Chapter 66
PRIDE, WRATH, AND GLUTTONY
Dirk put on a burst of speed to catch the apprentice on the stairs. “Bradley, where are you going?”
Bradley swatted the blue luck dragon aside. “Out of my way.”
“But where are you going? What are you going to do? You’re not going to tell Master Excelsior, are you? These are my scales, Bradley. My feathers! You have no right—”
“I have every right,” the apprentice roared.
The tower stones quaked as a wind rose from the step under his bare feet.
“You are my Designated Sorcerer Companion. I am responsible for your wellbeing and this—” He thrust a hand in Dirk’s direction as fraught tears budded in the corners of his eyes. “Oh Dirk,” he moaned.
“Let’s just take a breath,” Millie pleaded.
Bradley whirled, fire kindling in his eyes. “You do not get to speak here.”
The princess stumbled back at step at the venom in his voice.
Her foot slipped, and she would have fallen had the apprentice not lurched forward.
He seized her wrist, his grip bone-breaking tight, and practically hurled her away from the edge and against the wall.
Her arm tangled with the guide rope, and she caught her balance, but not her breath.
She had never seen the apprentice so furious before.
“W-we weren’t ignoring this, Bradley. We had a plan!”
“You’ve done enough.” Face twisted in grief and rage and every soul-cutting emotion in between, Bradley resumed his punishing assent. The steps seemed to crack beneath his heels.
“Hey, y’all.” Pocket stuck her head out of the kitchen, thumbing away a crumb of teacake as she chewed. Fink perched on her shoulder, paws full of his own teacake. “Heard some yelling down there and—”
Bradley came to a halt by the door engraved with a D and threw his shoulder into it. The heavy oak door burst from its hinges and slammed against the ground with a thunderous boom that had Millie covering her ears.
Pocket gave Millie a frightened look and quickly stuffed Fink down the front of her shirt. Then she snatched up the cast iron skillet from the stove.
The apprentice waved his hand through the resulting dust cloud to clear it and marched inside.
“That’s my room,” Dirk shouted. “You’re supposed to ask— You’re being so rude right now, Bradley!”
“I should’ve done this sooner,” the apprentice hissed, mostly to himself.
“But I wanted to give you space, support your dream. But I should’ve been a man and handled this business no one else wanted to.
” He tore the warhammer off its hooks in the bathroom, stepped over the splinters of the door, and continued upward.
“That’s my loot! Give it back.”
“It’s making you sick, Dirk! The same green magic that infects the veins in this stone has taken root in you. I see it flash in your eyes every time you lose your temper. Look what it has done to you! No more.”
Snarling, the luck dragon tried to grab the enchanted weapon, but the incensed apprentice snatched him out of the air and flung him over his shoulder.
“I hate you,” Dirk screamed, voice cracking like shattered pottery.
Bradley paused on the stair, jaw tight and eyes glistening. “I guess I’ll have to live with that.”
The apprentice put on a burst of speed and beat them all to the workroom. Prince Henri was reclining on his swing and singing a depressing ballad, but he quickly became mute when the storm of an apprentice came rolling through.
“Stop it!” Dirk wrapped tight around Bradley’s body, constricting his ribs like a python. “Don’t make me make you pass out.”
The luck dragon wasn’t joking, and there was an audible pop or three as some bones realigning in Bradley’s body as his sinuous coil tightened. Gasping, the apprentice dropped down to one knee, but the fire never dimmed in his eyes.
“Put the warhammer down,” the dragon demanded.
Bradley hurled it into the open mouth of the Tianzi Toad.
The stone mouth shut, and red light burst from the carbuncle eyes. The gray pallor of the granite darkened, and suddenly the toad was living stone. It lifted from its squat, throat pouch inflating.
Dirk gasped, body spasming, and Bradley scrambled out of the way.
Motes of green light rose from his blue scales like pollen shedding from a tree.
It flashed in his eyes, expelled from his mouth like smoke.
All at once, the infection vanished, and a brightness returned to the dragon’s scales.
His eyes were clear and gold as the noonday sun before they fluttered shut.
A keening cry tore from the dragon’s throat as he slumped out of the air.
Bradley lurched forward and caught his best friend before he could hit the ground. Stroked a hand over the scaly ridge above his eye and down the threadbare mane. “Please wake up, Dirk. Please.”
“Skin my scales,” Dirk groaned. “I have the worst headache. Of all time.” He gave the apprentice a shaky grin, then his gaze strafed to the Tianzi Toad. “Egad!”
Claws burst from the tips of the toad’s webbed toes.
Horns sprouted from its brow next, then serrated ridges down its spine.
It tripled in size, and the marble pillar beneath its feet cracked from the sudden increase in weight.
No longer resembling a fat benevolent toad, the demonic thing hunched forward as if to leap straight for them.
“Is it supposed to look like that?” Pocket whispered to Millie.
“I don’t think so,” Millie whispered back, and inched over to the desk where Small Magicks lay open.
“Bradley.” Dirk’s golden eyes were riveted on the horned toad. “What did you do?”
“I freed you from that wretched thing.” Bradley heaved the luck dragon back into the air where he belonged. “Which just so happened to wake the toad, finally.” He stepped up to the gigantic amphibian on its cracked pedestal. “Good afternoon, toad. You owe me a wish and I would see it granted now.”
The Tianzi Toad laughed, a deep, resonant sound like an avalanche. Then its fat lips twisted into a sneer. “Feed.”
“That wretched warhammer was bigger than I was,” Dirk said crossly. “There’s no way you’re still hungry.”
“Feed!” The toad launched off its pedestal, claws outstretched for the apprentice.
“Shit,” the little dragon shouted.