Ginny’s smile faltered. For a moment, she looked down, a shiver running through her.
“I didn’t get to do any of that as a child,” she murmured.
Then Ginny took a deep breath and reached out for the cake once more. “But that’s all right. I like where life’s led me now. I thought taking over duties here in Sky Home for a few weeks would be like a very boring vacation where I’d get to read a lot, but instead I’ve made so many new friends.”
“I hope I’ll get to be one of them,” Chiara said, giving the mouse shifter a small smile.
She’d obviously touched on a sore spot bringing up Ginny’s childhood. Maybe not everything in the shifter world was as perfect as it had looked to her at first.
But in a way, that just made Ginny more real. No one here was a monster. And no one here was a fairy tale princess.
Ginny was just like her. Just with a different ability.
In a way, that was even more reassuring than the chimera’s promises.
Chapter Sixteen: Jared
Jared watched as Chiara’s fingers raced across the keyboard. They’d borrowed Ginny’s laptop for an hour, trying to find clues about the star constellations they’d seen.
It had taken a bit of digging, but Chiara had at last found a website that showed which constellations were visible when—and most importantly, where.
“North America,” Chiara muttered as she stared at the screen. “That’s not very helpful, is it.”
She turned the golden disk with the engraved stars back and forth. After a moment, she added another constellation, then made a thoughtful sound. “Okay, that narrows it down a bit more.”
“A general area might be enough,” Jared said as he stared down at the disk as well. “Those mountains look quite distinctive. And I think that mark has to be a river...”
Chiara hummed in acknowledgment, then opened Google Maps again.
It took an hour of going across the map, checking out mountain ranges and zooming in to see if they could find anything reminding them of the symbols engraved into the golden disk.
By the time Ginny called them to lunch, they’d settled on three different mountains as likely places.
“How are we going to know for sure, though?” Chiara asked over her plate of homemade fries.
“I’ll know when I’m close,” Jared said. “If it’s a truly powerful dragon, I’ll know.”
Chiara frowned. “Not that I don’t trust you—but we haven’t got much time left if the chimera is right. We’ve got to get it right our first try.”
“Maybe Gareth will have found something somewhere,” Ginny said. “He gets lost in his books and scrolls easily—but he also knows more than any other shifter.”
“I’ve never heard of any of these places.” Jared shook his head. “I can’t believe we’ve had another elemental dragon living among us all along.”
“Let’s hope he’s going to be on our side.”
Chiara looked tired, Jared realized all of a sudden. They’d been working hard all morning—and then there’d been the long flight across the ocean, and the hours on his own back.
Maybe Ginny was right. Maybe they could let the chimera worry about it for an afternoon.
“Come on,” he said when they’d finished, holding out a hand to Chiara with an encouraging look. “There’s something I want you to see.”
“But the maps,” Chiara protested—although she didn’t seem unhappy at all to get a break from their research.
“Can wait for an hour.” Jared gently tugged her into his arms. “You haven’t even really seen Sky Home yet. Let’s take a walk while Gareth does some work for a change.”
Chiara shook her head at him, although her eyes gleamed and she relaxed in his arms.
Jared led her up from the kitchen through a different system of tunnels. They walked past storage rooms and caves that hadn’t been used for anything in ages, their steps echoing through the corridors.