Alex

Silence. Of the awkward variety. When I glanced around, I noticed Flutter was gone. Leaving just the two of us. Alone.

I’m not afraid of what she’ll do to me, I thought, Not anymore. Sure, Lilly’s been in training to kill dragons since she learned to fly, but… I’ve seen what real killers look like. And Lilly’s not like that. She’s not going to turn on me just because she finds out I’m two-thirds dragon.

“He’s right, though.” Lilly finally broke the silence. “You’re trusting me with control of your mind, and yet… we’re still keeping secrets from each other.” She sighed. “We need to be honest with each other.”

“It’s not like that,” I said, “I just–I’m just…” I sighed. “I don’t want to hurt you.” If she knew I was a dragon, that she’s been killing the last of my people… I didn’t want her to have to deal with that kind of guilt.

“Then I’ll go first. And then… maybe you won’t be so afraid of hurting me. You deserve to know the truth.” She took a deep breath.

“You have a secret you’ve been keeping from me?”

She nodded. “Sorry, it’s just–”

“No. It’s okay.” I gave a slight smile. “Makes me feel better about not telling you everything before. But… there was a time earlier when I was about to tell you, and then you told me about the whole dragonslayer thing and… I kinda lost the nerve, so… maybe I should just get it over with now, and then you can–”

“We’ll do it together, then. We each write our secret down on a piece of paper, and then we exchange them at the same time.”

“That’ll work.”

I grabbed some paper, wrote “I’m two-thirds dragon” on it, and sat back down.

We exchanged papers.

I had to admit, it felt good to finally let her know. Finally get to stop worrying about it, and just–

I froze when I saw what she’d written: “I actually enjoy killing dragons.”