10. What It Means
10
WHAT IT MEANS
For a heartbeat, Ivo stared. The white smoke hung in the air, just a small, innocent puff to everyone else.
But Ace was a dragon.
And dragons knew what that kind of smoke meant.
From the sudden sharp breath to his right, he knew Ace had seen it, too.
Ivo wanted to suck the smoke back into his mouth anyway.
“Ivo?” Ace asked quietly.
“Um, I should be going,” Ivo said, panicking.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you’re pregnant.”
“You didn’t?” Ivo looked up. “Then again, I didn’t know until recently, either. I just—I just knew I needed a nest.”
Ace swallowed. His eyes were huge. “Who’s the—Who...?”
Ivo squirmed. “Can we talk about that another time?”
“Okay.”
Ivo clambered awkwardly out of his nest. His foot caught on something halfway to Ace; he stumbled and lurched toward the ground, bracing himself for pain.
Ace caught him with one strong hand on his shoulder, hauling him upright. “I’ve got you.”
“Thanks,” Ivo said, relieved. Mary made little snarfling sounds in Ace’s other arm, leaning in as though she wanted to eat Ivo’s hair.
“I should be holding her,” Ivo said weakly.
“Will you be okay? You’re not wearing clothes; she might scratch you with her claws.”
“I’ll be fine,” Ivo said hurriedly.
Ace carefully handed over the baby dragon. Then he hovered behind Ivo all the way to his nest, watching as Ivo set Mary down so he could put on some clothes.
When Ivo was fully dressed, Ace said slowly, “Did you want to... leave?”
He looked so uncertain that Ivo felt terrible. “No! Not unless you want me to.”
Ace shook his head quickly. Then the tension drained from his body, and he smiled. “C’mon, let’s get going. I want to take you out on a short trip.”
“Not with Mary like this!”
They stared at each other, then at Mary. She yawned widely; Ace’s expression turned gooey. He made weird faces at her.
Mary shifted back into a human baby, giggling as she stuffed her fist into her mouth.
“How did you do that?” Ivo asked. “She doesn’t shift back no matter what I try.”
“Dragonets shift into their human shapes easier when they find something funny. They like laughing,” Ace said, his gaze soft.
“Oh.” Ivo gulped. He thought about telling Ace the truth, but the fact that he’d hidden his knowledge of Ace’s identity this entire time... He couldn’t help feeling nervous.
Ace wrapped his arm around Ivo’s shoulders, leading him across the grass to the driveway. “Harvey will bring the car up. I’ll have him grab a change of clothes for Mary, too.”
“Where are we going?” Ivo asked.
Ace gave a secretive smile. “You’ll see.”
They stood together, Ace rubbing his large hand down Ivo’s arm. Then the navy SUV pulled up in front of them, its back door sliding open.
“So,” Harvey said cheerfully from the driver’s seat. “Ready for another embarrassing childhood story?”
Ace cringed. “Harvey.”
“What’s up, Spicy Master?”
“Don’t tell him any more terrible things about me!”
“Nope!” Harvey met Ivo’s eye. “I bet you can’t stop thinking about Spicy Master and his dads’ destroyed anniversary cake.”
“Yeah,” Ivo admitted sheepishly.
Ace looked horrified. “Please just get in the car and ignore my butler.”
Harvey waited until the car was rolling and they were off the property. “I think you’re forgetting something,” the butler said slyly. “There is no glass partition between us.”
“I’m going to get one installed the moment we’re home,” Ace growled.
“But that’s hours away. It means I have lots of time to fill Ivo in on all the funny things you’ve done,” Harvey said cheerfully.
Ace bared his teeth. Harvey cackled.
Ivo looked up hopefully, meeting Harvey’s eyes in the rearview mirror.
The butler’s smile broadened. “When Spicy Master was thirteen, he made a hang glider and leaped off a hill with it.”
Ace cursed under his breath. “Are you trying to make Ivo leave?”
“He’s not going to leave. This story will melt him into a puddle.” Harvey ignored Ace’s pointed glare. “Besides, he’s stuck in the car with us.”
“He’s going to leave after, ” Ace grumbled, but he leaned closer and wrapped his arm around Ivo’s shoulders.
“I don’t want to leave,” Ivo admitted quietly.
Ace’s gaze snapped to him. “Yeah?”
Ivo nodded shyly. Ace turned away, but not before Ivo caught his lips tugging into a grin.
Harvey gave them both a pointed look. “ Anyway, Spicy Master thought he had the best idea ever. He’d built a hang glider to go visit some girl in another village, and he’d brought snacks.”
“You can’t fly with your wings?” Ivo asked.
Ace shook his head. “Not unless I’m absolutely sure no one will see. That limits my dragon shift to nighttime.”
“And this was a daytime flight,” Harvey said. “He had this little backpack that he attached to his hang glider, stuffed full of tiny cookies. But guess what he forgot to bring?”
