“I—you—ungh!” Mr Aubrey snapped his mouth shut and his head back, almost rocking off his feet with the force of that sudden halt.
The flush of colour on his high cheekbones was back ... and was he actually staring at Rose’s mouth?
Oh, no. It seemed he had been scandalised by Elinor’s behaviour. He must think Rose was about to throw herself at him once again, despite all of her assurances and explanations.
“Mr Aubrey,” she began, rising to her feet and holding out one hand in placation.
“No.” Stepping back, he drew a long, shuddering breath. His gaze jerked up to hers, then back down to her mouth, his flush deepening, and then finally, with unmistakable desperation, to the door beyond.
“It’s ... the lateness of the hour ... I must go. Now! Before I do something outrageous.”
“Wait! I haven’t even asked you about the meaning of golden streaks on a dragon’s face, or—”
It was no use. His long legs carried him past her and out the buttery door. An instant later, it slammed firmly shut behind him, leaving Rose gaping in utter bafflement.
“Chirrup?”
At the inquisitive chirp from the tiled floor nearby, Rose glanced down and found Rhiannon craning her scaly red neck up to look for answers.
“Who knows?” Rose murmured, shrugging helplessly. “I wouldn’t have thought he’d be that horrified by what he saw.”
Unless ... Wait. She’d been assuming that Griff had shown him the same vision that she had seen earlier, but she hadn’t actually asked Griff to do that, had she? All that she’d asked Griff was to show Mr Aubrey ‘the truth.’
As for what the little dragon considered that to be...!
“Griff?” she asked urgently. “What exactly did you show him?”
But the golden dragon had already curled up into a ball of scales, sleepiness, and humming satisfaction. He didn’t even budge at her question, nor at her movements when she gave up a minute later and scooped him up into her arms to carry him all the way back to her room.
Clearly, he considered his work well done, with no need for human interference or assessment.
So Rose was left to retreat, with one dragon snoring noisily against her chest and the other trotting happily after her, through the shadows of Gogodd Abbey to seek her own slumber with no answers or reassurance after all – only more disturbing questions.
Chapter 15
Rose’s lifelong penchant for heavy sleeping had been a never-ending source of amusement to her sisters. They had always claimed that the noisiest brass band in the world couldn’t wake her. Their mother had only sighed and smiled whenever Rose finally staggered out of bed, heavy-eyed and yawning. “My Rose has always been a powerful dreamer...”
... But waking up had become a special form of purgatory across the past seven months.
In her dreams, Rose’s mother still rolled her eyes in fond exasperation as she bustled around Rose and Rose’s father, briskly organising them and everyone else in her warm, protected sphere; Rose’s sisters were still her constant companions; and Rose’s father, most bittersweetly of all, was still the sweet, impractical parent she had adored, not yet a horrible warning of how much damage she, too, could wreak if she ever let herself be swept away by her own reckless imagination.
... And then she woke every morning, alone once more, in a room with only one bed and cold white fog waiting to envelop her.
Today, like every other day, she felt the usual dread unfurl within her as she began the slow rise towards unforgiving wakefulness. Then a hot, scaly snout pressed against her cheek and expelled a stinking huff of dragon-breath into her nostrils.
“Waugh!” Sputtering and gasping, Rose jerked upright.
Rhiannon looked imperiously up at her from the pillow. “Chrrp!”
“Chrr!” Griff chorused helpfully from the bottom of the bed, where he was peering hopefully at her over the mound made by her toes under the bedcovers.
Clearly, they both considered breakfast to be late.
Still wiping off her mouth, Rose began to laugh helplessly at their expressions. “Well, I’m certainly not alone anymore, am I? Come along, you two rascals. Let’s see if Mrs Davies is in a generous mood.”
Now that Serena knew of Griff’s existence, there was no need to keep him hidden from the rest of the household anymore, so both dragons trotted freely by Rose’s feet, winding and curving around her ankles with a perfect disregard for safety as she opened her bedroom door and started down the faded carpeting of the hallway …
... Only for Serena to leap out from her own bedroom, where she’d apparently been lurking behind her cracked-open door. “Ha!” She pointed accusingly at Rose as both dragons startled violently. “You thought you could avoid me?”
