“Saturn,” I whisper.
“Hmmmm. I guess you’re not as stupid as you look.”
“Fuck you. Get out! Get out of our sanctuary!” I thrust the scale in front of me, pointing it at him. But he lifts up his hand, palm out, and then…
I am pushed backwards with such force I feel like I slip through the fabric of time and space itself. I land hard onto a bare, cracked linoleum floor, skidding to a stop, banging my head on the frame of an iron bed. But it is not until I try to get up that I realize I am in a straitjacket, my arms pinned to my sides. And there are nurses holding syringes, and orderlies holding me down, and doctors pronouncing me insane…
Something flutters inside the straitjacket. Pushing against the tight fabric. And I watch this. I watch the creature pressed against my bare flesh as it wriggles and writhes until a tiny head crowned with red feathers pops out and says, “You’re not crazy, Pie. You’re real and so am I.”
But I hate myself in this moment. Because I remember this day. This really happened to me. They did put me in a straitjacket. They did push me down onto the floor. They did stand over me with their needles and drugs and threaten to leave me like this. Drugged-up and stupid. Insane and alone. Because they had permission from my mother to do these things.
“Say it,” the doctor is ordering me. “Say it, Pie! She’s. Not. Real. You’re not real, either. Say it!”
And I want to say it. I want to say it so bad. Because I know what comes next if I don’t.
The drugs. The therapy. The names, the stigma, the insanity. The abandonment. The loneliness. The loss.
And I did say it. This has already happened. I said it when I was twelve and they left me alone.
This isn’t real. Maybe it was never real. Maybe it was always magic?
Because real is the monsters of Saint Mark’s. Real are my horns and my hooves. Real is Pia. Because Pia is me and I am her.
And we are… monster.
We have always been monster.
I open my eyes and I’m on the ground next to the chopping block, no longer stuck inside my delusion. Grant is bending down, reaching for my dragon scale.
I put up a single palm and from the center emerges millions of moths. They fly out and up in a swarm, swirling around Grant just like they did the sheriff yesterday, engulfing him in a dusty cloud of wings.
I scramble over to the scale, pick it up, get to my feet and thrust it at Grant. “Out!” I don’t know what else to say. So I just say it again. “Out!”
Grant becomes a pillar of fire and I’m just about to think it worked—it’s over!—when the moths just shatter into thin air like they are nothing to him.
He’s hunched over, but he straightens now. And he directs all his attention to me. Then he laughs and puts his hands up, like he’s going to send that spell I just did right back at me.
And it’s going to be bad.
I close my eyes, cover my face with my arm, thrust the scale out in front of me and then—
The whole world rumbles in a very familiar way.
Not an earthquake.
A dragon.
The ground splits, the sanctuary walls crumble, the sky goes dark, and the air goes cold.
And then there he is. The blood dragon of Saint Mark’s Sanctuary is loose.
His mouth opens, aiming right at us, and I can see the smoldering fire inside him. The pool of lava burbles and spits and everything suddenly reeks of sulfur and brimstone.
Several things happen at once.
My moths are back, surrounding me this time, their dusty wings beating against my bare arms and cheeks.
Pell grabs the dragon scale and steps out in front of me, holding his severed horn in the other hand. The moths surround him, putting us into a protective cocoon.
And then, in that same moment, Tomas releases his hellfire and the whole world goes up in flames.
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE - PELL
I put my arms around Pie just as the flames wash over us from above. The stench of dragon fills the air and then… then it is nothing but flames, and fire, and heat, and molten stone as the world we know turns into a pool of bubbling brimstone.
Pie and I stand there, gripping each other, horn blood covering one side of my body.
Grant… Saturn… whoever he is—screams.
We fall to our knees from the power of that scream, but nothing can touch us. Not here. Not like this. Not when we’re together.
We do not burn. We do not shrivel into dust. We are not incinerated.
We stay whole. We stay together.
We are the moth and the flame.
Everything goes quiet when I say these words in my head.