In the past, excursions to the Isle of Draco have always been accompanied by a sense of adventure.
This time, Haley's arrival feels more like an admission of defeat.
She is the American Dragon, but she has to run away instead of fighting. Instead of helping.
She doesn't know if she could have helped, but she would have tried, and she would have used the opportunity to get to know her brother.
She wants to know what kind of brother he'll be.
Instead, she's told to find her assigned room within the living quarters and get settled in. She's not sure if this facility has been used much since the last dragon summit, but it's clean enough and isn't musty. The great rooms like the one she's in now are mostly used by the elderly or important dragons at the summit, as the younger world dragons prefer to pitch tents and make alliances and share gossip away from prying eyes and curious ears. From what Fu says, it doesn't much work—the magical guardians make their own connections, and their games are the ones where the real information is traded—but she hopes that next year, Gramps will let her stay with the others instead of keeping her by his side.
Assuming there is a next year for her.
Depending on what happens now, there might not be.
Haley closes to the door to her temporary room, drops her bag on the floor, and settles onto the bed with a sob. The last of the pink sparkles on her person are gone now, having faded with the magic. She'd gotten the first dose by hugging Fu Dog goodbye, and when she realized it had rubbed off on her, she'd tried to scrape up more from the spill in the living room. All three of them had used that accident to their advantage, even though she knows Gramps hadn't been happy about leaving without having a chance to clean it up.
When they'd heard the noise from downstairs, they'd known they hadn't had a choice.
Now they're here, and she's being shut out from the meetings with the Dragon Council. She's the American Dragon, but they won't see her as a dragon of that standing; they'll see her as a little girl still undergoing training with her grandfather. They don't trust her to be able to handle something like this, and she fears they're right, but that doesn't mean she doesn't want to help.
She doesn't know what strings were pulled for Gramps to be able to get a meeting on such short notice, either. They had barely arrived before Councillor Omina; Haley had seen the crashing wave in the midst of the otherwise calm sea that had signalled Omina's arrival before G had pulled her inside. Gramps had never mentioned having to come here to meet with the Council, either, meaning this meeting hadn't been planned—yet it had been deemed important enough that the meeting date is apparently as soon as possible.
Haley doesn't know if Omina was the last councillor to arrive, but she knows Gramps will be as prepared as he can be regardless of whether the meeting is long or short.
Haley digs a tissue out of her pocket, wipes her eyes and blows her nose, and then heads to the washroom to drink some water from cupped fingers.
She's not staying inside like a good little girl.
She needs to do something.
Haley peeks out the door before leaving her room entirely, but either they're not worried about what she might do or don't have someone to assign to babysit her in Fu's absence. Her feet take her to the main library, a grand structure far from the training grounds, but she's barely through the doors before she realizes she doesn't know where to start.
She can find her way to the English language section, but within it?
She doesn't know what to start searching for, and she doesn't dare find someone to ask.
Haley flies to the information kiosk within the section she usually haunts when she comes here with Fu to research something they don't have in their books at home. She looks up history and realizes that's too broad, so she tries magical history and history of dragons, and then she bites her lip and looks for information on the Huntsclan itself.
She knows even before she reaches the right section that the shelves hold too many volumes for her to read by herself. A quick scan of the titles reveals that nothing is helpfully named anything like How to Rescue Your Stolen Brother from the Huntsclan, but she hardly expects that. Instead, she pulls down A Brief History of the Huntsclan—which, at five volumes, makes her wonder about the author's definition of brief.
It still feels like too much.
There isn't enough time for this.
She reads through the table of contents for each book and then checks the indices in the back, making a note of the most promising titles. The Mark and What it Means. Bound by Birth, Tethered by Choice. Freedom vs Fate: The Ongoing Debate. Spontaneity and Heredity: Tracing the Mark. Establishment and Spread (North America), Part I. Favoured Hunting Tactics (North America). Common Hunt Survival Strategies. There are so many that she goes to fetch a pencil and paper to start writing down volume and page numbers.
Eventually, Haley sits down with her list and starts to skim page after page. Before long, the words blur together, and she sniffs and reaches up one arm to wipe the tears from her eyes.
It doesn't help.
If Fu were here, he'd make some joke and then point her in what he thinks is the right direction while he keeps checking the rest in case he's wrong.
