“Me…”

  My heart surged into my throat. “Holy shit. There’s someone in there!”

  I rushed toward the dumpster, grabbed hold of the metal lid, and flung it open. In my mind I was already rehearsing the 911 call, trying to figure out how I was going to explain to the operator that someone had thrown themselves off the side of a building and into a dumpster.

  What condition were they in? Mangled beyond recognition, most likely. Bones broken, bruised, bleeding. Part of me was already horrified of what I was about to lay my eyes on, but the other part of me wanted to see what was in there; that part of me was almost excited to see it.

  Let’s just not tell the victim that.

  But there was nobody in the dumpster. No horribly injured human being in desperate need of assistance, groaning, trying to get my attention. There were only bags of trash, some of which had been ripped open and torn through by who knew what—probably cats, or maybe people hungry enough to go sifting through garbage.

  “Hello?” I asked into the empty metal box.

  “Help,” came a reply I wasn’t expecting in the slightest.

  My skin prickled again, as if a bucket of ants had just been dumped across my shoulders. I backed up slightly, though not far enough to move entirely away from the dumpster.

  “Who said that?” I asked.

  “Please… I beg you.”

  Beg? There’s a word you don’t hear every day.

  “I can’t see you. Where are you?”

  One of the bags inside of the dumpster started to rustle. I almost didn’t dare reach for it, not because I hadn’t stuck my hand in worse places, but because if there was some kind of maniac in there, the last thing I wanted was to get my fingers bitten off. But gingerly I went in for the bag that was moving, fingers delicately poised to unwrap the bag that, admittedly, was looking a little shredded, a little ruined.

  I tried not breathing through my nose as I approached, but breathing through my mouth only seemed to make it worse; like I was eating the smell of diapers and puke, somehow. Then I saw it—I finally caught a glimpse of the thing inside of the garbage bag, and it looked red.

  I wasn’t sure if I’d just laid eyes on skin, or fur, or maybe even something scaly. It moved out of sight as soon as I saw it, burrowing deeper into the garbage bag, leaving me to wonder if what I’d just seen really was human or animal. Only I didn’t know of any red animals, and I knew of even fewer that could talk.

  I went in faster, now, the mystery of what was in that garbage bag overriding any and all fight or flight instincts I’d grown up needing in order to survive. I tore into the bag with my fingers, catching even more glimpses of this thing as it squirmed and scrambled. I didn’t think it was trying to get away from me—maybe it was trying to wriggle itself loose—but it also wasn’t exactly helping.

  “Could you keep still?!” I snarled.

  “I’m trying to help!” came a hiss.

  “You aren’t.”

  This felt like something out of a dream, or a nightmare. First, I’d played a gig I was already starting to forget. Then, my roommate ditches me for some guy she met at the bar. Then I kiss a total stranger, trying to distract him long enough to steal his wallet, but I end up somehow wanting him. And now I was, unravelling a shredded garbage bag, trying to free what I thought was some kind of red, scaly animal that could talk.

  I’d never been the kind of person to think I needed therapy, but therapy was starting to sound pretty good right about now.

  Something fluttered around inside of the bag. I thought it was a wing or something, but it was caught in the plastic. “What the hell do they make these out of?” I groaned as I tried to pull the bag apart. “This thing’s indestructible!”

  Finally, it came loose, and whatever was inside curled around itself. I watched it turn around inside of the bag—it really was an animal, small and red, and lizard-like. But it had large nostrils, glowing golden eyes, and teeth; really sharp teeth it was flashing at me.

  I backed up, and an instant later, this thing made a break toward freedom, shooting out of the garbage can like a bullet. Instinct took hold of me, and instead of trying to get away from it, I panicked, grabbed the dumpster’s lid, and slammed it shut just as this creature was about to make it out. I heard it thud against the metal, then it groaned.

  “Holy shit,” I exhaled, my hot breath clouding the air as it escaped my lips. “What the hell was that?”

