“It’s very kind of you to think of sharing Emma’s burden, but unfortunately, the skink won’t want to move around so much, I don’t think,” Bran said, frowning. “It will only trade one host for another if it is given the promise that it may stay for life.”
“For life?” Avery, Kaitlyn, Megan and I all exclaimed at once. And then of course, I had to add, “Such strife!” because again, rhyming.
“No one is going to want to host a creature that garbles your speech for the rest of their life,” Ari remarked darkly.
“Or maybe only for the skink’s life,” Megan said hopefully. “How long do they live, anyway?”
“On average, around two hundred human years or so,” Bran said.
“Two hundred years?” Her face fell. “So long!”
“I’m afraid so.” Bran nodded. “But none of you need to worry.”
He took my hands in his and for a moment, I thought I saw a tall, muscular warrior with dark blond hair and blazing blue eyes—then he was just Bran again.
“I’ll do it,” he said. “I’ll take the skink.”
17
I didn’t know what to do or say. My eyes were still filled with tears and Bran was blurry when I looked at him. I couldn’t ask him to do this for me—I was sure of that much, at least. I couldn’t ask any of my friends to take the horrible little creature that was using me as its own private B&B into their own bodies.
It was just too much—too awful.
I would just have to live with the skink myself. Maybe I could take a job in medical transcription like my mom and spend all day typing in a dark room and never having to talk to anyone else, so my nonsensical rhyming language wouldn’t matter. Maybe…
Just then, the door to the girls' bedroom opened and Jalli poked her head out.
“Is everything okay out here?” she asked anxiously. “Nobody got hurt, did they? I thought I heard crying.”
As she spoke, Jelly Belly and Spike flew out of her room and hovered anxiously over my head. Sweet Tooth flew out too, but he made the mistake of getting too near to Saint, who was still seated on the couch, his hands clasped loosely between his knees as he looked at me anxiously.
Immediately, the little chimeling sounded a shrill alarm and backpedaled frantically, his little wings whirring like a hummingbird’s.
Saint looked up in irritation.
“Don’t come near me then, if you don’t like my Drake,” he growled, his eyes flashing briefly red.
“I don’t think he meant to,” Jalli said, always quick to defend her pets. “Come back, Sweet Tooth. Come back to Jalli now.”
She didn’t have to call twice. The little chimeling rushed over and perched on her shoulder, nuzzling against her cheek as though looking for reassurance. The whole time, his little black, oil-spot eyes didn’t leave Saint for a moment.
“Wait a minute,” Avery said and there was a note in his voice that made all of us look at him.
“What is it? Did you think of something?” Megan asked hopefully.
“Maybe.” He frowned. “Maybe nobody has to take the skink. There’s still something we haven’t tried.”
“What?” Kaitlyn asked hopefully.
“Think about what the skink said,” Avery told us. “It said to Griffin that he couldn’t master it because he wasn’t from the Realm and because he wasn’t one of its kind.”
“Meaning what? Another skink?” Ari asked blankly. “But none of us is a skink.”
“No, but skinks are very distant cousins many times removed of the draconian family—they have trace amounts of reptilian DNA in their genome,” Avery said. “Anyway, that’s what the reference book I found in the Spell Library said.”
“So therefore a Drake might be able to order the skink out?” Kaitlyn asked, picking up on what he was saying. Without waiting for an answer, she seized Avery’s hand—Griffin had dropped it since the skink wouldn’t listen to him anyway—and leaned down to speak into my right ear.
“Get out of there, you nasty little thing!” she exclaimed angrily. “Get out and leave my friend Emma alone right now!”
There was a stirring in my ear again and then the skink spoke.
“I do not fear you. Though you are of my kind I sense no darkness in you,” it announced. And was there a tone almost of smugness in its irritating little voice?
I thought so, anyway.
“It wasn’t you I was talking about, Katydid,” Avery said. “There are three Drakes in the room, but only one of them has darkness within.”
He was staring fixedly at Saint as he spoke.
Slowly, Saint looked up and met Avery’s eyes. For a moment, pale blue clashed with jet black and then, at last, Saint nodded.
“I am, indeed, indwelled by darkness,” he said in a low, hoarse voice. “Tell me, what must I do?”
18
“Just do what Griffin did.” Avery motioned for the tall Drake. “Come stand here beside me and hold my hand so you can talk to the skink.”