The world around me began to collapse.

  A continuous, deafening high-pitched whine filled the chamber. Blinking no longer helped clear my vision, and colours bled into each other as my eyes struggled to focus. I could feel my quickened pulse and breathing in my head. I sat back and put my hands, paws, talons, whatever they were now to my face, as if I could physically keep my mind from falling down a dark spiral that I was just on the precipice of, but feeling the horns and finned spines at the back of my head just pushed me further and further towards it. I put my finger between my teeth and bit down, not quite processing that my old, bad habit to get a hold of myself might actually hurt me now. My fangs punched right through my scales, and I tasted cloying iron on my forked tongue.

  “Belfry!” I heard Grace call from somewhere miles away. “Belfry, saints and gods, stop!”

  I felt hands wrap around my arm. An anchor point. I focussed hard on that sensation, listening to pick the quiet crackle of clattering wood and metal out from the ringing in my ears. Slowly, ever so agonisingly slowly, I brought my attention to the present, stepping farther back from that spiral. My vision started to clarify, though I still had trouble processing the strange sharpness of everything in the room, and my muscles relaxed, allowing Grace to pull my hand away from my mouth.

  “Bloody hellfire, Belfry, I thought you’d kicked that habit,” Grace whispered, her voice on the verge of breaking. She had dropped her spear, and held my bloody finger up to her head, despite the wound dealt by the deacon’s strike still bleeding. There was an electric feeling that shot through my bones as my scales touched her forehead and my blood touched hers, like a powerful static shock.

  I wanted to talk to her, to question what had happened, to reassure her that I was still here, but the sounds I forced from my throat came out as a pitiful growl. Of course, I thought to myself. Dragons can’t talk. I can’t talk.

  Emotions surged through me, all trapped in my voiceless head. I felt the urge to cry, but couldn’t. I wanted to scream too, but we were still in the monastery. No matter how much I felt like my world had ended, I couldn’t compromise Grace’s safety. Never.

  Grace, I thought, resigning myself to let the speech flow only through my mind until I could find someplace where I could write to her in safety, I’m sorry.

  Grace suddenly reeled back, dropping my hand and looking wildly around the chamber. “Belfry?” she asked aloud. “Was that you?”

  I blinked. Had she…heard my thoughts? That couldn’t be possible. I didn’t even think that you could do that kind of thing with magic. But then again, I hadn’t ever heard of magic turning people into dragons either, so….

  ?Grace?? I tried experimentally, doing my best to intuit pushing my thoughts towards her. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but something clicked. ?Can you hear me??

  Her eyes went wide, and she nodded, still looking frantically around. “Yes, yes I can hear you,” she said. “How are you…?”

  Instinctively, my ears pricked up at a faint intruding sound. A bell was ringing somewhere outside, and alongside it, there were people shouting, at least three.

  ?We don’t have time,? I thought—said—to Grace. Danger kicked my head into focus. I took a deep, shuddering breath, stretching out my body and feeling every muscle, both familiar and strange. Worrying about what this all meant could come later. Right now, we needed to get out of this place alive. ?Did they see you come in here??

  She hesitantly shook her head as she went to retrieve her spear. “No,” she said. “I don’t think so, at least. I’ve been waiting for a few minutes. If they had, I would think that they’d have found me by now.”

  ?Okay,? I muttered. ?We need to get out of here.?

  “How?” asked Grace.

  I eyed the ladder. ?I have a plan.?

  Grace glanced at my wings as I flexed them slowly, trying to feel out the motions. I saw the moment the gears in her head clicked over. “Are you sure you can do that?”

  ?I’m too big to fit up the ladder,? I pointed out. Based on quick guesses, I figured I wasn’t any more than a foot taller than Grace at my shoulder, but no matter what, my wings and legs wouldn’t fit through the trapdoor up there. ?Unless you know a way to shrink me, we aren’t getting out of this room quietly. So either I figure out how to do this, or we try to run, and I don’t fancy our chances in the snow, especially against those tall freaks they’ve got chasing us down.?

  Grace scratched her chin hesitantly. I let what would once have been an irritated huff but was now a low growl escape me and knelt down, lowering my wings to my sides. ?Come on! We haven’t got all night!?