  Another groan. “Why did you do that?” said the voice inside. It was a male voice; light, and a little shrill, with an accent I couldn’t place.

  I shook my head. “I’m hallucinating,” I said to myself. “That beer tasted a little funny—maybe someone spiked it, and now I’m about to trip. I gotta get my ass back home.”

  “Can you even understand the words I’m saying?”

  I paused, staring at the dumpster. “What are you?” I called out, “And how can you talk?”

  “You can understand me!”

  “Duh, I’m not an idiot.” It was a knee-jerk response, but was I really sure about that? I was having a conversation with a literal garbage box right now because I didn’t want to admit what I’d just seen had really happened. That kind of talk was likely to get me committed.

  “Can you please get me out of this thing?” it asked.

  “Not until you tell me what you are.”

  “I can’t do that until I know what you are.”

  “What I am? What does that mean?”

  “I’ve already said too much.” The dumpster thumped, but the lid only budged an inch at the most. Whatever was in there didn’t have the strength to push it open. I kind of felt bad for it. I couldn’t just leave it there.

  “Alright,” I said, “I’m going to help you, but you can’t rush out and if you try to hurt me, I swear on all the stars in the sky, I’m gonna lock you in that dumpster forever.”

  A pause. “Fine. Just get me out. It stinks in here.”

  Swallowing hard, I gripped the edge of the dumpster lid and carefully pulled it up, peering inside to try and see the thing inside it. When I caught its glowing, golden eyes, I couldn’t help but take a beat and pause. I’d never seen eyes like those before, slanted and narrow, but filled with light like… like magic.

  “What… the hell kind of possum are you?”

  The words fell from my lips on the back of an awestruck sigh. I wasn’t scared of this thing—this creature that looked like reptilian. It was like a large iguana, with a curved tail that curled into itself, and… wings poking out of its back; only they weren’t scaly and leathery, but more like butterfly wings, filled with colorful polka dots.

  “I am not a stupid possum,” it said. I watched it shift its weight from one side of its body to the other, but immediately I could tell it had injured one of its front… paws? It must have done that when it landed in the dumpster.

  “How,” I said, then I paused, considering whether I was really going to speak to this thing. Speaking to it meant admitting it was real, or that I was going insane, and neither of those options sat well with me. “How are you talking?”

  “A better question is,” it said, “How can you hear me, and how can you understand me?”

  I frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  It slapped its tail around its mouth and mumbled. “I’ve definitely said too much. You need to leave.”

  “Leave? You’re hurt.” I shook my head. Not only was I talking to it, I was also concerned for this creature’s wellbeing.

  Who even are you, Avery?

  “That’s not your concern,” it said, “But if I say more things to you, you’re going to get way more seriously hurt than I am right now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because right now, they don’t want you.”

  “Wait, who are they?”

  “We don’t have time for this, dru’varesh.”

  “Dru—what?”

  The winged lizard made a leap for the edge of the dumpster, stretching its good paw out to grab hold of it. I stepped back this time, but I didn’t shut the lid on it. When it grabbed hold of the ledge, I saw its claws for the first time. They were small, they made an awful, scratching sound like razor blades on metal as it clung to it.

  I watched it hoist itself up, then start panting just as it stuck its head over the edge. Instinct took over, and I pulled my phone up and aimed it at the creature before tapping the screen to bring it to life. As soon as I did, and I saw the cracked red dragon I used as my phone’s wallpaper, I paused.

  The words Slide to Unlock glittered across the broken screen, but my eyes fluttered from the phone to the little creature in the dumpster, then back to the phone.

  “No fucking way,” I said.

  “No way what?” it asked.

  “Are you… a dragon?”

  The creature blinked at me, rapidly, vacantly. “A what?”

