“Stay away from the window,” Cali’s mother Katrina snapped. “The alarm is going off. It’s not safe.”

“It’s never safe,” Cali answered as she watched the two dragons disappear into the night sky. The light blue one was carrying a lion who looked dead, but it was the red dragon who had caught her eye.

He circled back to see me.

Her heart fluttered as she imagined the man hiding inside the dragon. Was he a handsome shifter who would finally free her from this dreaded tower? Probably not, but it was nice to think about. There wasn’t much to do up here but tell herself nice stories like that.

“What did you see?” Anna asked. She was sitting on the old couch with Katrina, knitting a lopsided looking sweater.

“Dragons,” Cali answered as she walked over with a tingling sensation in her body. “Have you ever seen a red dragon?”

Anna thought about it for a minute and then shook her head. “No, but I haven’t seen much but the inside of this tower. Berinon never lets me leave.”

“What about a light blue one, or a lion?” she asked, intensely curious about the strange trio she had just seen outside.

Anna had been here the longest out of the three of them, but even she hadn’t been here too long. About ten years in total, or five years longer than Cali and her mother had been.

“I don’t know,” Anna said, shaking her head nervously. “Mary and Clara always knew that kind of stuff. They were here for centuries and knew it all.”

Cali glanced at her mother who quickly tried to change the subject. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” she said with her voice racing as she grabbed a roll of yarn from the basket. “Probably just old friends or family coming to visit. They probably tripped the alarms when they came in to say hi. That’s it. Just friends is all. Now come sit down and help me with this hat.”

Cali took a deep breath and held it as she watched her poor mother trying to knit with her shaky hands.

The past five years had been hard on her mother, it had been hard on her too, but the past few weeks had been even worst.

Mary was the first to die. She was walking around the tower and talking normally one minute, and the next, she had just shriveled up like a corpse. It had all happened so fast. She just kind of imploded with her skin melting off and her bones collapsing into dust.

Cali could still remember it in every gruesome detail. She could still hear the horrible sound of her mother, Anna, and Clara screaming after it happened. Clara had thought that it was because Mary’s mate Jarin had died and the centuries of immortality had caught up to the human woman in a single moment.

A week later, Clara had died next, joining her in the same gruesome way.

Cali’s mother Katrina had been putting on a brave face, but she knew that her mom had been rocked to the core. She tossed and turned at night, and even woke up screaming a few times.

Anna had said it was a shame, but Cali wasn’t so sure. The two women had spent centuries locked in this tower and she couldn’t help but feel that they were in a better place now. They were finally free.

“I’m sure you’re right, Mom,” Cali said, smiling at her mother as she sat down beside her, helping her with the yarn.

They sat in silence, sewing hats that they would never use until the alarm turned off and the castle was plunged into silence once again.

Cali thought of the red dragon and the way he looked at her and couldn’t help but feel a flutter of hope.

Stop. Please stop.

Hope was a dangerous thing in this tower. Hope made the long boring days torturous. It made them unbearable.

Mary was the first to warn them about that when they had arrived.

“Don’t think you’ll escape,” she warned in a serious tone. “Don’t think you’ll be rescued. It will destroy your soul.” She took the fourteen-year-old Cali to the window and pointed to the tall trees in the distance. “Be like the trees. They sit there for ages, not hoping, not dreaming, not thinking, not praying. They just sit and sit and sit, becoming one with time. That’s how you must be young girl if you are to survive this life. The dragons are more powerful than you can imagine and there’s no hope for you.”

At the time, Cali didn’t understand what she had meant, but she was starting to understand it now. She would be here until she was old and gray and lucky enough to die. Her mother on the other hand… Her poor mother was doomed with immortality and would still be here long after Cali’s body returned to the earth.

And it was all Cali’s fault.

She still felt guilty every time she thought about it. When she was fourteen, she had begged her mother to take her to the mall so she could spend her babysitting money on some new clothes. Katrina had just finished a long shift at the hospital and wanted nothing more than her pajamas, a glass of wine, and the television, but Cali was always a stubborn child, and she eventually got her way.

The shopping went fine, but when they were walking back to the car, a black stretch limousine stopped in front of them and the most handsome man that Cali had ever seen stepped out, smiling like a movie star.

Her single mother had been instantly attracted to the rich stranger and the eye contact between them had been intense. The man, who Cali later learned was named Terrowin, was watching her mother when his body stiffened and his eyes turned black. Cali didn’t understand what had happened, but it changed everything. Shortly after, her mother had accepted his offer for a ride and they were in the back of the limo.

They arrived at the castle an hour later, and that was the last time that Cali had been outside. They were locked in this horrible tower with three other women, and they hadn’t been allowed to leave since.

Mary had explained everything to them. About the dragons, the immortality, the hopelessness of their situation.

It was a nightmare, and it would never have happened if Cali hadn’t begged her mother to take her to the mall. It was all her fault.

“I like it,” Cali whispered as her mother held up the misshapen hat.

Her mother laughed. “Now all we need is to find a deformed head to fit it on.” She sighed as she tossed it onto the pile with the others. “I’m afraid I’ll never be good at knitting.”

You’ll have centuries to practice. The cruel words almost slipped past Cali’s tongue, but she pulled them back in time. It was never a good idea to remind any of them of the inevitable.

Cali watched as her mother started a new one, but her thoughts were not on the hat, they were on the red dragon who had been flying outside the window.

I hope he comes back.

Cali didn’t know why, but she did. The sight of him was bringing something back—something she hadn’t felt in a long time: hope.

She was lost in thought when her mother’s voice finally broke through. “Cali!” she shouted.

“Huh?”

Both her mother and Anna giggled as she shook out of her daze. “I swear Cali,” her mother said as she shook her head and laughed. “You are such a space cadet sometimes.”

Cali smiled, relieved to see the women laughing. They had been so stressed out lately.

“She gets it from you,” Anna teased.

“She does not,” her mother said with a chuckle. “I have no idea where you get it from, Caliburnus Payne, but it definitely isn’t from me.”

Caliburnus smiled and handed her mother the yarn.