This time, she's on her own.
She can try convincing Gramps that this is the best way, but she isn't sure it is. The more research she does, the more it becomes clear that she doesn't know enough. She isn't sure she would be able to recognize what she needs even if she were lucky enough to come across it.
She doesn't really know what she needs.
Nothing in here will tell her how to defeat the Huntsclan. There won't be any proposed methods about how to destroy the entire organization, nor any ways to rout out the chapter that's active in the NYC. If there were ways to do that, dragons who came long before her would have done so.
She goes back to the shelves and tries to find accounts of those who have escaped the Huntsclan, but everything in Survival Stories: Hiding from the Hunt comes from magical creatures.
If there are accounts from those who had been part of the Huntsclan before defecting, she isn't looking in the right places. If anyone has managed to successfully infiltrate the Huntsclan to give them inside information, she can't find that, either.
She starts reading more about the Mark of the Huntsclan, but it quickly becomes clear that it's more a small collection of facts and then a lot of conjecture about what those facts might mean. She knows there's a difference between those born with a dragon birthmark and those who later choose to carry one, but she's unclear about what that difference is. Everyone who has one is bound to the Huntsclan—that much is clear—but she doesn't know how to break that binding.
Neither, apparently, do the authors of these books, nor anyone writing the texts they've referenced, or she'd have something more concrete than an acknowledgement that there is a binding of some sort taking place.
Maybe she should just talk to Gramps. She doesn't know much about bindings beyond their existence, and she'll learn far more of what she needs to know if she asks him than if she looks on her own without some basic understanding.
Haley leaves the books in the designated reshelving area—she might be back before someone moves them anyway—and checks their rooms first, just in case G is done with his meetings.
He's not.
Haley lingers outside his room for a moment before making her decision. Shoulders squared, she walks with a determined step towards the council chambers. They're discussing what to do about Jake—they have to be—and she wants to be part of that. She's the American Dragon, and he's her brother even if he does bear the Mark of the Huntsclan.
Whatever the solution, she should be part of it, even if she can't find that solution on her own.
Haley's first plan is to walk right in, but she realizes that won't be possible when she spots someone at the administration post outside the main chamber. It's not a dragon she knows, but it's entirely too likely that the dragon in question knows who Haley is. Quite aside from the fact that she's officially a World Dragon now, Haley doubts it's a secret that she and Gramps are here.
It might not be common knowledge why they're here, but their presence should be. Emergency council meetings are hardly usual occurrences. If someone's at the administration post now, it means that correspondence through the Pixie Post is more likely than not.
Haley backtracks and glances around to see that the coast is clear before flying up and through one of the open windows on the second floor. It's quiet, which is a relief but not a guarantee. She doubts Draco Isle runs a full complement of staff outside of the busy times, but she knows some dragons make their home here year-round. General upkeep aside, Fu has told her stories of sneaking off to Draco Isle to try to break into the magical artefact storage for one thing or another, and it seems like for the few times he's succeeded, he has dozens more stories about when he was caught by one of the staff who stays on the island.
As her feet touch the stone floor, Haley lets her wings vanish. One of Fu's stories includes trying to hide from one of the curators up here, and if he wasn't exaggerating, she should be able to find—
There. She's close enough to read the plaque beneath the painting to confirm her suspicion now. It's the last Albion Dragon. Beside them, the last Babylonian Dragon stands tall and proud, the background of her painting fading into a labyrinth behind her. This is the Hall of Remembrance, full of paintings or statues or any sort of artistic rendering of former dragons who were the last serving in their posts. If Haley remembers her history correctly, most of these posts were vacant for at least a century before being renamed and filled. Fu told her those parts of history are messy, even more so than the sinking of Atlantis, but he also said a lot of secretive magic came out of those days—and a lot of secrets that don't involve magic at all.
Like the secret passages that are built into Draco Island, this building very much included.
Haley stands with her back to the painting and looks where the Albion Dragon is looking. She can't see anything telltale about the spot on the interior wall, but maybe— "Eye of the Dragon," she whispers.
Patterns that were invisible to her human eyes can be picked out in the stone now, and she looks back to the painting of the Babylonian Dragon to find the clue of how to open the passageway. She blinks and lets her eyes unfocus, and a pattern rises from the labyrinth in the background like a picture in one of her magic eye books. She turns back to the wall and finds the same pattern etched almost invisibly into the stonework there. Even when she touches it, she can feel it more easily than she can see it.
