Chapter Nine
Nine
Juniper forgot, for just a moment, that one was not supposed to swear in front of small children.
Mo politely reminded him about seven or so curses in, not with words but with a well-placed elbow to Juniper’s poor rib cage.
“Divona’s sake, you don’t have to murder me,” Juniper complained. He crouched down there in the hay in front of the little girl, a safe distance away where he wouldn’t scare her.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
He had plenty of experience with small, frightened animals—Mo was always bringing them home, and okay, fine, he was as guilty as Mo about bringing in wounded birds or other small creatures who needed it—and he was going to do his best here.
Mumford had been skittish when he’d first appeared on their land, hadn’t he?
Small children couldn’t be that much different, could they?
After all, Juniper had been a child once.
On one memorable occasion, when Juniper had been only four or five winters old—about the age of this child here, if he had to guess—he had run away from home.
He had looked a sorry sight, eating stale bread beneath a stone bridge only a twenty-minute walk from home, and some well-meaning but absolutely immense bruggane had walked right up to him and asked if he was all right.
The bruggane had towered above him, and had shoulders that looked like great gray boulders and one lumpy horn-adjacent growth on the left side of his head that had Juniper running home, screaming in fear.
So. At least Juniper wasn’t doing that?
“I don’t talk to you,” the little girl said, the words startlingly clear for a wee thing her size. “You’re not my mama.”
“I am not,” Juniper agreed, offering her a smile that he hoped was the right mixture of a little silly and a little reassuring. “We already have a bit of common ground, then. We both agree I’m not your mother.”
Mo cleared his throat.
Juniper nodded in the direction of the ground, gesturing for Mo to sit.
This type of thing, Juniper understood. He might not be good for just about anything on this stupid little quest he’d landed them in, and he might be terrible at conserving cheese instead of eating it all in one sitting, but by Divona, he knew how not to make a child cry.
Mo hesitated and then sat down, cross-legged on the hay.
“Do you know where your mother is?” Juniper asked. “Maybe we could help you find her?”
He looked at Mo, who nodded.
Quest or no quest, this they could agree on. Or at least Juniper could hope that was what Mo’s nod meant.
“My mother flew away,” the girl said.
Well, this was a new development. Not how children typically spoke, at least as far as Juniper remembered. Had he ever claimed his mother flew away, when asked?
No, he had never told anyone about his mother. He tucked that thought carefully away, behind other more important thoughts of when he would eat next, or if he might nap in this hay before they went on, or what they ought to do with this child.
Thoughts of his father were always quickly tucked away. Thoughts of his mother? Nonexistent, thank you very much.
“What’s your name?” Juniper asked gently.
Surely that was a safer question.
“I don’t talk to you,” the girl said.
“Helpful,” Juniper said. “And I do understand that. Respect it, even.”
Mo scooted a little closer.
At that, the little girl opened her mouth.
Juniper suppressed a shriek.
Instead of normal human teeth in neat little rows, the girl had sharp, jagged teeth cut into points.
“Oh, dear,” Juniper said. “Where did you get those?”
The child snarled, scooting back.
Juniper looked at Mo. Mo looked right back at Juniper.
And then he lifted one hand slowly and pointed to himself. “Mo,” he said, tapping his chest lightly.
At some point, he had slid his knife back in his belt and now he was sitting perfectly still, his body relaxed in that way that always made Juniper subtly relax, too.
Even when their coin hadn’t stretched as far at the market as they needed it to, or one of the lambs was ill, or Farmer Abernathy was completely out of hard cheese.
“Bear,” the little girl said. Then she scooted toward him, shoulders relaxing as her mouth snapped shut over those awful teeth. She tapped her own chest, then looked pointedly at Juniper.
How was Mo better at this, too?
“Juniper,” he sighed.
Mo grinned at the girl, then winked conspiratorially. “Junebug,” he said.
At this, the girl with the horrible teeth giggled, clapping a hand over her mouth. “Junebug,” she repeated, and then giggled again.
It was more of a chortle. And so was Mo’s. A wicked, naughty chortle.
“Can we help you?” Mo asked. “Mo and Junebug help Bear?”
Bear nodded slowly. She was a wispy little thing, slight as a flame though just as fierce. She had fair skin smattered with freckles and dark brown hair that reminded Juniper of Mo’s thick curls. “Mo and Junebug help,” she said. “But you’re not my mama.”
“We’re not,” Juniper agreed, for the forty-fifth time. “Where did you last see her?”
Bear pointed straight up.
As one, Juniper and Mo let their gaze travel upward toward a wide gap in the ceiling at one end of the barn.
“I don’t understand,” Juniper said. “Mo?”
But before Mo could answer, before he could say anything at all, they were interrupted by the thunder of hoofbeats outside the barn.
Juniper, for once, was on his feet before Mo. If he shouted “My snacks!” in worry as he realized they were likely to be trampled, no he didn’t, and he wouldn’t appreciate anyone insinuating he did, thank you very much.
“The prince,” Mo said.
“The prince!” Juniper said.
“The prince?” Bear asked.
She stood, too, wrapping her thin arms around her small frame as if to fight against the cold.
Mo shrugged off his cloak and wrapped it around the girl.
That didn’t do anything at all to Juniper’s heart. No flip-flopping around his chest here, actually. He had a good best friend, that was all. A very good one, from the top of his head to the tips of his toes.
“Stay here?” Mo asked her gently.
She nodded.
