Chapter 4
Ginger
Brambleby was antsy that evening as I carried him to Kizzi’s apothecary tucked under my arm, beneath the warmth of my cloak.
Instead of flopping freely, he was alert. Squirmy. His wing twitched against my side as if he wanted to take flight.
I was not allowing that to happen. Not today.
I wasn’t in the mood to chase the little beast around town, like that time when Ember had escaped. That was a nightmare.
Bram was still just a baby, mere days out of his egg. Though he seemed able to take care of himself well enough, I couldn’t quash the urge to protect him. To nurture him. To guard him from all the scary pieces of life.
The hairs on the back of my neck rose.
My paranoia was really getting out of hand.
Still, I glanced over my shoulder, but I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Only folk going about their business and critters scurrying to and fro.
A wayward breeze sent a shiver skittering down my spine.
“Kiz! I’m here. Let me in!” I shouted as I banged on the door to Kizzi’s apothecary. I wasn’t sure if she would even hear me, her enhanced protection enchantments were a little excessive. She needed a chime or something to alert her when guests arrived after she locked up for the day.
I couldn’t necessarily blame her—she had a precious beast to protect—but it was still inconvenient.
I wondered if I would need to enhance protections in my own cottage, or even my pub. I typically didn’t bother, crime in Moonvale was nonexistent, but with this eerie feeling I’d been having…
Was it merely normal paranoia that came with newfound motherhood, or something more sinister?
I knocked again, louder this time. Brambleby flinched in my grasp.
“Oh! Sorry, little guy.” Quieter, I hissed, “Kizziah!”
Finally, the door cracked open, just a sliver. A green eye stared back at me. “Ginger?”
I lifted Brambleby into her view. “I brought a friend. Can I come in?”
“One second!” She slammed the door shut in my face. I heard a scurrying, a commotion, and a flurry of voices. Five seconds passed. Ten. And then the door swung open. “Quick!” she demanded. “She bolts when it’s left open for too long.”
I hurried inside.
Magic shivered over my scalp, past my shoulders, slipping over the lengths of my legs as I passed the threshold.
I shook off the sensation. It wasn’t painful, it was merely… unsettling. Magic still made me feel squirmy. I wasn’t quite used to it yet.
Magic had been around for ages, as long as time itself. But when the Old Gods abandoned the realm hundreds of years ago, they snatched most of it with them. Recently, though, after a fateful Hallow’s Eve and a witchy ritual gone haywire, the magic had suddenly returned.
Nobody knew exactly why.
We were all still reeling from the change, even us less magically inclined folk.
Fauns were supposed to be in touch with magic. Or so legends said. Thirty-three years in this realm and I hadn’t figured it out, yet. Not that I had tried. I left the magic to the witches and the elves.
But with the return of magic to the realm… Maybe magic was in the cards for all of us, whether we liked it or not.
The door slammed shut. It hardly missed the tail of my cloak. Thankfully, the sprites that constantly swarmed Kizzi’s apothecary kept their tiny hands off me, but they did hover close by.
Rotten little creatures. They were pretty cute though, if you were able to catch a glimpse of them from the corner of your eye. They were difficult to see, otherwise—at least to my untrained eyes.
Brambleby finally managed to free himself from my grasp, and I let him go. He zoomed over to where Raine was locked in Tandor’s arms, covered in dozens of sprites. Tandor released the little blue dragon, and she squealed, leaping and tackling Brambleby to the ground.
She was bigger than Bram, but not by much, and she took him down easily.
It was all very chaotic.
And quite precious, if I was being honest.
My stomach twisted as I watched the critters roll around on the floor together. Like a mama bear, I wanted to snatch him up and keep him safe. He was the youngest, after all, and surely still somewhat fragile.
I sucked in a deep breath through my mouth. It tasted like cinnamon and lavender.
It took me a moment to adjust to the liveliness of Kizzi’s apothecary shop.
There was life and movement everywhere. The very air hummed with magic.
Sprites dotted nearly every surface. Hex, Kizzi’s scary slime familiar, lounged in the corner, popping bubbles in front of a fluffy white cat.
And Kizzi and Tandor stood amongst it all, hand in hand, looking like they belonged.
Like they were knit into the very heart of the chaos.
I felt like an intruder.
I tried to banish that feeling, but it persisted, simmering low in my chest like a bad case of heartburn.
