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  Merlin hadn’t told Blair about my reincarnation, yet she seemed to speak right to my soul. And I knew she was right—if given the choice, Sara Lee and Nimue would have saved everyone all over again.

  “Thank you,” I said finally as I wiped at the tears that had formed during her speech.

  Blair took a tissue out of her dress pocket and used it to help pat my eyes. For a second I felt like a child again, being comforted by Skelly after a fall or a harsh word from the other boys. There was something so soothing about this Earth Dragon, something that I could not explain—like beams of sun warming my skin. I didn’t want it to ever go away, though I knew that all suns must disappear when night falls.

  So I kissed her.

  It felt nothing like kissing Sren or any of the other boys from Draman. Firstly, though she smelled like the sun, her lips tasted like the earth. There was a sweet floweriness to them, unlike the colder touch of a Bone Dragon’s kiss. Secondly, there was no aggression in her touch. With Sren and the others a kiss had always been a hungry, grasping thing, but with Blair, the act was softer and gentler.

  I ran my hands through her hair, feeling the strange length of it between my fingers, and she touched my neck, sending a warm glow down my spine. We kissed again, and again, until a sound startled us.

  “Ahem.”

  “Oh. Merlin.” I moved back as far as I could on the rock, putting about two feet between Blair and I. “Blair was just… uh….”

  “Comforting him,” she added. “Which I think I did successfully. So… great. I’ll be going now.”

  In the dark, I could still see Merlin’s bushy white eyebrows rise.

  Blair stood up and walked to the edge of the land. In the strange process of the Earth Dragons, full of muscles and organs, she transitioned into her second form. Then she dove off the cliff, down over the land below, and toward home, though she was careful to stay above the clouds so that she wasn’t spotted. For several minutes, we could still see the beating of the outline of her wings, like a large bat against the white light of the moon.

  Merlin took the seat where Blair had been and propped his hands up on his walking stick. Then he rested his chin on his hands and exhaled a long sigh.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said hurriedly, assuming he was mad at me. “I know I’m here to search for my soulmate, and instead I’m kissing random girls I just met. You must think—”

  “I think nothing,” Merlin said, “except that you are young and full of life. There was a time when I was as young as you, and developed a crush on someone who wasn’t right for me.”

  “What happened?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.

  “He accidentally saw me transition and called me a freak. At the time it felt like the worst thing that could ever happen to me, but then I met Lup, and none of that mattered. I say enjoy your time, Grian—you will find your soulmate soon enough, and forever is a very long time. But just be careful, my young Sun Dragon—be careful that you do not ruin your chance at true happiness in the meantime. Understood?”

  “Of course. Thank you, Merlin.”

  “Good. Now come inside—we’ve got a database of ten thousand Earth Dragons to sort through.”

  Chapter Six

  APPARENTLY, ALL that hand waving in Mr. Siegel’s office had actually been Merlin copying the data from his computer. Though he seemed like a bumbling old man who used his powers at random, in fact Merlin had plotted the entire scene on Little Earth and executed it perfectly. The odds of Caden sitting on the beach had seemed unlikely at best, but the odds of his face popping up on a database of all of the known dragons in the world? Much higher.

  On the other hand, the only way Merlin had to display this data was on a low-tech computer from the mid-1990s that still used dial-up.

  “This is ridiculous,” he fumed as he banged his veiny hand on the top of the monitor. “I’ve put enough spells on this machine to fuel a whole town, and the thing still won’t run.”

  I looked at the back of the computer. “Merlin, it’s not even plugged in.”

  “I know! It’s never been connected to a real power source. This PC runs purely on magic, and it moves slower than a turtle crossing a road.”

  “Why don’t you just get a new one?”

  Merlin tapped a loving hand on the CD-ROM. “Dellsey has been with my family for generations. She’s an heirloom. After all she’s seen, I can’t imagine turning her out onto the street—”

  At the threat the so-called Dellsey sprang into action. “Hello, great Merlin,” a woman’s voice crackled from the speakers. “I apologize for my lateness; I was taking a nap.”