Fu must have found it by accident.
It's low enough that he could have backed into it by mistake, but it's still high enough that it's unlikely that a dragon walking so close to the edge of this wall would scuff this particular spot without meaning to.
Beneath Haley's fingers, the stone is depressed ever so slightly. She can't hear any sort of telltale click, not without the Ear of the Dragon, but it must be magic that keeps the stone or any mechanisms from making a sound as a portion of the wall slides smoothly inward and then aside.
Haley ventures into the darkness. The Eye of the Dragon grants her better visibility than Fu would have had, but Fu never went far. According to him, he backed into the darkness, watched the wall slide back into place, and waited until he thought the coast was clear. She isn't sure how he got out—luck, probably; he'd never elaborated on that—but as she walks in and sees the light start to recede behind her, she suspects that there must be something in the floor—a pressure trigger if nothing else—that controls the opening and closing of the wall. She lingers near the entrance until her eyes adjust further to the darkness, and then she moves on.
The passage is low and narrow. Either of her parents would have to bend double to walk through, and that alone tells her it mustn't have had regular use. Not planned regular use by dragons, at any rate. She can feel the top of her hair brush against the stone, but anyone taller than her would never make it through here comfortably. A passage for magical guardians, perhaps? Or just an escape route in case of an attack?
She calls out the Ear of the Dragon as well, straining to make sense of the jumbled sounds that seem quieter than they should, and keeps her right hand on the wall as she walks. She can't tell if the gradual decline is her imagination, but the path never branches. If there's only one end, it would be a terrible place to be cornered; she can't imagine anyone building this without another exit in mind, but she hasn't found (or tripped) something yet.
It takes some time before she realizes that the sounds she's been hearing for a while now are muffled voices. There haven't been any tripping hazards yet, so she walks faster, and now that she's getting closer and paying attention, the muddled murmurs start to resolve into individual cadences. Still, the voices taper off as she sees pinpricks of light spearing the darkness ahead. Haley closes the distance to that point in several quick strides, and upon realizing the light illuminates enough that she doesn't need to keep using her dragon eyes, she blinks them away.
Not that there's much to see but the same stone that makes up this entire building, blocking off every direction but the way she'd come.
It's a dead end.
Haley runs her hands over every wall, even the stone above her, but she can't find anything to make it open.
She doesn't know if it does open.
"Do you really not see that it's an obvious trap?" one of the voices from beyond the wall drawls, holding a clarity that was always lacking before, and Haley starts.
She knows that voice.
That's Councillor Chang.
Gramps has never liked her. Haley hears him muttering about her under his breath after meetings more often than not. Even Fu won't tell her everything that's happened between them, but she knows it's not pretty.
"It's very bold of you to claim that this boy is a dragon when you haven't seen it for yourself. Even if he is, it doesn't mean that he's your long-lost grandson. I'm sure you know how that claim sounds."
"Susan is very capable." G's voice is cold. "She may not be able to change her form, but she is not lacking the knowledge necessary to make an accurate identification."
"But surely you've considered the other possibilities? Even if the boy is who you think he is, a dragon has no reason to willingly serve the Huntsclan. It is far more likely that the Huntsclan has devised or discovered a way to bewitch dragons, which is alarming enough that it should be a point of discussion. Tell me, did you even think to check if your daughter has been influenced?"
"She has not—"
"But did you check?"
"Councillor, Lao Shi's record speaks for itself, as does Susan's. I once tested her wisdom in battle myself."
Haley recognizes those low, warm tones, too. Councillor Andam.
"They are hardly infallible."
"No one is infallible, Chang. Not even you, whatever you try to tell yourself and the rest of us."
Councillor Omina. She must not like Chang, either.
"Regardless," interrupts the strong voice of Councillor Kulde as the murmuring swells again, "we cannot dismiss the possibility that the Huntsclan has found another weapon to use against us, just as we cannot dismiss that there is a dragon who is caught in their clutches."
"If I may?"
Councillor Kukulkhan.
