“I saw a dragon in the sky, but I never thought—it didn’t occur to me—” Lily stopped before she said something about Reno. She didn’t think their captors knew about the green dragon, and she wanted to keep it that way. “This is the dragons’ home realm?”
“Yeah. Sit down,” Cynna said. “I’ll tell you what I know. You’re hurt?”
“Sprained ankle. I banged my head, too, but it isn’t serious. Is your arm broken?” Lily limped the few feet between the door and Cynna’s mat and lowered herself to the floor . . . the scrubbed wooden floor. The cell might be primitive, but it was cleaner than she was.
Cynna nodded without opening her eyes. “You ever had a broken bone?”
“Not since I was five. Broke my wrist when a tree ejected me.”
“This is my first. Everything about it is deeply damn annoying.” Cynna drew a shaky breath and opened her eyes. “Let me get through this, then you can ask questions. I know you’ll have questions.” The ghost of a smile touched her lips, then vanished. “They’ve been watching for you because I told them you might show up.”
Lily nodded. “I thought you might have.”
Cynna stared. “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?”
“They were clearly expecting me. That might be accounted for by some kind of magical alert, but it seemed likely they’d been watching specifically for me—maybe through magic, maybe just with eyes on the ground. They knew who I was, though, so it was me they were watching for, not just random intruders. And they didn’t ask the questions they should have. What about Rule? Cullen? The others?”
“What?”
Cynna seemed too staggered to think. More gently Lily said, “Did you tell them about the others in our party?”
“I . . . in a general way. You were the only one I figured might make it here, though.”
“You had a reason to tell them.”
“You could say that.” Cynna’s face twisted, a swift, unhappy clenching of mouth and jaw. “They killed a little boy. Broke his neck. I didn’t answer fast enough, and one of them snapped his neck. I heard it break. He went all floppy and . . .” She shuddered. “Hell. I was going to tell this in order.”
Lily leaned forward and grabbed Cynna’s good hand—the one not connected to a broken arm—and squeezed. “Those sons of bitches. They threatened to hurt him if you didn’t answer?”
Cynna’s fingers tightened on Lily’s. “They had a soldier grab three kids off the street. Zhu Kongqi—he speaks English—”
“I met him.”
“He asked the questions, but it was Dick Boy . . . his name is really Dìqiú, which sounds like ‘dickah,’ not ‘dick boy’—”
It did the way Cynna said it anyway.
“—but I like Dick Boy better, so that’s what I call him. He’s the one who killed the boy. I didn’t answer fast enough, and he just . . . he’s like a living lie detector. It’s not mind magic—more like the kind of physical sensing a healer does, I think. Kongqi told me they’d kill the kids if I didn’t cooperate, then he asked how I got here. I hesitated, trying to work out a way to tell the truth without giving them everything, but . . . but I didn’t answer fast enough. Dick Boy waited maybe five seconds. He didn’t give a warning, he just—” She stopped suddenly, squeezing her eyes closed.
“You’re wrecked.”
“I fucking am.” Tears leaked from beneath those tight-shut eyelids. “He looked about four years old. Maybe I’m wrong about that. Maybe he was older. Everyone here is short, so he might’ve been older. Not that that would make it any better, but he was so damn little . . . the other two are still alive. At least I think they are. A girl and another boy. I think the second boy was the little boy’s big brother. He cried and cried, but so quietly . . . I keep thinking about how I’m going to kill them. The two dragon spawn, but especially Dick Boy. I think about it a lot.”
Lily didn’t know how to respond. After a long moment she said, “Just before my ninth birthday, a pedophile snatched me and a friend. Ginger Harris’s sister, actually. Her name was Sarah. He raped and killed Sarah in front of me. She was screaming and crying and he wanted her to be quiet, so he squeezed her throat while he . . . it surprised him when he realized she was dead.” She’d never forget the look on his face. Startled, then embarrassed, like a kid who’d knocked over his milk glass and made a mess. “The cops came before he could do it to me. For a long time I thought about ways to kill him. It comforted me.” Her mouth twisted. “Didn’t comfort my parents.”
Cynna glanced at her once, then away. “I didn’t know about that.”
“I don’t talk about it.” She hadn’t talked to the therapist her folks sent her to. The only words that had made sense to her at the time had been, “I want to kill him,” and she’d seen how that affected the adults around her. Most of them anyway. “Grandmother understood. She helped. She taught me about gardening.”
“Gardening.”
The disbelief in Cynna’s voice almost made Lily smile. “When I told Grandmother I wanted to kill the monster, she patted my hand and said that of course I did, but I could not.” Not that it was wrong or unsafe or illegal or that she should not think such things, but that she could not do it. She remembered the relief she’d felt. At last, a sensible response. “I could, however, kill all the grass and weeds I wanted, and she showed me where. That first year, I killed the hell out of a lot of Bermuda grass. I planted things, too. Planting stuff, that’s leaning into the future.” She’d needed both aspects of gardening—the vegetative murder and the leaning forward.
Cynna wore an odd expression. Not quite a smile, but something more open, more like her usual self. A bit bemused maybe. “No offense, but I’d rather kill the spawn than a bunch of grass.”
“You’re not eight years old. You might be able to do it. Or you might get yourself killed trying, and we’re going to need you, so don’t make it your top priority, okay?”
“No.” Cynna drew a deep, shaky breath. “No, my priority is Ryder. Ryder and the rest of the kids. But killing Dick Boy is pretty high on the list. If I get a chance . . .” She let go of Lily’s hand and shook her head, but not as if denying something. More like the way a dog shakes after getting wet. “I didn’t intend to fall apart on you. I might do it again, though. I’m not exactly at my best.”
“I was told the children weren’t here.”
“No. Not yet.” But Cynna put a finger to her lips.