No one stopped us to ask where we were going, as if Phelan and I walking around armed wasn’t unusual. I guess in some ways, it really wasn’t. A few minutes later, our feet hit the bridge over the ravine and we were well on our way to retrieving Sif and figuring out this water monster business.
“Tell me about dragons,” I said abruptly.
Phelan looked at me, blinking slowly. “Dragons?”
“I think you heard me,” I said, giving him a withering look. He let out a little laugh and shook his head.
“You startled me, that’s all. Why are you asking about dragons all of a sudden?”
“Big giant monster in the water that’s making people a hell of a lot older than I am pretty squicked out,” I said. “My head says dragons. Don’t ask me why.”
“You’ve played too much D&D, that’s why,” Phelan said, his wry smile and tone saying he was teasing me. “I don’t think it’s a dragon, Mar, so I really wouldn’t worry about it.”
“And if I still want to know about dragons?”
“Then I’ll tell you once we’re done dealing with whatever’s out in the water.”
I eyed him for a moment, then shrugged. “All right. This round to you.”
“We’re keeping score now?”
“Maybe.”
We climbed the small hill where the remnants of the Shakespeare Garden still stood, half-buried in a winter’s worth of snow and ice, hiding the destruction that the camazotzi had wrought the past autumn. That had been the event that had driven the faeries to their new home among us, hidden in the tents and cots and the environs within our wards. Carolyn could see them. Sometimes, a few of us—me included—could catch fleeting glimpses of our tiny neighbors. She could see them as easily as breathing.
The barrow where we’d buried our dead was below that hill, in a lower spot. Lawn torches still stood at the four corners of the space, somehow still standing despite the weather that had hammered campus over the long winter. I could feel the strength of the wards we’d laid there, of the protections we’d granted our dead.
Standing at the edge of the barrow was Sif, her head bowed as she stared blankly at the snow in front of her feet, blood dripping into the snow as she clutched the blade of her sword in both hands, edge biting into the tender flesh of fingers and palms, her shoulders shaking silently and the sun glinting off her hair.
Whatever had driven her here probably wasn’t good.
Good lead into the action. Dang water monsters, dragons, and all around creepy things.
They are having an awfully long winter.
Thanks for the additions.