  “Quite all right, Dellsey,” Merlin crooned. “Now would you be a good girl and show us these faces, please?”

  At his touch, a folder titled Earth Dragon Database emerged on the desktop. I double clicked it with the simple two-button mouse, and the first face appeared. The man was over fifty, with a sea-weathered face and a hawk’s eyebrows. I clicked next.

  “Would you like some coffee?” Merlin asked as he stood up and stretched his back. “I’ll make a fresh pot.”

  “Are you sure it’s a good idea to drink caffeine this late?” I asked, never moving my eyes from the flickering screen.

  “Trust me,” Merlin said as he left the room. “It’s going to be a long night.”

  FIVE HOURS and ten thousand human faces later, we were no closer to finding Caden than before. We didn’t have a name—unlike me, Merlin had not decreed his fate before he was even born—and we didn’t have a photograph. In less than a day, we had exhausted all of our options.

  “This is pointless,” I groaned as I sipped my fifth cup of cold coffee and paged back through the faces that I’d found even remotely attractive. There weren’t many. “He’s not in here.”

  “That doesn’t make our search pointless,” Merlin argued. He had brought his rocking chair from the living room to the office, where he sat swaying back and forth while reading the blank pages of something called the Eternal Book. He claimed only he could see the writing, though I had my doubts. “It just means we need to expand our search. Shull and his advisors were not in this database, which leads me to suspect that there is a second collection for government employees. If we sneak into the EDPS headquarters, I can copy it.”

  “Why would Caden work for the EDPS?” I couldn’t imagine any soulmate of mine working for a monster like Shull. “And even if he is in there, how do you propose we sneak into the EDPS headquarters?”

  “Easy,” Merlin said as he shut the Eternal Book definitively. “We fly.”

  “Now?”

  “Of course not, don’t be silly.” Merlin yawned. “I’m an old man, and I need my rest. You can stay here for the night, and tomorrow morning, we’ll leave bright and early.”

  When I looked out the window, the sun was already peeking an eye over the horizon. However, even young men needed their rest, so I neglected to mention it. After he transformed the couch into a cot, Merlin disappeared into the cabin’s only bedroom, leaving me alone with the database.

  Slowly, I sank back into the computer chair.

  “Dellsey, show me all Earth Dragons named Blair,” I requested. After two other male Blairs, my Blair appeared. “Can you print this picture?”

  “Of course, Grian. Can I be of any other assistance, or may I shut down now?”

  “That’s all, Dellsey. Thank you.”

  Blair’s picture appeared out of thin air, the invisible printer still creaking like a true antique. As soon as the last bit of ink hit the page, Dellsey’s screen went black. I caught the single piece of paper and carried it over to the cot, where I investigated the now-familiar face.

  What was it about this girl that had me so enamored?

  Nothing about my attraction to her made sense. She was a girl, and I had never found a single girl attractive in all of my years on Draman. I had never wanted to kiss one, let alone actually tried it, and yet there I was, at the most inconvenient time ever, staring at a pic
ture of Blair.

  Though I wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery, I fell asleep that way, her photograph lying on the pillow next to me. When I woke up, the sun had traveled across the sky into the descent of afternoon, and Merlin was waving a fresh cup of coffee under my nose.

  “Rise and shine, Prince Grian,” he said cheerfully as I dragged myself out of bed and held the coffee between my hands like a holy grail. “It’s time to find your soulmate.”

  What if I’ve already found her? I thought as I stuffed the photo under my pillow before Merlin could notice it. Luckily, however, I kept that thought to myself.

  APPARENTLY THE EDPS headquarters was not on a floating invisible mound of earth like the other magical places, but sat right smack in the middle of Times Square in New York City.

