Chapter 46
AFTERNOON TEA IS THE PERFECT TIME TO SCHEME
Dirk was going to be sick. A sour stomach had been his constant companion for weeks, but now his nausea had advanced past “final exam jitters” to full-on “three-week-old spoiled takeout” territory.
He’d just threatened to eat a human, and the idea of sinking his teeth into warm, living flesh had roused a hungry growl from his stomach.
He slammed his bedroom door shut with a gust of wind from his feathered tail and raced for the toilet. Dirk threw his head inside the porcelain bowl and vomited.
Bile, sour and stinging. He hadn’t eaten much in the last few days, sleeping in well past sunrise and skipping breakfast. While he ate dinner, at least the portion of fish glistening with butter, his body was so starved of nutrients, it had nothing to expel but stomach acid.
Groaning, Dirk slapped the lever and pooled upon the tile floor as water whisked his sickness away.
The floor felt cool against his inflamed scales, dulled the festering itch that crawled like a living thing under his scales.
The waters of the spring and the effervescent bubbles of the growing shrimps would’ve been better, but that relief came with the threat of being eaten by a grouper. Pass.
He probably would have stayed on the floor for the rest of the afternoon, tummy rumbling and twisting, had the latch of his bedroom door not begun to rattle.
“I’m not here,” he muffled against the tiles. He didn’t want to see Bradley or Millie, not when he was like this.
The rattling continued.
Dirk dragged his head off the ground to enunciate, “I’m busy!”
Something thumped against the door. Hard.
A navy ripple of annoyance radiated down his scales. He shoved himself upright and plodded over to the door. Stomp, stomp, stomp went his paws. He’d tell whoever it was at the door to piss off, then he’d curl up with his treasure. It always made him feel better, until his stomach soured again.
Dirk’s claws caught in the weave of the rug that insulted the bedroom floor, and he stumbled, crashing head-first into the solid oak door. The collision jostled the latch loose, and the door swung open to bash into his snout a second time.
A boot with a very shiny brass buckle eased open the door.
“Master Dirk? I’m done training for the day and thought we could catch up. Are you free?”
Millie poked her head inside, her hands full with the tea tray and all the little delights one expected at afternoon tea in the middle of a desert waste. When she saw Dirk curled up on his side on the rug and not hovering in the air, she released a little cry.
“Master Dirk, whatever are you doing on the floor?”
“I don’t feel so good,” he moaned.
She hurried to set the tea tray down upon the nearest flat surface, which just so happened to be the bed. Green light flashed as the enchanted warhammer, which was still hidden in the mattress after Miss Penelope’s visit, sensed her approach.
“Absolutely not.” The princess whirled away from the wretched thing and set the tray down on a dresser. Tucking her skirts between her legs, she crouched down and set a light hand upon the luck dragon’s back. “Master Dirk, you’re burning up!”
She scooped him up and carried him to the bathroom sink, coiling him up in the basin like a hose.
A slap of the faucet lever brought water gushing forth, which she sluiced over the little dragon.
Millie lifted his legs and directed the water into his armpits, ruffled his mane to get the water down to his hide along his neck.
The luck dragon groaned, eyelids fluttering, “That . . . feels . . . so good.”
“I’m glad it’s working because I didn’t have another idea besides this one.” Millie kept her tone light so as not to distress the dragon further, but her insides felt like she’d just overindulged on chocolates and colored eggs on Ostara morning.
As she continued to soothe him with water, she noticed something dark between his white feathers.
Skin, where a cerulean scale should have been.
Millie’s face contorted with growing aversion as she found more and more of these bare spots under his mane.
Tentatively, she touched such a gap and discovered it alarmingly hot to the touch.
She shifted the dragon in the sink so the water gushed directly over his mane.
When she took her hand away, a scale no bigger than her thumbnail came along with it. It was hard like a jewel, dead, not supple like the living ones still attached. Millie turned it over in her hands for only a rotation or two before it was plucked from her fingers.
Dirk held his closed fist tight against his chest, his golden eyes wetter than his feathers. “Don’t tell Bradley.”
“Dirk,” she admonished.
