Chapter 6
Portia Starling had clearly not come back to Starling Island to work in the teacup dragon sanctuary.
Noah knew that. There was no mistaking it.
But right now, she obviously didn’t know where to turn or what to do.
Noah watched Portia closely as her great-aunt spoke.
Saw the smile fade and die. That was the worst thing.
That brilliant smile, formed because he had explained that her dragon cared about her like family, falling away.
He didn’t know why. But there was no denying it.
She reached out for Jade and stroked the dragon’s spinal scales so carefully.
There was a genuine connection there. The people who usually brought teacup dragons to him saw them as pets rather than anything else and some of them truly cared for the creatures, as anyone did with a pet.
But the connection between Portia and Jade seemed to go much deeper.
Jade saw her as family. As rescuer and protector.
Noah had grown up on tales of the great dragons.
His grandfather had spoken of walking in their world, climbing the mountains of the north and leaving offerings.
That was for the wild dragons, not the ones from Elanholm itself.
The ones that lived near the border. As soon as he could read, Noah had read everything available to him, hunted down old and forgotten texts.
The great dragons were creatures of magic, able to shift form effortlessly and they lived in tune with the streams of power that ran through the earth itself.
One day, perhaps twenty years ago, the northern realm had closed its borders and the dragons had retreated behind them, cutting off all communication with the Kingdom of Shinael.
All that remained behind in Shinael were teacup dragons.
Some people maintained they still retained a vestigial connection with magic, but to be honest, Noah doubted that.
They were hatched, grew, and died like any other living thing and showed no sign of the magical abilities their great cousins were said to possess. They were completely mundane.
His grandfather had been a storyteller, a bard.
He had spun all kinds of fanciful tales.
That was how he made his living. His father had been an altogether more practical man, a successful blacksmith who paid for his youngest sons to have the education they wanted.
Alincourt, the granite city where they had been born, was the northernmost in the Kingdom of Shinael and, by the time Noah had been of age, famous as the least magical place in the realm, perhaps in the entire world.
It was also closest to the border. Noah had sneaked across the first opportunity that presented itself and found… nothing.
The borderlands were barren and bleak, high mountains and empty valleys. The dragons were gone. It had all but broken his heart.
Where they had gone was a mystery he longed to unravel, but that would mean a real expedition, and that would mean money. Once he had the funding though… Sometimes when Noah closed his eyes he could still see great dragons flying overhead.
Always the dreamer, his brother had said.
So, he was here, with teacup dragons flying around him instead, bright and inquisitive little things, clever in their way, but a faint reflection of his true dream. But they were all that was left. At least, in Shinael.
Portia Starling had dreams of her own and they had all been stolen from her. All because of a dragon. He could see that written across her face as her great-aunt told her that her family had plans for her.
‘I wasn’t intending to stay here, Iris,’ she said, her voice calm and firm. Patient, he decided, and kindly. Because if she had lost her temper with someone as good as Iris, he didn’t know if he’d be able to keep out of it, family or not. Thankfully, Portia was being careful as well.
Her great-aunt just smiled in that way Noah was already beginning to recognise. It meant Iris had ideas of her own about what was going to happen regardless of what anyone else thought. ‘Well, while you are here then. I have a plan and I’m sure Noah would appreciate the help.’
Would he? It was awkward enough between them already. He’d tried to apologise twice and it wasn’t really in his nature to grovel. Portia flashed a glance at him and quickly looked away. There was a hardness in her now. She was as defensive as he was. Oh good, this was going to be a disaster.
‘What plan?’ Portia asked coldly.
Iris clapped her hands together like a child. ‘For the dragons. All right, so every year, there’s the Royal Show in Tesh. And it’s always breeders and the likes and that dreadful Teacup Dragons Fanciers’ Association.’
‘I’m aware.’ Her great-niece was not warming to the subject but Iris didn’t seem to notice that.
‘I thought that this year we would take a tent and show them what real teacup dragons look like. Take the best of the sanctuary and enter them in the show. We could do with the prize money, that’s for sure, but more than that it would be an opportunity to let people see that with proper care and training, they are wonderful creatures. ’
Portia fixed her attention back on her great-aunt and Noah realised that maybe Iris Starling had met her match.
‘You want to make the journey to Tesh for the Royal Show? Iris, you haven’t been well.’
‘Oh, I’m fine. Nothing to worry about. And now we have both you and Noah here to help, it’ll be no trouble at all. We have months to prepare.’
‘Perhaps if you would do as the doctors told you, it might be easier on everyone. Hiring one vet isn’t enough.
The Royal Show is too great an undertaking.
You know as well as I do the work involved, and Tesh is a madhouse at that time of the year.
Even the sanctuary is too much for you these days.
If you want me to help, you need to step back and look after yourself. ’
Iris looked instantly shifty. ‘Step back? What nonsense is this? Has little Ophelia been telling tales again?’
It was not something he should be privy to, that was for sure. This was clearly a family matter and he was intruding just by being here. Retreat was the best option.
‘I should go and see to the hatchlings,’ he said. ‘If you’ll excuse me.’ He wasn’t sure they even heard him, but that didn’t matter. He was happy to make his escape.
Their voices rose as he walked away, two women who were clearly far too like each other. They had been holding back on his account. Now it erupted.
‘Why you’d want to go back to that awful place I don’t know!’
‘It’s my work, Aunt Iris!’
‘And this is mine!’
‘And it’s killing you.’
So yes, if he fled as fast as he could, it was definitely the best course of action.
* * *
The snuggery was blissfully quiet, a circular room right at the top of the main tower, high over the castle and the island, entirely devoted to Iris’s teacup dragons.
All around the edges were little nests in dark cubbies, which simulated the clifftop perches and hidey-holes favoured in the wild.
Once it had been a library, Iris had told him.
It still bore the marks of that – those cubbies had been shelves, the higher levels accessed by rolling ladders attached to a brass rail for those not blessed with wings, numbers on the mahogany finished in faded, flaking gilt, shelf after shelf now given over to dragons and all the paraphernalia they needed.
Light came from the tall, narrow windows that ringed the tower room above the shelves.
In the centre was a long table where food could be laid out or dragons examined.
Off to the left of the main door, someone had installed a shoot to the midden below, where dragon droppings could be disposed of. All quite practical.
The teacup dragons swooped back and forth, as they did in the orangery below, though there was less space here, and a lot less greenery.
Not that they were any less beautiful. Iridescent wings fluttered so fast they blurred and their long slender bodies moved like water.
They were blue and golden, red and purple, orange and green, every shade much brighter than the dragons toted around by society.
Shafts of sunlight fell from high windows and these happy, healthy dragons were like darting rainbows all around him, little stained-glass wonders filled with delight.
Noah checked the nests containing the hatchlings first, seven of them in all, one or two to a pair.
As a breed they were attentive parents, and given that he had arrived with Iris, who had been careful in her introductions, the more mature dragons had accepted him easily enough, which meant the hatchlings did as well.
The rest, those flitting around in the orangery, would take a little longer.
But he would get there in the end. Patience would win out.
Iris really did know everything there was to know about them.
The set-up here was all they could want.
She was also an elderly woman who was clearly in poor health.
He’d noticed that the moment he arrived and the thought of her climbing the ladders, or heaving around bags of feed or shovelling dung instantly made him worry.
And now Portia had confronted her about it head on.
None of this boded well for the sanctuary.
Iris was its heart. If anything happened to her with no clear plan of succession in place…
Well, all it would mean to him was he’d be out of a job. He couldn’t focus on that. He had work to do now. And reports to make. Besides, he didn’t intend to be here that long.