  I tried not to notice the glint of mirth that sparked for just a moment in Grace’s eyes as she gently climbed onto my back. I pushed myself to my feet and took a few practise steps. Grace didn’t feel especially heavy; carrying her like this sort of reminded me of when I’d had to carry the young sheep that got lost over my back, long ago in a previous life. She grabbed hold of what I assumed must have been spikes protruding from my neck as I walked, holding herself steady.

  ?Alright,? I said. ?We’re going to have to break through the ceiling to get out. I’m going to jump and…just try to ram through it I guess on the count of three.?

  Grace shifted her grip, though I felt her hand trembling. “Please don’t do anything you’ll regret, Belfry,” she mumbled.

  It's far too late for that, I thought, but decided to keep that one to myself for now. I sat down underneath the trapdoor, figuring it would be the weakest point in the ceiling here, and slowly ran through the jumping motion a few times. I felt like I had it down first try—all of the movements I made felt bizarrely natural—but I wanted to be safe.

  ?Ready?? I asked.

  “Ready,” said Grace.

  ?Good.? I crouched down, angling to let the rear of my head, where my horns were, strike the stone first. ?Three…two….?

  ?One!?

  I squeezed my eyes shut and sprang upward, beating my wings down to add as much force to the blow as possible and sending all the dust in the room scattering into the air with a loud whoosh. There was a resounding crack as horn collided with stone, and I felt a dull thud in my brain as pain radiated through my skull. An avalanche of rock shards and heavy stone chunks smacked against my scales as I blindly grabbed an anchor to haul myself out of the cellar with, eventually managing to sink my claws into a gap between two bricks.

  I shook my head and opened my eyes as I pulled myself up into a room that looked like how I’d heard alchemical labs described. A number of instruments of metal, stone, and glass littered long tables and counter tops, alongside jars that reeked of unfamiliar herbal and metallic smells and a couple huge furnace-like structures in the corners.

  More importantly, the door in here was open, and I could see the lower garden outside. I didn’t see any people at the moment, but the door to the weird hospital building with all the patients on the other side of the garden was open, and the bell from inside it was what sounded like it was ringing.

  ?Are you still with me?? I said.

  “Mhm,” mumbled Grace.

  I nodded to myself and ran for the door. Thankfully, it seemed like I was just small enough still that I could slip through if I folded my wings tightly. I went through carefully, hoping I gave Grace enough time to duck under the frame.

  The moment I was out, a man wearing the vestments of the Church walked out of the hospital building. His eyes just about bulged out of his head when he saw us. A look of rage and disbelief came over his face, and he pointed an accusatory finger at us, ushering someone unseen out of the building behind him.

  “Dragoons!” he cried. “Don’t let them escape!”

  I turned to run, adrenaline slamming through my veins. I turned back to see a deacon come of the building holding a rifle and begin to line up his aim.

  “Now!” shouted Grace. “Get us out of here!”

  At her words, I jumped. We hung several feet in the air for a second as I faltered with my wings before landing back on the grass, lacking the momentum to stay aloft. In an instant, I heard the loud bang of a gunshot and felt a white hot pain lance into the middle of my tail, and I hissed.

  Come on, I said in my head as I picked up speed again. It’s just like swimming. Just like swimming…. And, JUMP!

  I sprang up again, this time beating my wings down like I did in the cellar. The ground beneath my feet suddenly vanished, and I felt wind against my face. I looked down to see the outer wall of the monastery pass by underneath me as I flapped my wings again and again as we climbed higher and went faster. I heard another gunshot, but didn’t feel the bullet land this time. It wasn’t long before the monastery was fading into the cliffs behind us, and we were well into the barren, snowy high peaks only a minute later.

  ?Hang on,? I murmured.

  Grace tightened her grip, and I glanced back to see her peering over my shoulder at the ground below. “Hah…hah hah,” she let out a nervous laugh that grew into an excited whoop. “Hah hah hah! Belfry, we’re flying!”

  “Hmm,” I hummed aloud. ?I know.?

  I tried not to look down. As safe as my movements felt, my human mind still wasn’t sure if I could trust my wings to hold me. This was not, in fact, just like swimming. Swimming didn’t involve soaring. Even so, the motions came to me as naturally as walking.

  Stolen story; please report.