"Lao Shi, you told us at length of the boy's situation and of your daughter's assessment, her confirmation and her binding by blood of the boy to his word, but it has been many long years since I have not known you to come to anyone with notice of brewing trouble without a plan of your own. You know as well as any of us the risks of allowing the Huntsclan to capture another dragon and how those risks would surely increase if the dragon were willing, and I do not feel it is a productive use of our time to continue to quibble about what may be when you have not given us your last piece of insight. Tell us, have you any proposals to bring forth to address this situation?"
Haley holds her breath and creeps forward, standing on her tiptoes to try to see out of what she thinks might be the largest of the tiny holes in the wall. She can't make out much of the main council chamber on the other side, rimmed in her view by a rough circle of stone at it is, but she's perpendicular to the table where the councillors are seated, nearest to Omina. Chang's at her left, leaning forward with her elbows and forearms planted on the table, which obscures the rest of Haley's view of the councillors. She can't see Gramps, either; he's not close enough to the table to be in her view.
"Yes," Chang says, "do tell us why you possibly think we should risk everything to save a dragon—if he indeed is a dragon—who has already forsaken us. It's like you want us to hand the Huntsclan coveted knowledge on a silver platter."
"You know very well that it is not my wish to endanger the magical world, least of all my family and the dragons beyond them." G's voice is strong. Determined. Stubborn. Haley knows that tone; she's heard it more often than not during dragon training, especially when she doesn't like the proposed task and tries a counterproposal that she thinks will achieve the same thing.
No amount of wheedling ever gets Gramps to budge on that front.
"I believe it would be safest if the Dragon Council would agree to strip the boy of his dragon powers before any further action is taken," Gramps continues, and Haley can't stifle her gasp. She's never heard of this, and she can't begin to imagine what it would be like to have her dragon side locked away.
Omina and Chang look in her direction, the latter with narrowed eyes, but no one else had heard her as far as Haley can tell.
Chang turns away first, and Omina follows suit once Chang begins speaking. "So you're saying you want the Dragon Council to perform a secret ceremony on a known Huntsclan operative?"
"If Susan's deduction is correct," Andam says, "this boy would have been the American Dragon."
"The true American Dragon has already spoken to me of the boy's inexperience," Gramps says, and Haley realizes he means her. "He is a dragon who has not had any official training under a designated Dragon Master, and his exposure within the Huntsclan is no doubt imminent if his true nature is not already known. There is only so much that can be hidden from those who know what they are seeing."
"Or smelling," Omina murmurs, quietly enough that Haley would have missed it if she weren't still listening with dragon ears.
"That doesn't mean it isn't a trap. The boy might not even recognize it as such. The Huntsclan would sacrifice one pawn, even if that pawn is one of their own and a dragon, to fell the Council."
"That implies that the Huntsclan is aware of the possibility," Omina said, "and they aren't. If they were, this would hardly be the first we would be hearing of it. The boy would have sought to draw attention to himself."
Chang's lip curled. "You hardly know—"
"It remains speculation," Kulde cut in, "and while it is important to consider, we must not let ourselves be trapped by that speculation. We have no evidence that the Huntsclan is aware of our ability to strip a dragon of their power, but it would be more prudent to safeguard against potential traps than to assume we will encounter none. Councillor Kukulkan, you were present at the last such ceremony, were you not?"
Haley hardly dares to breathe as the conversation continues. They haven't reached an agreement yet, but they're talking about it as if it's more than just a remote possibility. They're talking about it as if they've already accepted that this must be done.
How can they talk about locking away Jake's powers forever when his powers, his dragon side, are what ties him to them? To their world? How will he possibly come to see them as family if they don't even have that in common? She was going to teach him to fly properly, to feel the wind beneath his wings, to catch an updraft, stretch out, and soar.
If he isn't a dragon, won't he just see himself as a hunter? As Huntsclan Agent 99?
What if he doesn't choose to be her brother once they do that? What if he'd rather go back to the Huntsclan once he no longer needed to worry about being hunted by the people he thinks of as family? What if they give him some assignment that sets him against—?
No.
No, she can't let them make this decision when they haven't thought this through. They think they have, but they haven't. They've been discussing what's best for the dragons, for the magical world, and in some twisted way for Jake himself, but none of them—not even Gramps—seem to realize they'll be taking away her brother and what that means for his family.
His dragon side might only be part of him, but it's still part of him, and she wants to get to know that part, too.
Haley calls back her dragon eyes, and then she begins to run.