  The door to the bar suddenly thudded, then it jiggled as if someone was trying to open it; violently. At the same time, the creature’s tail spontaneously erupted, birthing a little, yellow fire that clung to it—like magic. It was almost too much to handle, as if the fact that it could talk wasn’t bad enough.

  “Why has that happened?” I asked.

  “Oh, no,” it said. “I need to get out of here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m not supposed to be here right now!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Look, I would love to sit around and explain this to you, but remember I told you there were people who didn’t want you?” It jabbed its healthy paw over at the door. “That would be them, and they certainly want me.”

  “How can you possibly know that?”

  It grabbed its burning tail and held the flame out to me. “This only happens when they’re around.”

  “Well—and I can’t believe I’m about to ask you this—but can you fly?”

  It rolled its shoulder, stretched both of its wings, and immediately winced with pain. “No,” it said. “You have to help me.”

  “What? Why me?!”

  “If they find you out here talking to me, they’ll kill you.”

  The door kept jiggling. Whoever was on the other side of it was growing more and more impatient as they fought with it. “I’ll just pretend I haven’t seen you.”

  “That’s not how it works! They won’t want to risk it. Please, just help me and… and I’ll owe you!”

  In a couple of seconds, anyone—or anything—was going to burst through that door and catch me in the insane act of talking to this creature. Assuming it wasn’t lying to me, it was possible my life was in danger right now. And besides, if this creature really was some kind of dragon, then having it owe me probably wasn’t a bad thing.

  Worst case scenario? I’m having a nervous breakdown of some kind, none of this is real, and I’ll wake up tomorrow with a bitch of a hangover.

  Rolling my eyes, I grabbed the weird lizard thing and made a dash for the mouth of the alley. I heard the door bust open just as I turned onto the street. In a flash, we were gone.

  Chapter 3

  It had finally happened; I was having a nervous breakdown.

  All that drinking and partying had caught up with me like I had always been warned it would, and my day of reckoning had come. There was still a chance I was passed out in a back room somewhere, drooling and snoring loudly, using a bottle of Jack Daniels as a pillow. I almost preferred that to the mad alternative currently unfolding.

  Here I was, Avery Rose, rushing through the dark, dangerous Seattle streets, with a red dragon in my arms being chased by an unknown group. This wasn’t how my night was supposed to go.

  “Could you run more softly?” the creature asked, “I’m pretty sure some of my limbs are broken and each bump causes pain.”

  “Do you want me to run softly, or get away from the people chasing you?” I asked.

  “Us, they’re chasing us.”

  “Only because I got myself wrapped up in all this. What the hell was I thinking?”

  “That you’re human and notorious for sticking your noses where they don’t belong?”

  I stopped running and ducked into the alley under my apartment building. We were close to safety, but I wasn’t totally convinced I should’ve been heading back home. Then again, where else was I supposed to go with this thing? It wasn’t like I could pass it off as a pet iguana. It was red, it had wings, it could talk, and it was annoying.

  “Why are we stopped?” it asked.

  I approached another dumpster, the one just under the gantry leading up to my apartment’s kitchen window. I opened it with one hand, then stared at the creature in my other arm, one eyebrow cocked.

  “I need answers,” I said.

  Its burning, golden eyes narrowed. “Or what?” it asked, lowering its tone.

  I glanced at the dumpster, then back at the creature. “You know, or what.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “I would.”

  “If I wasn’t hurt, I’d make sure you regretted doing it.”

  “But you are hurt, and from where I’m standing, I’m the one holding the cards. So, you’ll answer my questions, or I leave you in the dumpster and paint a big bullseye on it to make sure your friends can find you more easily.”

  The little, red, gecko-type thing rolled its narrow eyes at me. “Ask your questions, human.”

  “See? That. Why do you call me human?”

  “Because that’s what you are.”

  “As oppose to…?”

  “One of them.”

  “And who are they, exactly?”

  The creature paused. “You realize, if I answer these questions, you’ll learn things you—humans— were never meant to learn. There’s no going back from this.”

