find the sky in a single burst of strength. “Hold on,” I say. Then we’re off towards the Molosia Isles.