“So show me.”
Aiden made a face.
“Come on. I wanna see it. You got to see me turn into a dragon when I wasn’t good at it.” Not only did Dylan think it would look cool, but he wanted Aiden to share things with him again. The last time Aiden had pulled away from him it was because he was afraid of Dylan. But this felt like something different. Part of him hoped it was at least. Dylan hated having his best friend be afraid of him.
“That was an emergency. This isn’t.” Aiden pushed his hands farther into his pockets, breath coming out in a white cloud.
Dylan was still a little scared to come out to the pit. He jumped at any odd noise and sometimes thought he saw shadows moving out of the corner of his eye. It was easier to have Aiden with him. “I bet you’re better at it than you think. C’mon, Aiden.”
Aiden shifted his feet. “Okay. But you have to swear not to laugh if I screw up.”
“I swear.” Dylan held up a hand.
Aiden took his hands out of his pockets and rubbed them on his jeans. Taking a deep breath in and out, he closed his eyes.
Dylan waited patiently, standing still and even breathing quietly. The air around Aiden shimmered with a faint greenish-gold light, and the scent of a warm spring day filled Dylan’s nose.
And then he was looking at himself. “Whoa.”
Aiden opened his eyes, but they were Dylan’s green eyes. “How do I look?” It was even Dylan’s voice coming out of him.
“It’s like looking in a mirror, only 3-D. That is so weird. And awesome.” Dylan slowly walked around his double.
“Yeah, it’s really trippy when I look in the mirror and someone else is staring back.” Aiden brushed his palms over his face.
“You could fool anybody with that.” Dylan laughed as he got an idea. “You could go to class for me. Take my tests.”
Aiden frowned with Dylan’s eyebrows and Dylan’s mouth. “I’m not cheating for you.”
“Just kidding, dude. Jeez.” He studied his transformed friend for a moment. “Why me?”
Dylan watched his cheeks blush. That was a super weird expression to see on his face. “Um, well. Phoebe said to try someone I was really familiar with. And I spend lots of time with you every day, so…” Aiden shrugged.
You used to, Dylan thought.
“I can do other people too. And I can make up features so I don’t look like anyone specific.”
“So it’s a glamour, right? That means you don’t actually shape-shift? Like your bones and skin and stuff are really the same under there?”
Aiden nodded. “Yeah. It’s sort of like a… a magical costume.”
“Damn, I’m jealous. I wish I could do that.”
Another frown. People probably saw that expression on Dylan’s face a lot. “You’d just use it to cheat.”
“Nuh-uh. I’d use it to play jokes on people too.” He laughed as Aiden shoved him. “Oh hey, you should do that during our next match. Freak people out in gym. You can even do fire magic so people won’t be able to tell which one is the real Dylan.” He got an even better idea. “Ohh, man. We should’ve done that for the spring exhibition!”
Aiden held up his hands. “I’m not doing this in public. I’ll get nervous and probably mess up.”
Dylan shrugged. “So you practice until it’s easy. You can do your vine trick just fine, and lots of other things.”
“The point of magic isn’t to show off.” Aiden shimmered and became himself again.
“No, but that’s a pretty good reason for it.” Dylan conjured a flame and made it dance in the air. “Besides, once we graduate we’ll have to hide our magic, so… might as well show off while we can.” Dylan watched the flame, wondering if he could live a life out in the human world, always hiding his dragonkin nature.
What good was the freedom to go anywhere he wanted if he couldn’t be himself?
Aiden’s eyes shifted as he followed the flame. “You know… when I first got here, all this stuff was really weird, and I just wanted to be a normal kid. But now I’ve been surrounded by magic and monsters for years, and it kinda seems… normal. My best friend can throw fire around and turn into a dragon, and my—my other friend can turn into a jaguar.”
“So you like being fae now?” Dylan asked. Aiden had gotten so much better at using his power and seemed to be past most of his fear.
Aiden made a face. “That’s maybe too strong a way to put it. I’m used to it now. Used to life in Shadow Valley. I think it’s going to be hard to go back to the normal—uh, the human world.”
Dylan lifted his hands and said in a low voice, “Come to the Dark Side, Aiden. Embrace your power.”
“Not funny.” Aiden rolled his eyes. “You’re casting yourself as the villain trying to tempt me. Not the way to convince me that having magic is a good thing.”
The little flame went out. “I should get Maggie to convince you then. She loves her magic too. She’s like the Obi-Wan to my Darth whatever.” Maggie was his opposite in many ways except that they were both proud of what they were.
“Does that make me Luke?”
“Yeah, dude. You get to be the big hero.” Dylan laughed.
Aiden smiled and shook his head, but then his expression turned dark. “That still makes you the bad guy, and that means I have to fight you.”
“God, don’t take it so seriously. I’m just joking.” Aiden took a lot of things way too seriously.
“Yeah, but some part of you believes you’re the villain. The people in town cast you that way, and you act like you think that’s all you can be. You’re a hero too, Dylan. You saved me from the warden and those hunters—”
“After you—”
But Aiden kept going. “And you saved me from the dark fae. Me, and my parents, and Tiago.”
Dylan’s stomach tightened. “It’s my fault he got out in the first place. The people he killed, that’s on my head. And whatever Morgan’s doing now, that’s all my fault.”
“You made a mistake. He tricked you—”
Aiden was so damn blind sometimes. “No, he didn’t!” Dylan’s voice echoed off the piles of gravel. “You tell yourself that for whatever reason, but I knew what he wanted when I let him out. Okay, so I didn’t know him and his buddies would kill random people, but he promised me he would kill the wardens. That’s why I released him from Faery, so he’d get rid of them and I could do whatever I wanted.”
In a quiet voice, Aiden asked, “But you regret it, right?”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “I know I shouldn’t have listened to him.” And aside from the people getting killed, the thing he regretted most was hurting Aiden. “But I still want the wardens out of the way. Maybe… maybe not dead, but just… gone.”
Aiden wrapped his arms around himself and shivered. “You understand why the treaty exists, right? If humans found out about you… us, they’d panic and kill us.”
Dylan snorted. “They could try.” Although the memory of the hunters with guns was sobering. Bullets weren’t a joke, even to a dragonkin.
“Maybe you’d be powerful enough to get away, but not everyone would. It’s not just about you, Dylan. It’s about all of us. What if someone like Hanna got chased down by a mob? Or Maggie? They used to burn witches at the stake. The treaty protects mundanes and supernaturals.”
If there was a class for guilt trips, Aiden would get an A plus for sure. “So I have to suffer for everyone else?”
“If you want to look at it selfishly, yes.” Aiden had that extra judge-y expression on his face.
“Maybe I am selfish. That’s what villains are, right?” Dylan didn’t know why he was saying that. He didn’t want to argue with Aiden, but he was so frustrated. Things were so unfair.
“You’re not a villain, and when you talk like that it scares me.”
“It scares you because you know what I’m capable of.”
Aiden’s eyes went wide and he put a hand to his chest where Dylan had burned him two years ago. “Stop.”
In a weird, twisted way, it felt good to feel terrible. To feel like a piece of shit for making Aiden afraid. Why am I so screwed up? Because of the way people had treated him growing up? Because he was a dragonkin? Or was it just him, something dark inside that had nothing to do with being part dragon? After all, his mom never talked about having fantasies of burning whole cities down.
“I need to burn something.” Dylan balled his fists. “You should go.”
“Dylan—”
“Go!” Dylan turned away so he wouldn’t have to see that hurt look on Aiden’s face.