So the group the others had hinted about turned out to be an entire school. Bloody brilliant. Ivy hoped she had the energy to face them, especially since children rarely had filters and could be brutally honest.
And while she knew she'd have to face the truth eventually, maybe she wasn’t ready to face it quite so head-on yet.
Freddie sighed and muttered something Ivy couldn't hear. No doubt, something unflattering.
However, Daisy didn't seem to notice. "Freddie will help me and you. He promised and knows how important promises are to me. Now, let's hurry up. Everyone's waiting. And we don't want Mr. MacLeod or Miss Lawson to get mad because we're late."
Emily gently squeezed her shoulder. "Don't worry about the students. They're just curious. And facing the questions you know are coming from children is easier than from adults, don't you think?"
"Maybe," she murmured.
Daisy took her hand and tugged, her wheelchair only staying put because of Emily's hold on it. "Come on. My class leaves Stonefire this afternoon. It's only a short visit, you know, to get ready for our play. So if you want some time with us, to see what we're doing, you have to hurry."
All eyes looked at her. Ivy doubted saying no would mean going back to the surgery. Still, she appreciated that they waited for her reply.
Again, their behavior was at odds with everything she'd been shown and taught for years.
Hoping she made the right choice, she nodded. "Okay, then let's go."
Letting go of Ivy's hand, Daisy jumped up and down a few times. "Yay! Everyone will be curious and have questions. Me, too. I have heaps. But I don't know if Mr. MacLeod will let me ask them all. He usually only allows one or two so that everyone else can have a chance. But I always have more than one or two. There's just so much to learn on Stonefire."
Freddie motioned with his hand. "Come on, Daisy. Or Miss Passmore won't have any time with our class at all, and no one's questions will get answered."
Daisy bobbed her head. "You're right, I guess. Let's go!"
Daisy raced ahead with Freddie.
Nikki murmured, "He's going to have his hands full in about four or five more years."
Ivy frowned. "What are you talking about?"
Emily pushed the wheelchair, and they all moved again. The doctor said, "Everyone on Stonefire is taking bets on them being true mates or not. They're far too young, of course—they're nearly eleven. And dragons don't fully mature until age twenty. However, Freddie is one of the few who can get Daisy to focus or stop talking. But who knows if that will be the case when they're teenagers."
Ivy studied the quickly disappearing pair. She couldn't keep from asking, "Were the classes introduced that way on purpose? To pair up humans and dragons?"
Jane sighed. "Who would ask that? Oh, right, a former Dragon Knight. No, it was merely for the children to get to know one another and hopefully make friends."
"Oh," she stated. Without being surrounded by hate and bias, it made sense. If dragons and humans interacted from the time they were children, they'd be more familiar and at ease when they were adults.
Ivy hoped the Knights hadn't got wind of Stonefire's efforts with the schoolchildren. Otherwise, they could become targets, too.
Just something else she needed to share when she had the chance.
Jane placed a hand on her hip. "You know what? The more we learn from you, the more horrible the Knights sound. Did they also say humans offer up virgins to appease the dragons?"
Ivy bit her lip. While the idea had seemed plausible when she was younger, it sounded a bit ridiculous now. "Yes. That was some of the rationale behind creating the Dragon Knights centuries ago. They wanted to show they could protect humans from the dragons, so it was better to hire them to slay the beasts than to keep appeasing the dragons with offerings."
Jane grunted. "So they were mercenaries pretending to be righteous. Why does that not surprise me?"
Emily chimed in. "Relations have changed over the decades, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. But it's our job to create our own future, right?"
"Says the female who doesn't go after what she wants herself," Nikki said with a sly look on her face.
Ivy glanced between the pair. "What are you talking about?"
Emily shook her head. "Yet another story for a different time. The school is straight ahead of us. Some of the other students should rush out to meet you any second now."
The human doctor had a lot of stories and secrets. Not that Ivy could prod more since Freddie and Daisy rushed out of the building, Daisy holding the hand of another student her age with black hair. Even from about ten feet away, Ivy could hear Daisy say, "See, Emily? I told you today would be brilliant. Not only is Nikki here—I wish I could shift into a dragon and be a Protector, too—the other Emily came, as well as the lady who's been asleep for a year inside the surgery. This is so much better than painting sets for the play, right?"