  I couldn’t lie to myself. It was exhilarating, feeling the rush of wind against my face, and the billowing of air beneath my wings. I felt weightless and powerful, and free in a way that being on the ground couldn’t replicate. The small part of me that allowed itself to feel giddy with excitement in that moment wanted to try some aerial acrobatics, to dive down and skim over the rocky peaks and swoop back up into the sky to declare it was mine.

  But still…as I flew us eastward, back towards home, the yawning pit of dread in my stomach only grew. Once the adrenaline was gone, I could think more about what had happened. What it meant. What I was going to have to deal with once we landed. In a perfect world, this transformation would go away before morning. It would have been just the thing to keep me from dying, and then to get Grace and me out of there. But never in my life had I thought I lived in a perfect world.

  I started to feel the exhaustion in my wings by the time we finally reached the outlying sheep and goat fields that surrounded Vandermaine, and shortly after that, our old house came into view. I angled downwards, stretching my legs out and just hoping that instincts could take me into a safe landing. My feet skidded through the dirt of the north field as I hit the ground, but I stayed upright and clenched my claws, finally bringing us to a stop.

  I knelt down, letting Grace hop to the ground. Her legs shook as she landed on the grass, but a mile-wide smile was plastered on her face. “That was incredible!” she shouted, heedless of the late hour. She ran in front of me to meet my eyes. “Belfry, that was so amazing! The crash through the rocks, and then, and then flying! Saints, I don’t think I ever could have imagined how great flying would be!”

  I left her to her excitement and swept my tail around in front of me to check where I had been shot. Dark, almost purplish blood leaked from a gash near the midpoint, just above where that first set of fins was. A couple scales had been blown off, but it didn’t seem like a terribly deep injury, and it didn’t look like the bullet was stuck in it either. I’d still want a bandage though, if only to stem the bleeding.

  ?Hey, Grace, I…? I started, my words faltering in my head. My breaths shook. Grace finally came down from her excitement and rushed over, worry etched on her face.

  “Oh, no, Belfry, did you get hit?” she asked as she knelt down beside me.

  ?I did,? I answered. ?I have some emergency supplies at the house. Give me just…just give me a minute.?

  Grace nodded. “Don’t worry, I’ll go get whatever you need.” She jumped to her feet and ran towards the house.

  I laid there in the grassy field, staring after her for a moment before looking down at my hands. It was dark out here at night, but the orange colour of my scales still stood out. Seeing it made me feel monstrously ill. I still couldn’t quite believe it. I wasn’t human anymore. How do you even begin to process something that shocking, that destructive to your sense of…of who you are?

  I saw Grace running back out of the house, clutching a satchel and with Juniper bounding along behind her, moving slowly in her old age but still with a lot of spirit. I clenched my jaw. Would Juniper recognise me at all?

  “I got it!” Grace cried, tossing the bag towards me. I snatched it out of the air and fished through it until a roll of bandages snagged on my claws. I had to stretch a bit to reach my tail and start wrapping the cloth around it, but I could do it, which I was thankful for.

  Juniper finally stopped bouncing as she got close. She trotted up to me and started aggressively sniffing at my neck and face. ?Hi, Juni,? I tried to say. I could only hope that whatever was letting me talk to Grace would work here.

  I kept watch on Juniper as I finished wrapping the bandages and cut them off with a claw. She kept on sniffing, then stopping like she was confused, before sniffing again for a full minute. When she finally seemed satisfied, she sat down and leaned her head against my shoulder, looking up at me with eyes begging for attention.

  “I guess you smell the same?” said Grace.

  ?I guess so,? I agreed, letting out a long sigh of relief. At least I didn’t have to worry about my dog being scared of me. I let Juni lean there and gave her gentle pets with two fingers until she slid down my side and fully laid down on the ground.

  There was a hesitant moment of silence between us. Grace looked pensive, all the positivity driven out of her by now. She picked nervously at her lip.

  “Belfry,” she finally said, her voice quiet and serious. “What happened back there? How….” She gestured vaguely at my entire body. “How did this happen?”

  ?I’m not entirely sure,? I admitted, and explained what I could starting from when I woke up in the pit. I told her everything—from the stone, to the ghosts, to the healing, to the burning pain, to finding her again. She listened closely. If she found any part of what I said unbelievable, she didn’t show it.

