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When Fluff Dog shoots out of the box in the stairwell like a rocket of fur, she’s running so fast that her wraparound, curly tail’s actually flying straight back. I crouch down and hold out my arms, and she leaps up into them. I bury my face in her fur ruff and then I start coughing.
“Why does she stink so bad?” I rub her head, but then I carefully place her on the ground. “What on earth happened on the way here?”
“She found something right outside when we let her loose, near the river,” Coral says. “I had to pick her up and drag her away from rolling in it.”
Dogs are so gross sometimes.
“I’ll help them bathe her,” Gideon says. “Since this is a hotel, it should be easy to find shampoo, at least.” His smile’s achingly familiar. It hasn’t changed in the fifteen years we’ve been friends.
“Thanks.” I find myself smiling back at him out of habit almost. “Sorry it’s so cold.”
“Maybe we’ll find some bathrobes, too,” Gideon says. “Hopefully they didn’t take those when they evacuated.”
“I’m trying to figure out how the humans knew to evacuate,” Axel says.
Gideon’s shrug is affected—he clearly had something to do with it, and Axel realized it before I did.
Actually, he’s been getting better at playing human. Much better. The way he’s glowering at Gideon right now could be the opening scene of any love triangle in any fantasy movie ever made. Not that he’s angry at him because of me this time, but still.
“Isn’t it easier that they’re not here?” Gideon asks. “You don’t need to break up families by massacring party-goers who are dressed up for Halloween, at least.”
How did we go from the Boo Bash to this in less than two months? I still remember worrying that day about what would happen if I ate a fun size Snickers. Even that small memory makes me laugh—as if a little sugar ever could have wrecked anything.
“Hey,” Axel says. “Are you alright?”
“It’s funny how it takes something like a dragon attack to wake humans up to what matters.” I shake my head. “I’m profoundly screwed up. You should run away.”
“Only if you’re running alongside me.” Axel’s voice is low—only loud enough for me to hear.
“You probably run too fast for me to keep up.” I think about how he did nine hundred sit-ups without ever tiring. “Sometimes I think that, underneath all those muscles, you’re actually a cyborg.”
His brows rise. “A cyborg?”
“Never mind.”
“This place is cool.” Sammy’s trying to push one of the plush sofas away from the wall.
“Whoa, there,” Axel says. “You’re going to be sleeping on the other end of the hotel where there are smaller rooms.”
“But Gordon doesn’t like little rooms. He can only fit in them in his boring body.”
“Boring?” I can’t help smirking. Sammy still says the funniest stuff.
“You know,” Sammy says. “No scales, no claws, and no razor sharp teeth.”
“Are they razor sharp?” Axel asks. “I always thought his huge teeth looked more blunt, personally.”
Gordon scowls.
This dynamic is new. The dragons are learning sarcasm and snark. I wonder what that will lead to, down the road.
“I think they’re pretty sharp,” I say. “I’d run the other way.”
“Liar,” Axel says. “You run toward every dangerous blessed you see. Why would you run from Gordon?”
“You’re saying I’m dangerous?” Gordon asks.
Axel laughs. “No, I’m saying if she runs toward them, why would she run from you?”
