Chapter 42
LITTLE PESTS, LARGE INNUENDOS—A TRYING AFTERNOON INDEED
Before continuing on to the next spell, his eyes flicked up with the same sour expression of an exam proctor who’d heard whispering in what should’ve been a silent exam hall.
The princess and Dirk had had their morning session with Sir Roger, Swashbuckling for her and Knight Fighting for a supersized, Great Red version of Dirk, and now the princess sat on the floor of the training room with her legs crossed at the ankle and her weight shifted back onto her hands.
The posture did wonders for presenting her corseted cleavage, something Bradley told himself he hadn’t noticed, but her All Things Nautical aft is the rear of the ship and bow the front.”
“You’re a brilliant pupil,” Sir Beauregard crooned down at her.
There was nothing brilliant about memorizing a handful of terms. Bradley did it daily.
“Yes, I think I’ve got it.” She picked up a piece of chalk and touched up the drawing where the cane had smudged.
Sir Beauregard stepped closer. “I wonder if you’ll take to my swimming lessons as easily as you have my other instructions.”
“Hmm,” she mused with a little smile, wiping her hands free of the chalk. “I suppose we’ll find out.” She turned to the hedge knight. “Sir Roger, Sir Beau is ready for you now. I’ll take Duncan next.”
“Aye. And I’m ready for him, too,” Sir Roger said with a glare.
“But we haven’t even gone over the galleon’s interior,” the knight protested.
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder and whatnot.” Sir Roger shoved Sir Beauregard into the stairwell and yanked the door closed behind them.
The rest of the afternoon was delightfully free of cringeworthy euphemism and innuendo and strange twisting sensations in Bradley’s gut.
Duncan Boekhouwer, who was clearly brilliant but had no experience teaching, struggled to convey the knowledge he possessed.
The princess and the accountant muddled through their lessons, but since she was so eager to learn and he was so eager not to return to his father, they got along just fine.
It was during these lessons that Bradley could ignore the princess entirely and focus on his own studies, which were so monotonous and lacking any breakthrough that he found himself procrastinating with Small Magicks more and more.
The thick tome had yet to provide the insight he searched for, but its entries were fascinating.
He learned about dryads who guarded ancient glens and ossuary pixies and jackalopes who caused wildflowers to grow wherever they hopped.
Such delights were a welcome diversion, perhaps too welcome.
As long as he disappeared into these captivating tales, each promising the possibility of shedding some light on his predicament (theoretically, hopefully), the world where he was a cursed apprentice disappeared, and that was very appreciated indeed.
After the gnome’s lesson was Jax and Fink’s, not that the ferret taught anything other than how to sharpen one’s focus when a cute fuzzy noodle was scampering around.
While he always greeted Millie and snuck up onto her shoulder for a quick ferret kiss on her cheek, it was clear the little varmint was obsessed with winning Bradley over.
Any creature with a beating heart in its breast would’ve found the little beast undeniably cute in his purple vest and opal collar, but Bradley apparently still needed convincing.
So, while Jax taught Millie the routines and tricks of a deckhand, Fink did his best to persuade Bradley that he was adorable.
This involved being an absolute pest.
Nibbling on fingers. Gnawing on boots. Grabbing a mouthful of Bradley’s robe and just dangling from it like a thick-cut slab of bacon.
Climbing up the chair and worming his way into Bradley’s sleeve and crawling up to poke his head out of the cowl right below Bradley’s chin.
Biting that chin. Evading the hand chasing after him and making a nest in the apprentice’s hair.
Latching on to an earlobe with his teeth when the hand finally caught him and tried to pull him away.
Rolling onto his back with his paws tucked under his chin and his black eyes twinkling innocently. Avoiding a spanking.
Bradley couldn’t say that Fink’s antics were as welcome a diversion as Small Magicks, but they were filling a void left by the luck dragon.
To preserve his safety and his secret, Dirk was absent in the afternoons unless he was fighting a Hero.
In such cases, all lessons ceased and everyone in the training room rushed to the windows to watch.
Sir Roger rarely had cause to give him instruction anymore, so he cheered alongside Millie.
