LOGIN"Stay away from Cassian," he said.I turned around slowly. "What?""He's not what he seems. Keep your distance."I looked at him for a long moment. The afternoon light was coming through the stable roof in gold bars, and Fin was still in the pen behind me, watching us both, and I thought very clearl
Kyra said something.I heard it — some version of this isn't possible or this can't be right — but the words landed at a distance because I had both arms around Fin's neck and my face pressed against its scales and I was breathing the warm animal smell of it, and for a moment I was not capable of ca
The class took a single collective breath.I heard Kyra, somewhere to my left: "Finally. The rankings should have been based on performance from the start." A slight, deliberate pause. "Although I suppose some of us shouldn't get our hopes up. Hard to race when your dragon would rather eat you."The
I found my footing.That was the first thing — not speech, not thought, just the basic mechanics of standing upright without using his chest to do it. I took a half-step back and my legs held, and the corridor was dark and cold behind him and his hands had dropped away from my arms and we were simpl
I left before she could answer.The bathroom near the Crown Class corridor was empty. I ran the water cold and worked at the soup stain with my sleeve and tried not to think about whether I'd just made things considerably worse.The door clicked behind me.I turned.The lock had moved from this side
I woke up at full dawn and did not move for three minutes.The ceiling was exactly the same as it had always been. Nothing about the room had changed. But I was lying there with my pulse running too fast and the memory of a dream where Kael looked at me and said good and meant it, and the problem wa