  “No one ever asks about the large skyscraper and what’s inside?” I asked as Merlin led me through the maze of city streets. We’d had to land on the city’s edge, then walk through on foot, to avoid the EDPS scanners.

  “Why would they? Look around you. Every building is a skyscraper.”

  He was right. New York City was louder and larger and more alive than any place I had ever seen in my life. The buildings were like giants, at any minute capable of stretching out a foot and stomping you; the cabs were like ants, crawling through traffic as patrons watched 3-D televisions from the backseat. In fact, everything had a screen or a voice or a hologram, so that every surface gyrated and pulsed like a choppy ocean.

  “How do people get anything done around here?” I asked as a vendor selling something called vegan hotdogs almost ran me over with his cart.

  “Intense concentration,” Merlin yelled over the music emanating from the building next to us. “And therapy.”

  I didn’t know what therapy was, but it had to be pretty strong magic to keep these people pacified. I’d only been in New York ten minutes, and I already wanted to cup my hands over my ears.

  Glass elevators carried people up and down the various building levels, with each elevator connected to at least four buildings around it. These passageways made shadows on the ground that reminded me of spider webs, though when I looked up, the windows glowed with brilliant yellow sunlight.

  “The best time to come is the night before the Fourth of July,” Merlin said as he purchased two fruit drinks, one red and one orange. “The fireworks reflect off all of the glass, which makes the whole city come alive with sparks.”

  I also didn’t know what fireworks were, but I understood the gist. Taking a large sip of my juice, I gagged and then spit the liquid onto the sidewalk. Embarrassed at my behavior, I looked sheepishly around me, but no one had noticed.

  “What is this stuff?” I asked. “It tastes terrible.”

  “My apologies, Grian,” Merlin said as he swapped our drinks. “I forgot that dragons from Draman hate strawberries.”

  The orange drink was a bit better, and I forced myself to finish it. All of the people shoving me and the heat rising from the sidewalk had me sweating like crazy; though I was a sun dragon who loved heat, in my human form, I was as susceptible to heatstroke as anyone. Plus, I was accustomed to the dry heat of Draman, not the sticky, sweaty moisture of New York.

  Finally, we arrived at the EDPS building and took the glass elevator up to the hundredth story. There, apparently, was the only real entrance to the building. All of the other floors had fake receptionists and fake passageways, all of which led to an interrogation room where the Earth Dragons in charge could ascertain exactly why a certain New Yorker had wandered into their midst.

  “They tell people they’re the human CIA,” Merlin explained when I asked how they got away with it. “These days, the CIA does pretty much whatever they want, whenever they want, and no one ever asks questions.”

  The glass passageway led us to a room with all glass furniture: glass tables, glass chairs, and even a glass reception desk. Apparently, glass was the modern style—it gave an air of honesty to the whole operation. Then again, it also gave a direct line of sight to the receptionist’s skirt. Merlin and I looked away.

  “We’re here to fill out forms for access into Little Earth,” Merlin lied. He had changed his voice, the words now full of gliding vowels merging before nasal consonants—from the little I knew about Earth, this was supposed to imitate an American southern accent. “We’ve just come from out of town, and we’d love to check out the famous landmark as soon as possible. But we’re not in the dragon database, and we don’t want to make any trouble.”

  “And you came all the way to the EDPS to fill out a few forms?” the woman asked. She was middle-aged and thin, and had perfected an impeccable look of disapproval she probably used on most visitors.

  “Is that not the right thing to do?” Merlin asked apologetically. “Good lord, it’s been quite a day, and this weather is making me like a cat on a hot tin roof. I know we’re from the south and it’s hotter there, but I reckon there’s something much worse in all of these crowds and concrete sidewalks. And with me being over a hundred years old, you can imagine what a toll a city like New York takes on me.”

  “You poor thing,” the woman said, finally softening. “Today is abnormally hot, and Mondays in New York are always a madhouse. I’ll just go get you that form, and you can fill it out right here, okay? Son, you get your grandfather a seat, and I’ll be right back.”