The luck dragon swiveled around and turned off the faucet.
They started at each other for a long moment as the water gurgled, then dripped, down the drain.
Millie didn’t say anything, though a dozen things sat poised on her tongue.
Dirk uncoiled from the porcelain basin and flew to his treasure in the tub.
After rooting around by the drain, he produced a canvas pouch and dropped the scale inside.
“Why can’t we tell Mr. Donmarin?” she asked.
“Because there’s nothing to tell—”
“Dirk, you were on the floor. Luck dragons don’t touch the ground, remember? Well, not when they’re training in Knight Fighting class or battling Heroes, of course. And they certainly don’t shed their scales! That I know of.”
“And what can Bradley do? He’s no dragon expert, and it’s not like he can cast a spell to make my scales not fall off. Transformation is an ugly business, you said so yourself.”
Millie straightened, eyes flashing. “That is not what I meant.”
Dirk hung his head. “I know.” Fear like a hand closed around his throat, choking his words, but he forced them out anyway. “What if . . . what if Bradley’s curse is bleeding into me?”
“What?”
“We’re bonded, after all, so isn’t it possible? I-I thought if I got stronger, I could negate its effects, maybe even uncurse Bradley, but I keep losing scales. Bradley doesn’t stutter anymore, so I thought he was beating it, but what if it’s just redirecting into me?”
When the princess finally spoke, her words were measured. “From what Olabeus taught me, I don’t believe magic, or curses, work that way. Magic is specific, right? Gladstone cursed Mr. Donmarin, not you.” She swallowed. “But I’m no expert, either. Master Dirk, please tell Mr. Donmarin.”
“He’ll just freak out, like he always does, then tell Master Excelsior and he’ll send for Miss Penelope to collect me and I can’t go back there!”
“But—”
“You wouldn’t understand, Millie! Even though you want to be a pirate instead of a princess, you still belong somewhere. You told me yourself your family is wonderful and your castle a dream.”
Millie didn’t say anything, just took a seat on the edge of the bathtub beside the dragon.
“I never belonged.” Dirk scraped a paw against the treasure, copper coins clinking. “When we met, you said you thought all luck dragons were white. They are. White as pearl with horns as gold as sunlight. And here I am with scales as blue as the sky. Deficient.”
“Are you deficient?”
“Look at me!”
“I’m not talking about your scales, Dirk.
You can rouse tornadoes and save a man from falling to his death with just the wind.
You can pull water out of thin air—thin, desert air.
You can even command a man’s circulatory and respiratory systems. Something very, very precise.
Is that deficient for luck dragons your age? ”
Dirk sniffled. “I-I don’t know. I don’t know what my littermates are capable of—they were always flying away from me on the tails of the wind.”
She cradled his jaw in her hand. “Let them fly on the tails of the wind, Master Dirk, while you command the wind itself.”
“You’ve ruined me for all other princesses, you know that, right?” The luck dragon hugged her, his serpentine body coiling tight around her waist.
“And you’ve ruined all luck dragons for me.” Millie stroked his feathers, ruffling that spot between his horns. “I won’t tell Mr. Donmarin, for now, but we cannot ignore this, alright? We must find some answers. But first, let’s calm down with some nice oolong.”
Millie retrieved the tea tray and gestured to the tub of treasure. “Do you mind?”
Dirk shook his head.
Balancing the tray, the princess stepped into the dragon’s treasure tub and sat, wiggling her backside into a more comfortable position upon the coins and gems. It wasn’t unlike sitting upon the pebbled shore of the River Steeping by the castle, so it was entirely tolerable for up to twenty-seven minutes.
Millie craned forward and set the tray down between them, poured the oolong, and leaned back with her knees drawn up to her chest and her cup cradled by her throat. The rich familiar scent of delicious tea well brewed was more calming than fresh air.
“I don’t pretend to know much about luck dragons,” she said after a sip, “but I have heard legends from the winged dragons that visit Amberly. A dragon losing his scales becomes a wyrm—spelled with a Y. Do you know what that is?”
Dirk, his mouth full of sardines, shook his head.
