Page 45 of Dragon Compelled
“No,” I admit, “But I’ve had them before, and I know how—”
“Hard pass,” Mag says, shaking his head emphatically.
“It’s not a difficult procedure,” I say, but Mag is unmoved.
“Bro, no offense, but your specialty is unaliving people, so I’m not sure yours are the right hands to put my life in.”
“Relax,” Paige says. “It’s not that different from sewing. I’ll just ask the gnomes to get my kit from upstairs.”
Mag visibly pales. “Hard pass.”
I bite back a grin as I realize his problem. “Are you afraid of needles?”
He glares at me. “Shut up.”
Paige frowns, and I use every ounce of self-control not to lose it. “A man who can turn to stone and fearlessly battle any creature under the sun is afraid of a needle.”
His glare intensifies. “Bro, I owe you a throat punch for not shutting up.”
“Aries is right,” Blossom starts. “You need those stitches.”
But Mag remains unmoved, adding, “I’ll heal quickly enough on my own. I just need time.”
“Time isn’t exactly something we have,” Blossom says quietly.
For a moment, no one speaks, and I know we’re all thinking the same thing: we’ve just hit a serious wall in our search for Hoc. One look at Paige’s expression and I know she’s taking the hit harder than the rest of us. The urge to volunteer to do more is on the tip of my tongue, but she still has no idea we’ve all been pulling double shifts so we can hunt during the day and patrol the library at night. I’m not sure how to juggle everything, but there has to be a way.
“I’ll keep going with the search on my own,” I say wearily.
“Aries, no,” Paige says.
“I can go into the books, shift, and fly over,” I tell her. “I won’t be within reach of any threat and can cover more ground.”
“And what if those worlds don’t have dragons already?” she counters.
I scowl, remembering Mag’s identical argument. “They’ll just have to accept we exist. Or do what some others do and simply act ignorant about it.”
“Aries, we can’t change worlds in this way,” Paige says, “it’s against the oath we took.”
“I didn’t take an oath,” I say, my temper flaring as I think about how few our options are.
“No,” she says, her voice firm. “You gavemeyour word that you’d build a life with me. And you can’t do that if the council kicks you out of this place and wipes your memory clean of my existence.”
I hate that she’s right, but more than that, I hate that she’s hurting and I can do nothing to fix it.
“There has to be a way to locate Hoc,” Mag says. He pushes himself up higher against the pillows, grunting with the movement. “Hoc always had a trick up his sleeve. Maybe there’s something in the head librarian’s abilities that you can use to find him.”
“I’ve tried,” Paige says on a sigh. “I haven’t found anything resembling instructions in Hoc’s notes, and I’ve scoured the books in the Alchemy section but found nothing useful.”
“What about your magic?” Blossom asks.
Paige hesitates, and her answering silence speaks volumes.
“You still don’t know how to access it,” I say quietly.
“It’s not that I can’t access it. I can feel it in me,” she admits.
“They why haven’t you—”
