No more. I couldn’t let any more die. There were still seventeen dragons down there who were counting on me, who looked to me to defend them from Talon and the Order. I was still the leader of this underground, and I couldn’t let past failures or personal shortcomings stop me from what I had to do.

Even though, in the darkest, blackest corners of my soul, a tiny part of me didn’t care what happened next. Let everyone die, it whispered. Let the world burn and everything be charred to ashes by dragonfire. What do we care, now that she’s gone?

“Cobalt.”

I turned almost guiltily. Mist stood in the door frame peering in at us, long silvery hair glowing softly in the dim light. I hadn’t seen the ex–Talon agent much since we’d arrived, having been distracted with Wes, the hatchlings, the underground...and Ember. Truthfully I had almost forgotten about Mist. But it occurred to me that I had no idea what she had been doing since we got here, and that was a little disconcerting. She had been a Basilisk, and she had worked for Talon. Both were reasons to treat her with caution, to watch her closely.

“I need to speak with you,” she announced in her calm, pragmatic voice. “Can we talk?”

I shrugged. “I’m not stopping you.”

Mist frowned. “Alone.”

Wes gave a snort and hunched his shoulders, staring down at the laptop. “Oh, please, don’t let me stop you,” he muttered. “I’m just the other half of this bloody operation, no one special.”

I rolled my eyes. “Wait here,” I told Wes, stepping around the chair. “Keep doing what you’re doing. I’ll be right back.” I gestured at Mist, and she backed silently out of the room.

The farmhouse was dark as I closed the door behind me and stepped into the hall with the other dragon. Most of the hatchlings were asleep, exhausted from travel and the stress of getting here. Though I did have to enforce a strict “lights out” rule to prevent a few of the older ones from keeping everyone else up. That, too, was part of the talk I’d had to give once everyone arrived, laying out ground rules and the things you absolutely could not do while on the farm, Shifting, fighting and wandering off alone being the top three. I didn’t like being so strict, but with seventeen young dragons under one roof and only three helpers to manage them, including Jess, the woman who took care of this place, I had to maintain some semblance of order or things would quickly spiral out of control. Fortunately, everyone here recognized and respected Cobalt, almost to the point of reverence. Except for the one incident with Kain, there hadn’t been any problems.