Breakfast with her mother was strained. Kay wanted to have breakfast with her, wanted to spend this time with her. This was the worst part of the whole plan, knowing what it would do to Mom. But Kay couldn’t tell her. She couldn’t even really say good-bye without revealing everything, and if Mom knew, she would stop her. Even with all the good this could do, Mom would stop her.
But it wasn’t forever, she reassured herself. This wasn’t like Dad at all.
Her mother kept glancing at her, her expression worried, searching. Kay couldn’t eat. She’d have a bite of cereal, and it would take forever to chew it. Swallowing it was like swallowing sawdust.
“You look nervous,” Mom said, and Kay flinched. Of course she was; she just didn’t think it would be so obvious. She nodded. “It’ll be okay. You don’t have to answer any of the questions if you don’t want to. Just look at this as a chance to tell your side of the story. You can stick it to Branigan.” She was trying to be funny, but her smile was strained.
“All right,” Kay said, but she thought about what she could tell the world if she had a chance.
She was cleaning up her dishes when the phone in her pocket rang. Tam’s voice over the connection was panicked, which made Kay’s gut turn with worry, sure that something had gone wrong, until she made out the words.
“I saw him,” Tam gasped. “He was there. I saw him. Neither of us crossed the river, but he was there and we talked. Kay, he talked to me—”
Kay rushed back to her bedroom and closed to the door, cupping her hands around the phone as if the sound would leak out and her mother would hear.
She wished she’d been there to see the look on Tam’s face. “I told you you’d be okay.”
“He said he couldn’t stay, he was being watched, but that he understood. Kay, he said he understood. Does that mean what I think it means?”
“It means everything’s going to be okay.”
They had a plan. It was going to work.
“Jon came with me, he showed me where to go, but he’s being watched, too, so he went the other direction to throw them off. I don’t know if it worked. Kay, does Jon know? Does he know what you’re planning?”
“Yeah.” Her heart was racing. Scared, but excited—there was something amazing about having a plan come together. “The press conference is at noon. Can you be there?”
“I wouldn’t miss it. Kay—I talked to him. I trust him. I don’t know why, but I do.”
“I told you.”
Kay had a few more things to get together. She found the book Dracopolis and the notebook with the translations. Most recently she’d worked on the final page, because she wanted to know what happened, how it all finally turned out—not that it was a story and not that it had an ending. But, obviously, the dragons leaving the world, going into their secret caverns and into hiding, hadn’t been the end or the book wouldn’t have been written, and the dragons wouldn’t have returned.
The last page, or what she could make out of it, didn’t explain it all. But it explained a little.
There is a haven for those tired of this war. There is a haven, out of view, where dragons and people still keep peace. It will always be a haven, and we pray that those who need it will find it in time.
Kay tore the sheet out of her notebook, folded it up, and put it in her pocket, along with the extra, hand-drawn map that had been slipped between the pages. She didn’t want anyone to find it. She didn’t know what keeping it secret was protecting, but she was going to find out.
She left the book on her bed, open to the page depicting the virgin sacrifice, so people would understand.
In her closet she found her homecoming dress, wrapped in plastic, destined never to be worn again. It sparkled white, shimmering even in the closet’s shadows.
This part of it was probably just like the virgin part—it didn’t really matter; the tradition had just built up over the centuries: The virgin always wore a white gown, a bridal gown, when she went to the sacrifice. She took it anyway, folded it as carefully as she could, and put it in her backpack. The weather outside had turned warm. Maybe she wouldn’t be too cold.
“Kay, we should get going,” her mother called from the living room.
So this was it. It was time. She had everything she needed—she hoped. Her cell phone was fully charged. “Just a minute!”
She looked around her room one more time, then the hallway, then the living room. She looked over the house where she’d lived her whole life and tried to remember. On one of the bookshelves in the living room sat the family picture from last Christmas: her, Mom, and Dad. All smiling, laughing almost. Dad had cracked a joke right before the camera clicked. Something about this maybe being their last formal Christmas picture together because Kay would be going away soon, to college and the ends of the earth to climb foreign mountains.
His image seemed to be looking at her. “Dad, I hope this is okay,” she whispered.
Her mother drove them both to the press conference. Kay watched the house slip away.
She turned to her mother, who in her pantsuit and pinned-up hair, looked more put together than she had since the funeral. She even wore makeup for the cameras. “I don’t want to just answer questions. I want to say something. I have a statement. Can I do that?”
“Yes, of course. Do you want me to check it over for you?”
“No, no—that’s okay.” She was kneading her hands in her lap. Mom glanced at them and smiled another tight-lipped smile.
“Maybe they’ll make you an ambassador,” Mom said, full of false cheer. “I’ve talked about it with the director. I’ve given him all the arguments why we shouldn’t prosecute.”
“You’re biased—they’ll never buy it coming from you.”
“But what sounds better, putting a cute seventeen-year-old girl on trial or making her into an ambassador? This is all about PR. It’s all about public opinion. I know which option will make the bureau look better.” She quirked a smile. PR indeed.
They drove a little while longer. Then Kay said, “What would that involve, being an ambassador?”
“Nothing, if we can’t get the dragons to talk to us.”
They were about an hour early. Mom wanted to be early. She said it would give them the high ground. Let them control the situation better. Maybe she was even right. Kay let her go on her PR kick. Kay had one of her own.
Jon and Tam were already there, waiting in Tam’s car, lost among all the news vans. Kay spotted them on the drive to the middle school gym.
“Mom, stop! There’s Tam. I want to go talk to her.”
Mom looked hesitant, but Kay pleaded with a longing expression she hadn’t used since she was thirteen.
“Okay, but just for a minute. I want you out of sight of all those cameras until the press conference. I’ll wait by the doors there.” She gestured to the gym doors, where two men in army camouflage stood guard. Just seeing them made Kay’s stomach knot.
Kay ran out, and her mother went to park. She went straight to Tam’s car, and Tam saw her just before she pounded on the window. Jon, sitting in back, opened the door for her and slid over to give her space. Almost the whole gang—they were missing Carson.
Longing and anxiety furrowed Jon’s thin face. If anything was going to make her change her mind, that would be it. She leaned toward him and threw her arms around him, holding tight.