Could I even go back to the place I considered home? Strictly speaking, I knew going home was easy enough. It would be child’s play to empty the few scraps of magic from my second heart and turn human right this instant. Of course, I would be hard pressed to find enough magic to turn dragon again, but that wouldn’t be a big deal back on Earth. 

I wouldn’t mind being stuck as a human my entire life. I mean, after eighteen years, it was second nature to me. If I got Shade to erase the others’ memories of this Mystica jaunt, no one had to know what I was. 

I wished I could convince him to do the same to me, but there was no way he would. He thought this was my birthright, that I’d been preparing my whole life to embrace my powers and return to the Mystica my parents were born on. For the rest of my life, I would know that I was the stupid freak who put her friends in danger because she couldn’t see what was right under her nose. 

Of course, that was the better of two possible scenarios. The other would be where one or more of my friends died on the journey back home. Whoever of the three survived would resent me, for good reason. Even Aster would find it difficult to accept me after I failed to get all three of them home in one piece. 

Best case scenario, I returned to a place that had never really been my home—and I kept the secret of my draconic heritage for decades, until I got too old to go unnoticed and had to fake my death before starting over with a new identity somewhere else. Staying on Mystica almost seemed like a preferable alternative. 

If I found a community of other phoenix dragons, I wouldn’t have to hide. I could be myself, maybe even find a guy who talked about me in the same animated way that Aster talked about robotics—or his robotics partner, Cynthia. 

But of course, nothing could be that easy for a phoenix. If I stayed on this planet, Merlin would find me sooner or later. He was obviously determined to use my magic in particular to save his wife—either because I was possibly the last phoenix in existence or because my parents had refused to submit to his experiments nearly two decades prior. Though, I guessed “save” wasn’t exactly the right word. His wife had been critically ill when Shade absconded with me to Earth. By now, she would be dead. Maybe I could’ve saved a deathly ill person with enough time and effort, but no one could revive the dead as anything but dumb puppets.

“Something wrong?”

I realized I’d let my head dip, and now Aster had to bend over to reach me. Shrugging my wings, I plopped my head on the floor. He sat next to me and eased my head into his lap. I tried to focus on his gentle touch running over my feathers, but all I could think about was returning to Earth. Once he’d lost his memories of magic, he would expect things to be like they’d been before—riding and talking and planning the future as if we could do anything we wanted to. He wouldn’t understand why I couldn’t open up to him like I used to. He would probably take it personally, maybe even stop talking to me as often. Eventually, we would drift apart, no matter whether we lived nearby or not.  

“Do you think you’ll marry Cynthia?” It was a stupid question, one I regretted as soon as I’d said it. We were on an alien planet; he didn’t need me making him miss the girl he liked. 

Aster snorted. “She’s engaged, so-”

I jerked my head up without thinking and nearly hit him in the chin. “You’re engaged? How come you didn’t tell me?”

He pushed my head back down onto his lap. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not engaged. She’s engaged to someone else. Besides, she’s just on my project team. So are three other guys, doesn’t mean I’m going to marry them. What’s with the random question?”

I didn’t have a good answer to that, and now I definitely wished I hadn’t said anything about Cynthia in the first place. Feeling his sharp gaze on the back of my head, I knew he wouldn’t take silence for an answer. I had to come up with something to say. 

“I dunno, I just figured you and her would end up together. You talk about her all the time.”

“Uh huh. I talk about my other group mates, too.” He paused. “Even if I didn’t, it’s still a random question.” He scratched behind my ear holes.

I had to bite my tongue to keep from gasping at the tingles cascading down my jaw. He surely thought I was enough of a weirdo without me acting even more like a freak. Forcing myself to adopt a level tone, I asked, “What’s wrong with random questions?”

“Nothing, but you’ve never been one to talk a lot about dating stuff. Someone in particular on your mind? Missing someone from back home?”

I winced. Was I that easy to read? “Yeah, my parents. My not-parents, I guess.”

“Right, your parents.” He was quiet for a few moments, and I could almost hear the gears whirring in his head. Finally, his hand paused at the base of my beak, and he said, “This might be a stupid thing to say. I mean, it’s coming from Izzy, so I took it with a grain of salt. I’m sure it’s nonsense. Well, I was sure. But the more I think about it, the more it makes some sense.”