Something strange settled in the pit of Juniper’s stomach. This was not his quest, even if he had signed his name. This was not his mission, his glory, his fame. He was a farm boy who missed home and had made a dumb choice during a brawl.
But some long-suppressed instinct of good sense made him straighten up and say—
“Bear? Why don’t you hide under there?”
He said it very softly, just as softly as he wished someone had spoken to him when he’d been crouched under that bridge so long ago.
And to his amazement, Bear crouched down and pulled the cloak over her head.
From the door, it looked like nothing but Mo’s pack and discarded cloak.
Mo nodded his approval, and Juniper had to pretend that nod didn’t make warmth spread all through him as if the sun had just come out from behind the clouds.
Mo pushed open the door and stepped out, Juniper following closely at his heels.
It was indeed the prince, unfortunately accompanied by Bill Bronson and Phteven and their merry band of assholes.
“Avast!” called Prince Edward.
He was wearing his crown and, somehow, gleaming new armor, and brandishing that shiny sword of his.
“Ahoy,” Juniper called back with a friendly wave.
Mo slapped his hand out of the air.
Bill sneered and said something dumb, Juniper was sure of it, but Juniper couldn’t hear him over the triumphant roar of the prince.
“We’ve caught one of the dragons!” Prince Edward proclaimed this as if he were making a royal announcement to a room full of courtiers, or whomever it was that princes usually announced things to.
It was different from someone speaking to you, of course. But it had a strangely captivating quality to it all the same.
“Wait,” Juniper said. “One of the dragons?”
His newly held hope that the quest was done, after only a few miserable nights outdoors and one pants-related mishap, was promptly dashed.
“A new development.” The prince dismounted his horse, tossing the reins to one of Bronson’s goons, and made his way across the muddy yard toward them.
“We caught a great big one as she was burning down a home just west of here. I’m surprised you didn’t hear all the hubbub.
She’s dead, though. I took her down myself, actually. ”
At this bold claim, one of Bronson’s men startled, as if he were on the verge of correcting the prince.
But one did not simply correct a prince.
“Is it over, then?” Juniper asked.
He turned to look at Mo, whose expression was as cold and hard as the frozen creek at the dead of winter.
“No,” Mo said.
“Of course not,” Prince Edward said. His golden gaze met Juniper’s squarely.
It was dazzling, to be looked at by a prince. It made Juniper feel as if he were not merely a farm boy, after all. As if he, at last, could be something.
“Why? Why isn’t it over?”
Was Juniper the last to know, as always? What was he fucking missing, that everyone else seemed to know?
“There’s a nest,” Bill interjected, speaking over the prince. Speaking over the prince!
If anyone in this kingdom needed to be pelted with rotting vegetables, it was that man. At least once a week, maybe, until it did him some good.
If the prince hadn’t been there, Juniper would have challenged Bronson to get off that horse and meet him knuckle to knuckle like a man.
“Well, there’s at least one adolescent dragon,” Prince Edward corrected, his jovial smile never failing, even at Bronson’s interruption.
“It was seen with the mother last night, but the mother led us on such a chase that we lost sight of the young one. It will be easy to find now, without the protection of the great beast.”
“Of course,” Juniper said, with a horrible knowing feeling unfolding right there in his chest, blooming like belladonna.
“You sure you lads don’t want to join us?” Prince Edward asked. His eyes cut to Mo, who did not move.
“No,” Juniper said glumly, because Mo was going to say it anyway.
“Well, of course you haven’t seen anything around here, have you?” Prince Edward said, but he was already moving past, his shoulder colliding with Juniper’s. “Nothing hiding in that old barn, I’m sure?”
Mo winced, even though it was Juniper who had been bumped by the prince.
“Mo,” Juniper said, not quite understanding what he was asking his friend to do. Or not do.
It was very like the way Mo often said his name, heavy and full of warning, asking him, a little desperately now, not to act.
Bear stayed still beneath her cloak. It was just hay, and dust, and spiders, and that hole in the roof.
Bill had entered behind them, taking a sniff of the barn as he did. “They probably just couldn’t afford a room in the inn,” he said. “What, did you kick your coin into the fire with your pants, or did you just have no money to begin with?”
Ah, shit.
So everyone had heard about that now.
Though Juniper supposed he had announced it quite loudly while the prince was close by. Still, shouldn’t Bill be on his best behavior? After Juniper had saved his life?
“We’ll be on our way, then,” the prince said. “If you see the beast, send word to us and we’ll back you up.”
“Of course,” Juniper said.
Mo said nothing at all, his dark eyes never leaving the prince as he exited the barn, his armor glinting despite the sunless day.
“I do think they tromped all over my snacks,” Juniper said woefully.
“Mmm,” Mo said.
The men lingered beside their horses, examining the ground as if to look for dragon tracks (though Juniper was sure he saw Bill snatch a bit of cheese from the top of Juniper’s discarded satchel).
“Mama?” the wee, sharp voice interrupted them just as the prince was remounting his horse.
This time, it was Mo who cursed, so quietly that Juniper just barely caught it.
“He’s a prince,” Juniper told her quickly, leaping into her path to keep her from running out the barn door. “Bear, if you just—”
“Mama,” Bear repeated.
For one moment, the world froze as the prince and the mercenaries turned at the sound. And then, with a flash, Bear’s sharp teeth grew deadlier and her skin rippled into scales and Mo’s cloak slid from her extending wings.
“Junebug,” she snarled his nickname at him just as her face ceased to look human at all.
“Dragon,” the prince yelled, just as Bear lifted from the ground, wings spread, a wall of fire roaring straight from her open jaws.