Chapter 16
IT’S POSSIBLE WE’RE WELL AND TRULY SCREWED, A BOOKISH DISCOVERY, AND DIRK DIDN’T DO IT
There might have been no answers in Sir Eustace’s chronicle, but that didn’t mean there weren’t answers waiting for Dirk in the workroom. Just because Bradley hadn’t found any luck amongst the myriad pages didn’t mean he couldn’t—he was a luck dragon for Caelus’s sake!
Whooshing into the workroom, he spared no time searching through the hundreds if not thousands of books lining the walls.
Unless it was painfully obvious by the title alone, Dirk couldn’t tell if the book in front of him contained what he sought.
“Doesn’t anyone believe in back-cover summaries? ” he shouted.
“Dirk.” His best friend stood up from behind the desk. “What are you looking for?” he signed. “I’ve already picked out today’s research.”
How to tell Bradley he was losing scales?
Worse yet, how to tell Bradley that his curse was slowly polluting his best friend?
It would be a disaster. Bradley would freak out with an explosiveness that would rival a star going supernova, then go into hyperactive, super-compulsive, overprotective mode.
Or, even worse, Bradley might slip into a self-berating depression and then they were well and truly screwed.
The little luck dragon couldn’t endure either one of those outcomes, so he said, “I thought I could find a training guide. Like, Get Into Knight-Fighting Shape in 10 Days or something.”
A long pause stretched between them where Dirk hoped Bradley would mention something about a rice paper backup plan, or that he’d had a breakthrough, but the apprentice said nothing.
Dirk scratched at his mane, his claw catching in one of the holes left by his scales.
He quickly hooked his thumbs into the strap of his satchel.
“I don’t think Master Excelsior has anything like that here,” his best friend finally replied. “Is that why you went snooping around Sir Eustace’s camp? For training tips?”
“Nobody knows how to fight like a Great Red. I figured I should learn a thing or two, just in case.”
Once again, the apprentice didn’t take the bait.
“But Sir Eustace is the absolute worst at recording anything of interest. I might’ve just as well been reading a grocery list for how thrilling it was.
” Dirk flew to the desk, eager to put his worries about the shed scales and the disappointment of the camp raid behind him.
Maybe if he helped Bradley with his research, they might find a solution to both their problems. “Whaddya we got here?”
An endurance trial of boredom, that’s what.
Bradley always seemed to pick the driest reads when he knew Dirk was there to help him.
Despite his earlier panic, the little luck dragon found his gaze wandering from the pages to the great outdoors, but the desert proved just as boring.
Orange sand, blue sky, not even a circling vulture to break up the monotony—so thrilling.
Maybe he could just get away with curling up around a stack of old leather-bounds and taking a nap while his scales shimmered away.
Caelus knew he could use a nap after his fright.
And that’s what Bradley really needed, not a second pair of eyes for this dribble.
Could he even dispense luck while he slept?
That was a question for his elders or Master Excelsior, maybe even Millie.
She seemed to know a lot about dragons. Must’ve been all those tea parties.
Oh, how the baby dragon now missed tea parties as much as he missed grilled buttered lobster.
The Amberly court had adopted many of the traditions of the Tianzi tea ceremony, but theirs included a wider variety of sweets and savories that could be enjoyed during the tea rather than simply at the end.
Egg sandwiches, jam tartlets, golden scones with clotted cream, cucumber slices topped with cream cheese and lox and the daintiest sprig of dill, petit fours filled with citrus curds or Bavarian creams, thinly shaved prime rib with horseradish sauce.
He wondered if there was book in here titled Forgotten Delicacies of the Ancient World or something similar to drool over while he waited for Bradley to finish up and make them a boring meal of whatever was in the kitchen larder.
Boring desert, boring books, boring supper. Dirk would much rather ignore the gravity of his dilemma and go exploring with Millie and watch the delight on her face with every discovery than—
“Here.” Bradley tapped the top of the stack to his left without looking up from the three books splayed out in front of him.
How had that infernal human known Dirk’s mind was wandering?
Grumbling, he hauled the monstrous tome onto his portion of the table. Arcane Practices of the Wise. Definitely not a cookbook.
Dirk muttered a curse and wrestled the thing open.
He scanned a page, he flipped a page. He scanned another page, he flipped another page. Chin propped up on the backs of his claws, he fought not to nod off. This had to be the driest read in the entire collection.
On a lark, he decided to flip to the back of the book and search the index for any topics related to their current situation, such as curses, dragons, and panic attacks, management thereof.
There was no index, but there was an intriguing author note: The author wishes to thank the Komodo monks of the dragonlore Library of Xandria for their exceptional assistance in this author’s research on the subjects of Feng shui and chi manipulation.
There was a dragonlore library?!
Dirk needed a map. Where was this library located? Was it close by? Was it on the same continent or was it nestled on one of the island kingdoms? As he shot into the air to look for an atlas, the pages of Arcane Practices fluttered, and a strange loose leaf of paper drifted to the floor.
“Um, Bradley?”
“Hn?”
“Firstly, I didn’t do it. Secondly, you should look at this.”
The sorcerer apprentice straightened out of his hunch to peer overtop the stacks of books, rose fully when he saw the old piece of paper on the floor. It took only a glance to confirm from its different coloration that it did not belong to the book open in front of the luck dragon.
Frowning, Bradley moved around the desk and retrieved the paper. It was thick and dark, as if stained with tea or coffee, and very old. It was surprisingly supple, unfolding as if made of fabric. Or skin. Maybe it was.
Dirk swirled to Bradley’s shoulders, layered upon them like very heavy feather boa, and peered down as the apprentice unfolded the strange parchment. The scent of licorice greeted them as softly as a whisper.
Inside were writing in faded black ink and cross-section diagrams of the world, its heavens and underrealms, detailed drawings of hand gestures, and something held in a sorcerer’s hands that resembled a circle loom which pulled in the threads of magic that connected all life towards its center.
Dirk read only a few lines of the ancient text before the phantom hand of dread traced an icy fingertip along his spine.
“Bradley,” he began softly, as if speaking above a whisper and faster than a drawl would somehow activate the script on the page, “that’s an instruction guide for conjuring and summoning. Why would Master Excelsior have a page with dark magic written on it hidden in his library?”