“Aiden,” Edgar tried to be gentle, “you do not want your story. I could close my eyes and consider it, but it is safer to leave things unseen.”
Edgar, for one, had always found it better not to look at hiswhat might be, because the hope for what he wanted and would not get would probably crush him.
Aiden, who was Edgar’s age, did what many other men in their early twenties might do when advised not to do something for their own good—he bristled and got defensive. “I’m sure I can handle whatever you see,” he declared, with enough conviction to almost make Edgar reconsider and classify him as bold. After all, only a few dragons ever asked Edgar toseeand meant it.
Edgar closed the book in his lap. “The future and all the possible futures are easier to bear if you think of them like soap operas. Storylines can be rewritten or redone into new storylines. They can change, but as long as certain factors remain constant, some outcomes also remain inevitable. Other times, it is simpler to imagine many timelines. Many universes, a scientist might say. Places where the smallest change in your past or present can affect everything else. If you were not a dragon—” a sentence sure to offend every dragon “—who would you be? Without family and money, without history and pride, who would you be, Aiden carnelian?” Edgar blinked, then perked up. “Oh, you would be lovely in a 1920s backdrop. The fashion would suit you. Would you be an American bootlegger? An English dandy? A modern artist? I’d make you a revolutionary, but I don’t believe you would be, not in the sense of say, Châu’s urging for armed revolt. If you were, you would not be here now in order to placate your parents. But, still, there is something secretive about you, so I am inclined to make you a bootlegger. Stealing across country roads in the dark, a car full of illegal liquor, both for profit and because the clandestine defiance pleases you.”
“You would… make me a bootlegger?” Aiden asked in a slow, bemused tone of voice.
He didn’t understand yet.
“Why on earth would I look at your possible futures when neither of us might like them? An imaginary past is so much more fun. Though, of course, it would be the present at the time.” Edgar raised a finger to draw a circle in the air. “The trouble is, even in an imaginary past, issues will present themselves, and I will find myself considering futures, anyway, and one of them will undoubtedly be the real one, or close to it. And even ifyou do not identify the real future, youwillsee messages in your stories. Messages about me are likely because we are using my voice, but also messages about you. The answers you seek will show themselves, no matter if the story is fantasy or set in space, or an alternate version of your life where you did not go to school or you never gave up piano.” He focused back on Aiden, who was scowling as if he was beginning to understand. Perhaps hehadonce played piano. “I could cast strangers in each story. I could make every tale star a character from a show or a book you love. It wouldn’t matter. Stories are about the teller and the audience. That is why fanfiction is nice. Nobody really gets hurt… except the readers, sometimes. And me.”
Aiden lost his scowl, looked curious instead. “You?”
He’d make a wonderfully distrustful bootlegger reluctantly attracted to the federal agent on his trail.
Nonetheless, Edgar shrugged uncomfortably. “Some things cannot be avoided without effort. Some seem to be always true. That’s why I don’t… I don’t think about the people I know.”
“You used to,” Aiden pointed out, startling Edgar. “Everyone says you used to tell stories when you were younger, for all the other dragons. Fairy tales like humans tell. I also heard that you like romantic stories most of all.”
“Who said that?” Edgar didn’t deny it, but he did frown.
“It was just something I heard.” Aiden took a second longer to reply than he should have. He was lying to conceal whatever he’d actually heard. He had also brought up romance, very likely for a reason.
“Oh. You truly aren’t here for me.” Edgar’s voice echoed throughout the room, although he did not raise it. If anything, he grew softer. “You joked at first,” like so many did, “but you came here toask.” He studied Aiden from his sneakers to his loose button-down, until Aiden was the first to glance away.
“Don’t know how he stands it,” he muttered.
He didn’t say who ‘he’ was. But there were very few dragons who visited Edgar frequently and would fearlessly talk about him with others. Aiden was not one of Justin’s suitors, but he was full of longing, and Justin had spoken to him about Edgar.
Edgar closed his eyes on a sigh. In the dark behind his eyelids were so manywhat might bes.
“I rarely leave this house. You must know that first. What I know of the world, how I view it, is not what another might know, or see. There are gritty realities I will only ever understand as facts in a story. I do not want to dwell on unpleasantness, though if it finds me, I do not look away. Do you understand so far? This is how I see, and I how I weave my stories.” Edgar took a deep breath. “The stories are both mine and not mine, even though I am telling them. What I choose to look at and think about makes them mine, much like how I choose to tell them, but your stories are notmypossibles. They are yours, and they will not always be things you like. Just because you do not want to hear something does not mean I can stop seeing it. The truth will out, even if it takes a dozen or more tales. There are rules to visiting oracles, and the most famous is this: Know thyself. If you want me to go on, I can, but you might not like the tale or its telling.”
Edgar settled back against the couch, his eyes firmly shut. Someone was breathing heavily. He took that as acceptance and continued with his warnings.
“You thought, as many do, that I might see onlya little. That I am harmless because I like to be comfortable and I hide among my books.” Edgar released a small huff of smoke. “That because I am not in college like you, I would be frivolous, and because I prefer romances and stories with happy endings, I must be shallow. Let me assure you, I do not think there has ever been a seer who does not wish for happy endings instead of tragic. We look atuniversesand you expect us to share that with just anyone? You expect it to be easy? There is not a single fairy tale that does not draw blood, no matter how joyous the ending.”
“I didn’t mean to insult you with my teasing. It’s just a lot to admit. Dragons are supposed to be sure, always. But I’m… I’m not.” Dragon pride or not, Aiden was more thoughtful than most. No wonder Justin had befriended him.
Edgar tilted his head up and finally opened his eyes. He considered his ceiling, then the stained-glass windows that bathed the library in brightly colored light.
“I am, um, exceptional, as far as seers go, in the traditional sense that I am an exception. An outlier. Maybe because I am dragon, and my magic makes me strong in only this one aspect.” Edgar lowered his head at last, and allowed his voice to return to its usual volume. Aiden’s eyes were fixed on him, wide and wary. Edgar leaned forward. “Why else did you come to me? There are other seers. Not as strong as me; none are as strong as me. But even a human with the sight and a deck of cards might have helped you, and you would not have had to admit to another dragon that you were uncertain.”
That Aiden would come here was curiouser and curiouser the more Edgar thought of it.
“Justin,” Edgar realized out loud, curling his fingers into his palm at the name. Justin, who was everything dragons were supposed to be. “What exactly did Justin say about me?”
Aiden seemed startled. “You don’t know?”
Edgar made a face. “I told you, I don’t look at people I…” All this talk of romance and unusual dragons had Edgar careless. He suddenly knew precisely how terrible it felt to be vulnerable before another dragon—a strange dragon, at that.
Justin had to know; Edgar had always skirted acknowledging that truth but he had never denied it, either. Dragons responded to need and had sensitive noses. Therefore, Justin knew about Edgar’s hopeless affections, and possibly even Edgar’s bizarre and undragonlike desires. Now, Aiden was here because Justin had told himsomething, and Edgar did not want to look to see what it was.
“Edgar?” Aiden prompted, sounding worried.
“I shouldn’t look,” Edgar answered, fretting at the cuff of his pajama sleeve.