  ?I suppose the…stone is what did this,? I said. ?It must have been. But I don’t know why.?

  I gave her a pleading glance, and she quickly shook her head. “Sorry,” she said. “I’ve never heard of this before, either. I wish I had something for you, but I don’t.” She pointed a finger at my head. “It’s still you in there, though, right?”

  ?I think so,? I said. I didn’t feel any different in my mind. At least, not right then.

  Grace narrowed her eyes. “How’d we meet?” she asked.

  ?Uh…you tackled me in an alleyway after I tried to steal your necklace,? I said, tilting my head up as I tried to dredge up the seven year old memories. ?You gave me a big gash on my head. And then your father offered to let me sleep at your house for the night.?

  Grace nodded, satisfied. “Good,” she said.

  There was another silent lapse in the conversation. It was a quiet night, and I could hear distant crickets chirping at the white moon. Juniper was soon asleep at my feet, loudly snoring.

  “So…what are you going to do?” asked Grace.

  ?What am I going to do?? I repeated. A snarl escaped my throat, and my lips twitched and revealed my teeth. ?What am I going to do!? I have no idea! But whatever it is, you’re going to be doing it with me, because, since you apparently need the reminder, going in there was your idea! If I hadn’t said “yes” to your stupid plan, I’d be asleep in my bed right now! I’d be…I’d be normal still! I’d be me!?

  Grace’s eyes widened, and she turned away. Her cheeks flushed, but my anger hadn’t died down yet.

  ?Saints, look at me! Look at this!? I held my arm up and ran my claws up it, accidentally prying a scale loose. It clattered to the ground at Grace’s feet. ?Who knows if I’ll ever get to see my own face again? Or hear my voice? Or brush my hair, or cry, or walk upright? My life is basically over. I can never live like how I used to like this!?

  I sat down again. My anger still burned white-hot, but I sat quiet long enough trying to figure out the best words to keep venting that I heard Grace sniffling. The rage sizzled in my mind as it was doused with guilt and a thick fog of sorrow.

  “I’m sorry,” Grace sobbed. “I didn’t mean to…I really didn’t mean to hurt you like this…. I really thought that it would all be okay.”

  I sighed, leaning my head down. ?I’m sorry for yelling,? I said. ?Do you…do you want a hug??

  Grace didn’t say anything, she just instantly wrapped her arms around my neck. I returned the gesture as best I could, sweeping my wing around her like a cloak. We stayed for a minute until Grace pulled back, wiping the tears away from her eyes.

  “I really am terribly, terribly sorry,” she said. Her voice was still fragile even though the tears had stopped. “I never imagined something like this could happen.”

  ?You couldn’t have known,? I said. ?I shouldn’t have screamed at you. I…really don’t know what got into me, there. I shouldn’t be mad.?

  Grace scoffed. “Given what you’ve been through, you have every right to be angry, I think,” she said.

  I pawed at the ground. ?It’s better than being dead,? I said. ?Probably. Assuming nothing else weird happens.?

  “It better not,” said Grace. She forced a weak smile onto her face. “If it does, then I’m going to find whoever made that stone. And then they’ll have to deal with me.”

  I let out a small laugh. It sounded like the bellows of a forge, but it was recognisable as a laugh, even if it was a far cry from what I used to sound like. That cheered me up more than I would have thought.

  ?So…do you have any ideas?? I asked. ?About where to go? You’re the well-travelled one here, and there’s definitely no one in Vandermaine who could help me.?

  Grace stared into the distance in thought for a moment before her eyes went wide and she snapped her fingers. “The Dragoons!” she said. “They’re experts on dragons and magic that has to do with dragons. Maybe they’ll know something?”

  I squinted. ?That’s really far away. Didn’t you say they were in Kirkwall? That’s hundreds of miles from here, over mountains.?

  “And it’s a huge city,” said Grace, “full of government people and shady occultists. I don’t know if now is the right time for me to take you there. But!” She raised a finger. “The Dragoons have a big fort in Rimewater Vale! It’s near the sea, northwest of here. They use it as a flight academy to train recruits.”