Ivo thought about it. “Water?”
Ace groaned. “Raptor wasn’t with me. He would’ve remembered.”
Harvey’s smirk turned gleeful. “Spicy Master was high in the air, his mouth bone-dry from eating those cookies, when he decided it would be a great idea to fly into a rain cloud.”
“It... sounds like a good idea?” Ivo said.
“Not when it’s a hail cloud,” Harvey announced with a cackle. “It began to hail, and it tore through his hang glider wings. He had to make an emergency landing on the outskirts of town. Guess where he landed.”
“A lake of stinking mud,” Ace muttered, his ears pink. “I tried to land near the trees, but I’d lost control of the glider.”
Harvey nodded sagely. “He was covered head to toe in mud, and he smelled so bad, the village banished him immediately.”
“Did the girl find out?” Ivo asked, feeling sorry for young Ace.
“Now, you have to picture the scene,” Harvey said earnestly. “This scrawny, lumpy, muddy thing walks into your village, clumps of mud falling off him like cow dung—”
Ace rubbed his face. “I think you can stop there, we get the idea.”
“—All you could see were his eyes and a shapeless mouth—”
“Harvey!”
“—And he runs into the village yelling for his date, ‘Contessa! Contessa, my love! I’m sorry I’m late!’ He made such a ruckus, the villagers came out to see what was wrong. And then they smelled him.”
Ace groaned.
“It was so awful, people went back into their houses and came out with pitchforks to chase him away,” Harvey said, clearly enjoying himself. “And young Spicy Master ran through the village to find his girl. He went all the way up to her door and banged on it.”
Ivo cringed. “And?”
“She opened the door, smelled me, and fainted,” Ace mumbled.
“I’m sorry,” Ivo said, feeling so bad for Ace as a boy.
“He didn’t get the stink off for days, ” Harvey crowed. “No one wanted to sit next to him at the dinner table, even though he’d scrubbed himself down seven times. Turned out, he forgot to scrub behind his ears.”
Ivo sagged, feeling even worse for Ace. He reached over and awkwardly patted Ace’s thigh. “I’m really sorry.”
Ace winced, then smiled. “I will accept all the comfort from you, even though it happened hundreds of years ago and I’d finally forgotten about it.”
“The rest of the family remembers,” Harvey whispered. “His parents tell that story every holiday.”
“Shut up,” Ace muttered.
A laugh burst out of Ivo. He clapped his hands over his mouth, except somehow, it helped to ease Ace’s frown.
“I’m glad it made you laugh, at least,” Ace said.
“I have embarrassing childhood stories too,” Ivo admitted.
Ace perked up. “Oh?”
Before Ivo could pick out one of his own terrible stories, they pulled up in front of the largest department store in Cartfalls.
Ivo blinked. “What’re we doing here?”
Ace grinned and helped him out of the car. “We’re going shopping.”
“For?”
“You’ll see.” Ace wrapped his arm around Ivo’s waist, leading him toward the store where a lone shopping cart squeaked back and forth on the sidewalk.
There was magic in metals. It began as trace amounts of energy in metal ores, slowly concentrating as those ores were gathered and refined. By the time metal was pure enough to be shaped into objects, it carried a significant amount of magic. Some objects contained more than one metal part, though. When those parts moved together, it changed the magic, turning objects sentient. It was how locks could smile, faucets could bite, and shopping carts frolicked and played.
Ivo’s heart skipped when the cart rolled hopefully up to them. “Can we have a cart?”
“Of course,” Ace said, grasping the cart by its handle.
The cart gave a happy shiver and flipped its wheels. With his other arm, Ace tugged Ivo and Mary into the store.
“Here,” Ace said when they’d separated themselves from the other shoppers. He pulled out his wallet and tucked a black credit card into Ivo’s hand. “Buy whatever you want for your nest. There’s a fifty grand limit, but I don’t think we’ll hit that here.”
“F-fifty grand?!”
“On that card, yes. But if we somehow go over, I have other cards.”
Ivo gaped, trying to wrap his mind around putting fifty thousand dollars’ worth of stuff on a credit card. “Y-you trust me with this?”
“Yes.” Ace looked confused. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“That’s a lot of money,” Ivo mumbled.
Ace shrugged. “Not really. C’mon, let’s grab some things.”
He began pushing the cart as though he’d made the most ordinary offer. Ivo frowned after him.
Something darted across the corner of his vision.
When he turned, he found nothing between the aisles of jeans.
“Ivo?” Ace asked over his shoulder. “Is something wrong?”
Ivo scanned their surroundings. “I thought I saw something.”
Ace stopped to look, too. After a while, he shook his head. “I’m not picking up anything. Let’s keep moving.”
Ivo stared at the empty aisle again, his heart thumping as he hurried to catch up with Ace.