Bradley never cheered, always watched with tension thrumming along his body like lightning caught in a bottle.
Inevitably, Dirk the Dangerous would prevail—always by rendering the Hero unconscious—loot the Hero of anything worthwhile, then stash the body until the dead of night when it was safe to fly to Calumbria when Sir Eustace wouldn’t see and question him.
It was far enough away that the Heroes would have to think twice about trekking to Ashburnum for another go at the dragon, and, with any luck, perhaps they would wake in that beautiful countryside and mistake it for heaven.
After all, their last remembered moment was succumbing to the wrath of a dragon.
It was all very neat and tidy and kept Dirk’s conscience clear.
But there was no Hero come today, so Bradley’s attention was split from his studies only by the mischievous ferret.
He pinned a wriggling Fink against his lap with a hand while he read spell after spell in The Ultimate Spell Directory – Volume 3 and listened to Jax with half an ear.
Like he did with Sir Beauregard, the apprentice eavesdropped on the princess’s lessons to confirm their validity.
It was one thing to have four extra men in the tower, and another thing entirely if they were there under false pretenses.
So far, none had led the princess astray.
Jax was by far the princess’s favorite tutor.
Their sessions always included laughter and a compelling account of one of his adventures aboard the Flying Pony.
When they actually got down to business, his instructions were more generalized than Sir Beauregard’s, but the apprentice assumed that was because he didn’t want to overload the princess.
Maybe Jax’s method of instruction was like peeling back the layers of an onion—they got more detailed and concentrated with each consecutive lesson.
Except he’d been tutoring Millie for two weeks now and the subject matter hadn’t evolved past rudimentary knowledge.
He had the time to go slow, though, and Bradley had promised himself he wouldn’t interfere. He had his own studies to attend to—
“Ouch! Why you little pest.” Bradley hoisted the ferret into the air, and Fink opened his pink mouth in a soundless laugh. The opal on his collar flashed yellow.
“Get ahold of your beastie,” Sir Roger admonished from the door. His nails were uniform nubbins now, and he was using the nail trimmers and his reflection in the hourglass to carefully trim back the white hair crowding his ears.
“Sorry about that, sir.” Jax abandoned the blackboard and collected his pet with a self-depreciating smile. Fink sat on the very edge of his shoulder, noticeably quiet and minding his manners. “Rambunctious fellow, you know? Gets bored easily when his life’s just stone walls, iron bars, and sand.”
Bradley thought the deckhand was laying on the guilt a little thick and communicated these thoughts with a flat look.
“Heh,” Jax chuckled nervously and swallowed. He gave the ferret a brisk pat on the head. “Sir.” Jax bobbed a quick nod and turned back to the blackboard.
“Wait.”
The deckhand froze.
“You may let Fink roam,” Bradley said.
He’d seen the effects of captivity on Dirk—the little luck dragon had turned to extortion to combat the doldrums, after all, then had kidnapped a princess.
Mood swings and increased irritability had come next, his only delight coming in the form of battling the Heroes during the day and looting the rooms with them at night.
And Fink was important to morale. If Fink needed to explore to keep his spirits high, and in return, maintain peace amongst the tutors in the dungeons, then so be it. Perhaps he could visit with Dirk more often, since Duchess seemed more interested in spending her days with Sir Eustace.
“Uhhh,” the deckhand drawled, momentarily at a loss for words. He nodded again. “Thank you, sir.”
Bradley grunted and returned to his spells.
That evening, Fink joined them for dinner.
The kitchen table had to be moved away from the window and a bench installed to accommodate them all.
There weren’t enough plates to go around, so Duchess ate grouper sashimi out of Dirk’s bone china teacup, Fink off the teacup’s saucer, and Henri was given a spoon mounded with fish diced small enough to resemble flies.
Henri stayed in his gilded cage, of course, since he wasn’t really an animal but a Hero they couldn’t afford to have spreading the truth about Dirk’s identity.
The chances of him escaping were almost zero, as that cage was enchanted, and even if he did, he had the desert to contend with, which he had barely survived before.
Besides, he serenaded them as they ate, and that, coupled with candlelight and the star-studded sky, made for a pleasant evening indeed.