  ?I’ve heard of that place, I think,? I said. ?Isn’t it still really far away, though? The Vale isn’t the smallest province, I don’t think.?

  “It’s only a couple hundred miles,” said Grace. “It’s a long way on foot, but you can fly! Dragoons can make it halfway from the East Fountainheads to the West Fountainheads in a day on a dragon’s back, from what I’ve heard.”

  I rubbed my head, still not convinced. ?I’ve only ever flown once,? I pointed out.

  “Yeah,” said Grace, “and you did a great job. Even if you get tired, we could still make it to the academy in only three days, at most, while taking stops to rest up.”

  I nodded at that. It wasn’t a bad point. And I definitely couldn’t think of any group better suited to help us than the corps. Not that I fully trusted them yet, but absolutely nothing else came to mind. I glanced at Grace. She was smiling again. I didn’t know whether she was hoping that the Dragoons might let her join this time, or if she was just excited to visit them, even if it was only to figure out if they had a cure for me, but it was plain to see that she was still thinking about her dream, even now. The thought of saying no hurt my heart.

  ?I guess they’d also be willing to keep a freak like me around, even if they can’t help,? I said, working to justify the conclusion I had already come to.

  “Well, you could probably live in a city, still,” said Grace. “There’s dragons out there who do that, even if they aren’t part of the Dragoons. But you’re right. Even if they don’t have an answer, they can still probably help, somehow.”

  I gave a curt nod. ?Almost sounds like we have a plan, then.?

  Grace gave me a pat on the shoulder. “It’s something!” she said. She tilted her head back towards the moons and cracked her knuckles. “We should probably leave as soon as possible,” she said.

  ?We should,? I agreed. ?That’ll be tomorrow morning, though. We need sleep.?

  Grace yawned to punctuate my suggestion. “I guess you’re right,” she said. She stretched and took a step towards the house before pausing. “Where are you going to sleep?” she asked.

  ?Right here, I think,? I said. I looked down at the dog still asleep at my side. ?I couldn’t disturb Juni. Besides, I don’t think my bed would hold me, anyway.?

  Grace tilted her head. “Are you sure you’ll be okay out here?”

  ?It’s not the first time I’ve slept outdoors,? I said, putting on a thin smile, the best I could do. ?I’ll be fine. I promise.?

  Grace squinted at the grass before another yawn shook her focus. “Okay, if you’re sure,” she said. She paused, and then rushed back over to give me another hug. “I’m so glad you’re alive, scales or no,”

  I returned the embrace, but I couldn’t contort my face into looking happy any longer. ?Yeah,? I said, hoping my uncertainty didn’t come through my thought-words.

  Grace pulled back, giving me one last reassuring glance before backing towards the house. “I’ll see you in the morning, then,” she said.

  I nodded, watching her run all the way back, before making myself comfortable. The ground was cold, even in the summer, and I was tempted to use fire to warm it up, but very quickly decided that was probably a bad idea. I settled on lying curled up, halfway on my side, and draping my wing over myself and Juniper as a makeshift blanket.

  I stared at the stars above for a long time, my thoughts unable to quieten down as I was left alone in my own echo chamber. I always tried to stay calm and rational in situations like this. But there wasn’t much that felt terribly rational about all the pain that weighed heavy in my heart. My mind was intact, as far as I could tell, but I still felt like I had lost a crucial piece of myself. I couldn’t put the reasoning into words, but it hurt nonetheless. I needed to find something to say about it, or I’d never be able to talk to Grace about it, and keeping it from her would be irresponsible.

  Or…would it? She was so excited about getting to go and visit the dragoons. I didn’t have it in me to kill her enthusiasm. Surely, I could endure this for a while if it meant she got to live out her lifelong dream, right? After all, it’s not like I had much of a life to go back to, even if they did have a cure. It wasn’t like I enjoyed banditry.

  Sleep took a long time to pierce through the storm of fractious thoughts that clouded my mind. That night, I dreamed of being human again, at the bottom of a great deep sea, tinted throughout with pale purple light. I didn’t feel scared or in danger beneath the water, and felt no burning in my lungs. I was just heartsore, like I was grieving something or someone very close to me, although I didn’t know what. I laid on the ocean floor until morning, careless of the eyes that watched me from the water’s deep shadows.