Chapter 74
A PISSY RED DRAGON, A COMPLICATION, AND MILLIE MAKES AN OFFER
From the window in the library, Bradley watched the stubborn princess try and try again to overcome her seasickness from nine in the morning all the way until the sun set at nine in the evening.
He’d helped Dirk, too, of course, speed reading through book after book, though he’d found nothing about any malady that resulted in a dragon shedding its scales.
Millie was too sick again for supper, but apparently Jerry had told Nash about their second failed boating attempt, and Nash had a container of seafood broth waiting for Bradley when he and Dirk arrived at Lantern & Hearth that evening.
“She wouldn’t need this if she wasn’t being so stubborn,” Bradley growled on the walk back to The Dreary Pelican.
“She needs our support, Bradley.”
“Is that what she needs? I think she needs someone who doesn’t lie to her face. Someone who tells her the truth of the situation.”
Dirk snatched the container of broth and set it aside so it wouldn’t spill. Then he walloped the apprentice in the gut with his tail. “So this is really about you, isn’t it? You think I lied to you about my scales.”
“I think you chose to keep a secret from me, your best friend, and one that affects us both, so yeah, I’d call that a lie by omission.” He flicked the dragon in one of his ears, which was far more effective than poking him in the chest given their sensitivity. “You deceived me, Dirk.”
The Mini Red rubbed the sting away and snapped his teeth.
“If anyone gets to be pissy around here, it’s me!
I only started losing my scales when we got to the tower.
When you were cursed. You’ve wondered why your magic is leaking, how you’re sometimes able to do things you shouldn’t?
It’s because of me! Gladstone’s curse is bleeding into me because we’re bonded, and as you get stronger, I get weaker! ”
They were drawing an audience by now, but none in the crowd chose to summon the town’s contingent of marines for disturbing the peace.
It wasn’t every day they got to see a human bold enough to embroil himself in a shouting match with a dragon, even if that dragon was rather small.
Would the Mini Red blast him with a fireball?
Shred his self-esteem with artful rhetoric?
Pluck out his eyes like jujubes? Insult his mother? They were dying to find out.
“You mean this had nothing to do with the warhammer?” Bradley exclaimed.
Dirk’s anger wavered with embarrassment.
“The warhammer only made it worse,” he admitted.
“That’s when I told Millie to keep it a secret.
But only because I had a plan! And because I knew you’d freak out, just like you are right now.
A dragon’s magic increases as we get older and stronger.
I thought if I fought all those Heroes, I’d be strong enough to push back, maybe even eradicate the curse.
But I only lost more scales. Then feathers. Then, then—”
The Mini Red’s body convulsed with grief and fear.
Bradley took a step closer, lowering his voice. “Dirk, listen to me.”
“Millie was helping me find a cure,” he blurted. “She knows a thing or two about dragons, you know. She’s not some pretty-in-pink airhead. She—”
“She knows nothing of this and neither do you,” Bradley shouted.
“Curses don’t work that way, Dirk! Magic is precise.
One curse, one target. Curses—dark magic—still follow the same rules.
Master Excelsior assured me of that the same day Gladstone ruined my life.
Because you know what my first thought was? To make sure you were safe!”
“I-It was?”
“And then you go confiding in her, making secret plans and sneaking around and never once giving me the opportunity to share your burden, because what? You think I’m too self-absorbed with my own problems?”
“Well, you were.”
“Alright, maybe so, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t make space for you.
And you never gave me the chance! I’m your best friend, Dirk, we’re supposed to share each other’s loads.
And Master Excelsior made me responsible for you!
After six months, I might’ve left the tower still cursed, but at least you would be alright. ”
The heat left Dirk’s yellow eyes. He had thought, on rare occasion, that Master Excelsior had saddled Bradley with him just to gain some peace amongst the baby luck dragons. That their resulting friendship had bloomed from necessity rather than true compatibility. He’d been so wrong.
“I’m sorry.” Dirk’s voice was softer than the wind.