“I think you’re the one not making any sense right now. Could you just spit it out?” I had a sneaking suspicion that I knew exactly what he was going to say, and I didn’t like it one bit. It was bad enough when Izzy called me crazy in private, but telling Aster I was crazy? That was over the line. I guessed she hadn’t thought it would be a problem, since I’d appeared to be dead for several days.

“Okay, okay, I’ll say it, but don’t laugh.” He chuckled nervously. “Do- do you have a crush on me?”

My brain went blank. This was a million times worse than Izzy saying I was crazy. Didn’t she have any respect for the dead? Had she really been so angry at me for dragging us here that she’d wanted to desecrate my metaphorical grave and spill all my secrets? It wasn’t even like I’d told her about my crush in the first place; she’d snooped it out of my diary. 

What was I supposed to say to Aster? He knew me too well to be fooled by a simple brush-off of his question. He would read me like an open book, and then I would have to explain why I was so hesitant to answer his question. If I lied, he might believe me. Then he would probably get mad at Izzy for ‘lying’ about my crush, meaning she would definitely remind him of every instance when I’d acted like an awkward idiot around him. Even just the last week or so worth of instances might be enough to convince him that Izzy had indeed been telling the truth. 

And if I told him the truth? He would be forced to let me down easy, scrambling to find an excuse why he couldn’t date a giant crippled lizard. Gah, I couldn’t have been less attractive if I’d tried. 

But what if he was into it? What if the ‘dangerous predator’ thing was a turn-on for him? Not to mention, I still thought having Shade wipe the others’ memories was a good idea. Aster didn’t have to remember any of this.

I tried to form the words to answer his question, but my tongue went dry. I’d never wanted him to find out this way. Somehow, I’d always imagined I would be able to get up the courage to tell him myself, that I’d give such a good confession of love that he would be swept off his feet and immediately ask me out to dinner. Now, any confession I gave would be soon followed by me eating a basket full of raw meat, which was the opposite of sexy. 

Almost as if she’d read my mind, the white-furred borin woman came in through the tent flap carrying a heavy-looking basket that smelled of something gamey. She set the basket in front of me and turned to leave, nearly running into a small black-furred borin who was on her way in. 

The newcomer threw back her hood to reveal a distinctly human face and flushed cheeks. 

“Mars?” she asked in a voice I knew all too well. 

“Yeah?”

Izzy sprinted around the meat basket and dove on my back. Even her slight weight was enough to make my legs pang, and I flinched. Part of me wanted to tell her off, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. She’d though I was dead, and by the tears streaming down her face, I could tell she was more than a little relieved that I was myself again. 

“I’m so glad you’re okay. I was so worried. This was way worse than the time you fell off the security wall and cracked your head open. They don’t even have respirators here.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s called a ventilator,” I said, working to keep the strain out of my voice. I didn’t want to scare her off, but I was hurting a lot more than I’d thought.

“Hey, give her some space.” Aster patted my neck. “She’s still not doing so hot.”

“Oh, right.” Wiping her eyes, she came to sit across my neck from Aster. She giggled and smiled like she’d just heard a particularly juicy secret. “It’s about time. You two are made for each other.”

I glared at her, which apparently wasn’t any scarier than my normal draconic look, because she didn’t even flinch. I sighed and tried to keep my tone relatively neutral. “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s human, and I’m a magical lizard. So butt out.” 

She rolled her eyes. “You’re star-crossed lovers. That just makes it more romantic and fantastic. Besides, you can turn into a human, so it doesn’t even matter that you’re not-”

“It does matter.” Unable to look at Aster now, I lifted my head to glare at her face-to-face. “I’m not human, and I never will be again. Even if I turn human, it’s just a shell.” The weight of reality shook my voice, destroying any sense of neutrality I’d managed thus far. 

I took a shuddering breath and swallowed in a vain attempt to compose myself. “Nothing about what I am is romantic or fantastic. It’s not romantic that a wizard killed my parents in a futile attempt to revive his dead wife. It’s not fantastic that he blackmailed a little kid to get me here so he can try the same thing with me. I may be the last member of my entire species, and there’s nothing I can do about that. The only thing I can do is try to get you three home safely before Merlin or another territorial dragon kills us all. So for the last time, shut up about- about everything.”

She sat, open-mouthed, for just long enough that I wanted to kick myself for snapping at her. Then she jumped to her feet and rushed out of the tent.