  “That’s fine, I’ll just forget it all once I’ve woken up from this fever dream I’m having, but I want to know what else my messed up mind can cook up.”

  “Woken up? You aren’t asleep.”

  “Sure. Now, answers. Who are they—and who are you, while we’re at it?”

  The lizard turned its head away, glanced at the dumpster as if considering whether talking to me was worth the hassle, then turned to look at me again. “My name is Rell. I’m part drake, part sprite—on my mother’s side—and the people who are after me tore a hole into your world a little while ago because they’re looking for someone.”

  “I don’t know whether to ask about the tear a hole thing, or the who they’re after thing, or what in the world is a sprite thing.”

  “Look, I need you to listen to me very carefully, okay? Those people, they’re untrustworthy, cruel, and incredibly dangerous. Whoever they’re after must’ve really pissed them off if they came here, to the human world, to find them.”

  I paused, and in the silence that filled the moment, I noticed my heart starting to race. “There’s only the human world,” I ventured, with a slight rise in my tone.

  Rell shook his head. “Not quite. There are more, and the people who are after me came from one of the worst places I know of. Arcadia.”

  “Ar… cadia?”

  “That’s where the Fae live.”

  “The Fae…”

  “Devious, callous, awful creatures that kind of look like you, except they’re way prettier, they have pointed ears, and some of them have sharp fangs.”

  “Fangs? Seriously?”

  “You don’t believe me? You’re having a conversation with a drake. Isn’t that proof enough?”

  “No, I’m not. None of this is real.”

  “Really?” Rell bared his sharp teeth and nipped at my finger, the sudden and sharp pain making me yelp.

  “What was that for?” I barked.

  “I’m proving this is real.”

  I shook my head, uttering the words “no, no, no”. The headrush that followed was almost strong enough to topple me over. I had to stick my hand out and hold onto the edge of the dumpster, which was looking like a great place to throw up in right about now. If I really was dreaming, now was the time to wake up.

  Please.

  Please?

  Nope, I was still very much awake, and the world was totally spinning. The world which, until now, I thought was the only world. Our world. My world. Not only had it been turned upside down, it had also been shaken violently, its pockets emptied by a bigger, nastier world called Arcadia. The land of the Fae.

  Of course, he could be “lying,” I blurted, trying not to heave.

  “I could be,” Rell said, “But I’m not like the Fae—I don’t lie very often.”

  “Stop talking,” I croaked “Everything’s spinning.”

  “See? I told you it was a lot to take. Human minds aren’t meant for this.”

  I pulled my head up, took a deep breath of crisp, cold air, and let my brain find itself. “Why the hell did I have to run into you?” I asked the low, orange clouds overhead.

  “Luck,” Rell said. “Or fate, if you’re that way inclined. I don’t believe in fate, and I make my own luck. That’s why I escaped.”

  “Escaped? Escaped from where?”

  “The Fae captured me before they came here. Their kind don’t take kindly to trespassing, but they weren’t going to turn back around and go all the way back to Emerald Hall to drop me in a cell, so they brought me with them. Having me around messed with their portal magic, though. It destabilized, caused havoc. I saw an opportunity while they were all a little disoriented and I took it.”

  I shook my head. “But you… I found you alone, in a dumpster.”

  “Portal magic makes time and space do funky things, and I screwed their spell up. I’m lucky I landed here, and not in the middle of a volcano.”

  Footsteps.

  They were coming hard and fast, approaching the mouth of the alley that Rell and I had tucked into. We both turned our attentions to the source of the sound, watching carefully, trying to stick as closely to the wall behind the dumpster as we could. It was dark, and the alley wasn’t well lit, but if they came into the alley, we were screwed.

  Someone went rushing past the mouth of the alley—a guy wearing a hoodie. I didn’t see his face, but he looked like he was running away from something, and not toward something. I paused, my heart wedged in my throat.