“How’s the green beast?” Tandor asked casually, settling onto a rickety looking stool that somehow managed to hold his weight.
“Not very beastly, if I’m being honest.” I watched as Raine easily pinned Brambleby to the ground again, laying on top of him and chewing on one of his horns. Brambleby let it happen. He didn’t even squeak in protest.
“Now that you said that out loud, he’s going to be the wildest of them all,” Kizzi joked.
“I somehow doubt that.”
“Are you managing okay? Is he eating? Sleeping? Destroying everything he touches?” the witch asked as she shoved some crystals into a basket.
“Lighting fires or covering everything in ice, like the other two?” Tandor added.
“We’re fine, actually. He ate some of my stew for dinner and seemed perfectly happy.
No fires. No ice.” He had no magical power that I could discern at all, but I didn’t say that part out loud.
I was feeling protective of the little dragon and didn’t want to make him sound any less impressive than his siblings.
Egg mates? Litter mates? Whatever. His fellow baby dragons.
“You lucky bitch,” Kizzi grumbled. “Of course Ginny would get the good dragon.”
Raine huffed, snorting a stream of water at Kizzi’s skirts.
She startled. “I was just joking, babycakes. You’re the best dragon in the entire realm. The very best.”
“She can understand you?” I asked, baffled.
She shrugged helplessly. “I don’t even know anymore. Suddenly everything is walking and talking and thinking. We might as well assume everything is sentient at this point, just to be safe.”
I wasn’t sure if that thought was horrifying or comforting. The dragons were already impressive and regal enough as they were, and if they were intelligent, too? They would be unstoppable.
My chest swelled with a strange sense of pride. I wouldn’t mind if Bram decided to take over the realm. He deserved it.
“I hope you aren’t offended by my asking, but what did you come by for, then? Just came for a playdate? I’m happy to see you, of course. Don’t think otherwise.” Kizzi’s eyes were wide and earnest. She didn’t mean any harm—she was simply asking a question she wanted the answer to.
That feeling of intrusion stabbed at me again. I shouldn’t have come here. I should’ve returned to my cottage as I normally did and spent my evening on a run through the woods or in my kitchen.
I hoped she didn’t notice how my mood dropped.
“I just came to say hello. To check in. Make sure there isn’t anything I should be doing with little Brambleby over there.” I gestured to the dragon. “It feels like I’m missing something. Like this is all too… easy.”
“Have you tried playing with a string? Fiella says Ember loves that. Like a cat,” Kizzi suggested.
I nodded. “He doesn’t seem super interested in playing. Except for with other living things.” I glanced at him. His green wings flailed as he swatted at a sprite bouncing in the air in front of him. My cheek lifted in a smile.
“He’s eating, behaving, sleeping. It sounds like you’re doing a great job so far. Way better than Fiella—she keeps getting holes burnt in all her cloaks.”
I snorted. “If you say so. I just thought… well they’re dragons. Maybe there’s some sort of handbook on taking care of them.”
“There isn’t, not that we’ve found. But you should write one!”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly—”
“You’d be great at it,” Tandor interrupted. “You’re meticulous and detail oriented. And patient. We would all help, too, of course! This stuff would be good to know, if anyone else happens to stumble upon a dragon egg.”
“But do we actually know anything? Like how they hatched?”
“Well, no, but the town is still standing so we haven’t been a complete failure!” Kizzi insisted.
I considered this. I had never thought of myself as a writer, or a creative at all, really. Sure, I liked pretty things, and I read a book from time to time. But I didn’t create.
Aside from my journal, which I meticulously maintained.
The idea clicked into place. “Like a dragon journal?”
Kizzi snapped her fingers. “Exactly! See, I knew you’d be perfect!”
A dragon journal. I could manage that. It couldn’t be much harder than simply taking notes on the dragons’ daily activities and then compiling them into something that made sense.
How hard could it be?
“Maybe,” I offered. I wasn’t willing to commit yet, in case the project failed miserably, but I would be saving that thought to mull over later.
I had many, many quiet hours to kill, after all. The pub occupied a lot of my time, and I spent as many hours there as I could, but I always ended up in my quiet cottage alone at the end of the day.
My mind could use a project to latch onto.
Strangely, I felt better. Even if I was a bit of an intruder, this project would be something for me to claim. To focus on. Something I could use to make people happy, along with my ales and stews.