Bradley ran a hand through his tangled curls. “Me, too. And I’m sorry I gave you the impression that you had to bear this on your own. You don’t have to, Dirk.”
The Mini Red held out his paws. “Hug of forgiveness?”
“Yes.” The apprentice pulled the dragon into his arms.
The crowd watching them cheered, surprising them both. Then a little boy tugged on his mother’s skirt and said in the loud voice of all innocent children, “Mumma, now that the dragon isn’t going to eat him, can we go get ice cream?”
Dirk retrieved the broth, and together the friends made for The Dreary Pelican. “Master Excelsior’s gonna be pissed if we don’t figure this out, isn’t he?” the dragon asked.
“Let’s see, we’ve got less than two weeks until my Master’s exam, I’m still cursed, you’re half naked, and we’re on holiday in Pierpont. Yep.”
“Ugh, he’ll have me mucking out the griffin stalls for months, I just know it.”
“You’d be that lucky,” Bradley groused. “He’s going to force me into custodial work at the College or hire me out as a valet to another Franklin Gladstone type to pay him back for all that time in the tower and then send me back to the Cut.”
“I’d rather go to the Cut than muck out stalls. Wanna trade?”
Bradley barked a laugh and Dirk giggled.
The Mini Red flew close, the sparkling in his eyes reflected in the container of broth. “Now that we’re all good again, about Millie—”
“I don’t want to talk about her.”
“She was only keeping my secret because I asked her to.”
“It’s not that. Not just that.” Bradley’s mouth puckered like he’d just swallowed a mouthful of sauerkraut. “It’s . . . complicated.”
“Is it complicated because you think she’s pretty?”
“No! And lower your voice,” he hissed. “She wants to be everything I despise, Dirk. You don’t know what pirates are like, but I do. And yet . . . And yet—” And yet she drew me a picture of my sailboat. She learned how I like my coffee. She held me. She helped me speak again.
“And yet you think she’s pretty.”
He blustered a sigh. “Just forget it.”
Millie, who had passed out in the fetal position once again, roused when they entered the room.
“Nash made you broth,” Bradley said gruffly. “And hold on.”
“Hold on to wh—”
The apprentice yanked the bedpost, rotating the bed a quarter turn so she could see out the window. In the street below, all the colored lanterns had been lit. Beyond, the moon dappled silver upon the dark sea.
“Oh,” Millie breathed.
“Here’s your broth.”
She accepted it with weak, shaking arms. Her fingers had to work to pry off the lid, but she managed it. She always managed. Using both hands, she tipped the container back to drink. Bradley dropped down on the other side of the bed, Dirk coiling in between them.
When half the broth was gone, she settled the container in her lap. “I’ve had a little time to think.”
Dirk set his paw on her knee, supporting any decision she wanted to make.
From under lowered lashes, she flicked a nervous look at Bradley.
“I was wondering, if it’s not too much trouble, if you could spend a little time tomorrow morning, maybe an hour, to teach me how to swim?
I think if I wasn’t afraid of drowning because I can’t swim, I wouldn’t be so nervous on boats, and maybe my seasickness would go away.
I was people-watching yesterday, on my, um, breaks, and I know there are many different kinds of strokes, but you don’t need to teach me all of them.
Just one will be sufficient to build up my confidence and then perhaps—”
“Yes.”
“Wh-what?”
Even Dirk swung his long neck to look at him.
He regarded her with that strange intensity she’d seen yesterday. “Yes, I’ll teach you.”
She blinked, expecting more resistance especially since he’d been so hateful towards her. “Just like that?”
“Are you trying to change my mind?”
“N-no, I just . . .” She cast a confused look at Dirk, but the Mini Red could offer nothing more than a shrug.
“Okay, well, thank you. And thank you for the soup. And . . . y-you don’t have to sleep on the floor, if you don’t want to.
There’s not a lot of room up here to begin with, but I can try to stay on my side. ”
Bradley froze, just for a heartbeat. The bedsprings creaked as he rose and retrieved his knapsack. “The floor’s fine, Tula. Get some sleep.”