“Crone’s Crooked Tits, neither do I. They wouldn’t speak of it. But it’s a start. Do you think the workroom has any books on dragonlore?”
The little luck dragon was feeling much better after his bath, half a cup of oolong, two fat lychee jellies, and a whole tin of sardines, so much so that he was thinking clearly for the first time in recent memory. “I’ve already looked, and I’ve searched Sir Eustace’s camp, too—”
“Why you cheeky little sneak.” Millie winked.
Dirk grinned. The relief he felt that he could finally unburden himself to someone made the words tumble from him at an accelerated rate. He scooted closer.
“I found nothing on dragonlore except this note in the back of a book that referenced the Library of Xandria. But yesterday I finally found mention of it again in an old travel guide. It’s in Pierpont.
In a converted lighthouse. Or maybe the library was converted into a lighthouse.
Whatever. But it’s said to contain all the knowledge dragons have amassed over the last five centuries.
” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “It’s even guarded by Komodo monks. ”
“Really?” She leaned forward eagerly. “I’ve never met a Komodo before, but I’ve heard a tale or two about them.
Apparently they’re either Type-A personality nerds or irredeemable Casanovas with lust-inducing pheromones—” Millie stopped herself before she disappeared down an irrelevant rabbit hole and swept her previous remarks aside.
“But the library is in Pierpont. How does that help us?”
Dirk’s scales brightened. His princess—his friend—had said us.
“Bradley writes me spells every morning, but he doesn’t check which ones I use. I could stockpile indurus spells and make the trip.”
She bit down on the corner of her bottom lip.
“But what if a Hero comes to rescue me while you’re away?
Sir Roger says I’m a promising student, but I have no illusions.
I’m not the One in Ten. Yet. And Mr. Donmarin wouldn’t lift a finger to help me.
In fact, I’m sure he’d be elated to be rid of me. ”
The statement hurt, but no other conclusion could be drawn from their fight in the training room. Nobody enjoyed feeling unwanted, and those who claimed it didn’t bother them were only fooling themselves.
“Never mind Mr. Grumpy Robes.” Dirk slouched against the wall of his half of the tub and stuffed another lychee jelly into his mouth.
“Having my princess snatched out from under my nose would be a sure-fire way to bungle my first princess-napping, wouldn’t it?
Sir Eustace would definitely dock me points, and Dirk the Dangerous would be a laughingstock as much as Lung Shang ever was. ”
“As much as who?”
The luck dragon quickly shook his head. “Nothing. More tea?”
“Yes, thank you.” Millie held Bradley’s mug out, and the luck dragon used his magic to swirl the tea out of the pot’s spout and into the mug with nary a splash.
She took a bite of a scone leftover from the morning.
“We’ll have to plan carefully so as not to raise suspicion.
You need some rest”—her eyes flitted over his scales—“so why don’t I take care of that?
After Mr. Donmarin’s gone to sleep, I could dig around in the books some more, you know, as a second pair of eyes?
Maybe I’ll see something you missed. And I wonder . . .”
“Yes?” Dirk found himself leaning forward, hopeful yet fearful and altogether in suspense.
“Well, Sir Eustace has overseen many a DDP, hasn’t he? Perhaps he’ll know when to expect lulls in the Heroes’ rescue attempts so a certain dragon and his princess could sneak off to a certain lighthouse-converted-into-a-library without anyone being the wiser.”
“That’s genius! If only Duchess could talk—she’d charm an answer out of him in a second.”
“Indeed. Well, let’s give it a go, shall we?” She rose from the tub and stretched out her lower back before collecting the tea tray. Dirk followed after her into the bedroom. “And maybe we can learn a thing or two about enchanted weapons at that library while we’re at it.”
Millie glanced at the little bed, and, as if detecting her gaze, the warhammer released a flash of green light.
She shivered. “There’s something off about that warhammer.”
“Don’t I know it. It whispers.”
“It’s settled, then. I’ll snoop, you’ll snoop, and we’ll figure it out.”
Before Dirk could reply in the affirmative, Sir Eustace announced the arrival of another challenger with his bugle.
Millie opened the door for him and kissed his cheek as he flew past. “After you whoop some Hero fanny, of course.”