“Okay. So. Just. Wait.” I frowned. “I’m lost. Kevin?”
“Beats me,” Kevin said. “We’re not the same kind of dragon. Don’t be racist, Sam. I don’t say that all you humans look alike. That’s mean.”
“That’s not what I was saying!”
“What’s so hard to understand?” Jekhipe said. “I sleep for ninety-nine years, stay awake for one, and then go back to sleep. I’m not that old.”
This was bad. This was very, very bad.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay. So. How old are you?”
“One thousand four hundred years old,” Jekhipe said, as if I was the most annoying thing in creation.
“And you’re only awake for one year at a time.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said, gods.”
“And you sleep the rest of the time.”
“Yes. Why are you on my back about this?”
“So,” I said slowly. “Technically, you are fourteen years old.”
“Wow,” Jekhipe said. “Look at you. Do you do any other tricks aside from math? Gods, why can’t you all just leave me alone so I can contemplate the meaning of my existence and why we’re all probably just some sort of cosmic accident put here to achieve nothing but endless suffering?”
And that was how I met a teenage emo dragon.
I SAT on a rock, my face in my hands, rocking back and forth and moaning. “Why. Why does this happen to me? Why? Whyyyy?”
“At least this continues to prove my point I made a long time ago,” Ryan said from beside me. “You’re the common denominator in all this. It feels good being right.”
I peered through my fingers to glare at him.
“Not helping,” he said hastily. “Right. I can see that. Look, if it makes you feel better, it’s r
eally not your fault.”
“Thanks,” I said, dropping my hands. “That does make me feel a little bit better.”
“Good,” Ryan said, smiling at me. “After all, it’s not your fault the gods seem to have it out for you and throw every obstacle in your path that they can.”
I put my face back in my hands again and said, “Whyyyy.”
“I wonder what this means for the others?”
“What others?”
“The other dragons. If this one is… like this, what does that mean for the mountain dragons? Or the Great White?”
I almost told him that the Great White was already an asshole, but then remembered I hadn’t said anything to anyone about the dragon’s words to me in the vision. I thought maybe I should say something, but I didn’t want anyone thinking I couldn’t do this. Because I could. And I would prove to the Great White and the star dragon what I was capable of.
Of course, that meant dealing with Jekhipe. Which, you know, sucked.
Ryan took my hands away from my face and held them in his on his lap, digging his thumbs into the palms. It felt good, being this close to him right now. I felt like I was flying in a hundred different directions, and I think he knew that, knew I needed something grounding me. I was still tired from expending as much magic as I had, but my strength was returning, slowly but surely.
“We’ll figure it out,” he murmured. “You’ll see. We always do.”
“Yeah. One dragon at a time, you know? I’m sure the others will be a clusterfuck too, but no need to worry about that until we get there.”