  As soon as she disappeared, Merlin began doing his hand-waving thing again. This time, I realized he had an antique CD in his pocket, and the information he pulled from their database was being transferred to that disc. Halfway through the download, however, a familiar person walked into the waiting room.

  “What are you two doing here?” Blair asked as she stopped in the doorway.

  For a few seconds, I was too shocked to respond. Could the same Blair I’d kissed the night before really be an EDPS traitor?

  “I might ask the same of you,” I finally said, hoping to distract her while Merlin finished. If she really was a spy, all the more reason to take the EDPS down as quickly as possible.

  “I work here,” she said, as though the answer was obvious. She wore a uniform—a dress, really, with a collar and buttons down the front, and the letters EDPS were stitched over her heart.

  “And you didn’t want to mention that you worked for the evil organization that got my mother killed last night before I kissed you?” I hissed, anger boiling inside of me. “You just let me believe—”

  “All right, you two. I have those forms right here,” the receptionist said as she reentered the room. “Two new Earth Dragons in our database, coming right up. Now fill out sections A, B, C, G, and J, then initial after each line in the middle and sign on the dotted line below. Then sign the second page, which is just a waiver that allows EDPS to share your picture with Little Earth, as well as the government if an investigation ever occurs. I’ll take your picture, and then you’re good to go.”

  “Thank you kindly, ma’am,” Merlin said as he took the clipboards from her.

  Blair’s eyes bugged out from her widened eyelids as Merlin shuffled with an exaggerated limp all the way over to the glass chairs. I followed, and Blair stayed in the middle of the room, dumbfounded.

  “What’s wrong with you?” the receptionist asked, looking between Blair and us. “You know those two?”

  I locked my gaze onto Blair’s. Would she betray us?

  “No,” Blair said finally, turning away. “I’ve never seen them before in my life. I just love seeing a grandfather and a grandchild who are so close, you know?”

  “I do,” said the receptionist as she nodded knowingly. “I never really knew my—”

  “See you later, Jeanette,” Blair said. Then she turned, without another word, and walked into the back room.

  “She’s a strange one,” Jeanette confided once Blair’s heels had clicked away. “They say she went through a great tragedy as a teenager, and she’s never been the same. No one knows what happened—except Shull, of course, and he neve
r tells anyone anything—but they let her work here even though she’s odder than a deer walking down Broadway.”

  Merlin and I did not press her; though a terrible gossip, she didn’t seem to know much. I could tell Merlin was intrigued by the rise of his eyebrows, and I was too. But we had to focus on the matter at hand—specifically, how were we going to get out of EDPS without actually entering their database?

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” Merlin whispered while Jeanette was distracted with a call. “I’ll pretend to get sick and faint. After I wake up, you insist on bringing me home to rest. Then we’ll—”

  “Excuse me,” Jeanette interrupted. “That was Shull on the phone. Apparently, he wants to see you in his office.”

  Chapter Seven

  SHULL’S OFFICE had a full view of Times Square, making the large window behind him look like a TV screen. Unlike the desks of his receptionist and the workers in the large office behind the wall, his working space was not made of glass; apparently, Shull had items in those drawers he wanted to keep hidden.

  Framed by the chaos of ads and lights, the hulking Shull was just another character in the display, with peculiarly broad shoulders and the chiseled body of a soldier. His hair was cut short, revealing a perpetual, doubtful scowl that wrinkled across his forehead. The head itself sat on a display of large muscles reaching up to his neck and leading down to a standard EDPS polo shirt that must have been custom-made for his tree-trunk arms and tapered waist.

  “My employees say I’m too careful,” Shull began, his voice low and growling, “because I ask them to stream the video feed from the waiting room into my office monitor. I say you can never be too careful in my position, and now that I’ve caught the great Merlin like a mackerel on my hunting spear, they will never question my orders again.”