“I’m fine. But I don’t know how it got in, and if it got past the Dome…”
Sia shakes herself. Her gaze turns inward, then she squeezes her eyes shut and when she opens them again she’s her usual composed self.
“If it got in, other creatures might, as well.” She nods her head. “I have to make sure everyone knows. The harbour isn’t safe anymore.”
I wrap my arms around myself, which is the wrong move. Sia’s dark eyes are on me at once. “What about you?”
“I said I’m fine.”
She just looks at me, and I know she doesn’t buy it. Then again, from Sia’s perspective, I haven’t been “fine” all the time she’s known me.
She’s probably right about that, too.
“You got away okay.” It’s not a question, but I answer anyway.
“Just.” Her non-question feels like it needs more of an answer. “I had my harpoon, for fishing. When it came up at me—”
She shakes her hand, looking sick. “That’s – What about food? Are you okay for food?” She looks down at my kayak and I resist the urge to block her view.
“I—”
“Here.” She pulls a flax-wrapped package from her backpack and hands it to me. “I brought this for you anyway. And don’t say you don’t need it.”
I need a fucking drink. I manage to keep the words behind my teeth as my fingers close around the food parcel. “Thanks,” I mutter.
“Ooh, thanks. You must be feeling bad, that almost sounded like good manners.” She flashes me a grin and it almost looks convincing. “Look, I’ve got to go—”
“—make sure everyone knows about the Dome. Yeah. Better you than me.”
Her smile wavers.
“Yeah. But, Tay…” She hesitates. “Look after yourself. I’ll be back tomorrow, okay?”
“You don’t need to—”
“Yeah, but I’m gonna, so long as you insist on scuttling around on your own instead of living with the rest of us like a normal person.” She hoists her pack back on. “See you tomorrow, hun.”
I give up. “See ya.”
My shoulders slump as Sia climbs back up to roof-level and walks along the terraced buildings back down the street-canal, towards the harbour. In a few minutes she disappears in the growing shadows, without looking back once.
I don’t know why it bothers me that she left so quickly. I’ve spent the last decade keeping her at arm’s length, shouldn’t I be happy she’s not bothering me more about this?
At least she didn’t try to help me get my kayak in. That would have been a disaster.
“Why am I still alive?”
I pause in the middle of scrubbing saltwater-grime from my arms. I fell asleep the night before almost the moment I dragged the kayak indoors. In the light of morning, I can’t escape the fact that some of the grime caking my skin is blood. I scrub harder.
Why is the dragon alive? “Because.”
Because you told me to save myself, and no dragon has ever risked anything to save me. Let alone his life.
And because, saving my life or not, I still think this is a trick. The dragon’s pair has to be around somewhere. They didn’t turn up last night, or this morning yet, but they must be somewhere.
But a pair would never leave him like this. The dragon had been barely breathing when I dragged him out of the water. Bleeding from dozens of wounds. I’d managed to staunch the worst of them, and they’d stopped bleeding by the time Sia left and I dragged him up into my house, but…
No. His pair must be around. He isn’t dead, after all. This must all be part of their plan.