“Pollux,” Adrissu hissed, reaching for him.
“I said get away from him!” the guard shouted.
“Just do what they say, Adrissu,” Pollux said, not looking at him.
He could kill all of them, Adrissu thought. He could get rid of every single one of them and take Pollux away. They could hide out down in his lair until all of this blew over, until it was safe for them to emerge again. But when would that be? The humans would relentlessly search for them now. Would his lair stay hidden and secure that long?
“Adrissu,” Pollux repeated, more forcefully now, snapping him out of his thoughts.
“I’ll come for you,” Adrissu whispered, then took several steps away from Pollux.
For a tense moment, the entire group was motionless. Then the guard with the crossbow jerked his head to the side, eyes still flickering between Pollux and Adrissu, and the two guards behind him went hurrying up the path. They each grabbed one of Pollux’s outstretched arms, hauling him to his feet.
“Come with us too, please, Headmaster,” Willow called from behind the guards who had remained.
Adrissu was motionless, his mind racing. They were going to question him, certainly. Should he try to make a break for it? Should he play along?
“Please, Adrissu,” Willow repeated, the hard edge in her voice softening now. “I know you must be in shock, but we really need to know what’s going on. Please just come with us.”
His cover wasn’t entirely blown, it seemed. He could play the part of a shocked, shaken partner well enough, at least until a way forward became more clear. Adrissu bit his lip, nodded, and slowly began to step down the ruined path toward the Lord Representative and her guards.
Adrissu was not under arrest, exactly—not the way Pollux was—but when he went with the city guard, they took him and Willow to the offices of the Lord Representative, where they were separated. He was made to wait in a small room that seemed like a repurposed workstation, not detained, but not exactly free to go. Another guard waited outside the door, as Adrissu paced nervously and tried to come up with a plan to smooth all this over, so that he and Pollux could leave together.
It had been about an hour when the door finally opened, revealing Willow—still in her dirty clothes, but who overall looked much less shaken—and a tall human man wearing the armor of a city guard, but with a long cerulean cape trailing behind him as he followed the Lord Representative.
“Sorry to have kept you waiting, Headmaster,” she said brusquely, sitting down at the table across from him. “I’m sure you must be concerned, so hopefully we won’t have to keep you long. I don’t know if you’ve met Dane, the captain of the guard. We just spoke with Pollux, and we’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“I understand,” Adrissu answered, remaining upright. He gestured for Willow to continue, and she glanced between him and the captain of the guard, who was watching him from where he stood next to Willow, his expression one of cold indifference. His armor was gleaming, unmarred by any dirt or scuffs, and Adrissu wondered with irritation where he had been during all the chaos.
“Did you know about this? About Pollux?” Willow asked abruptly, turning her gaze to Adrissu. She was looking at him sternly, obviously searching for any hint of dishonesty or avoidance on his face. Adrissu sighed and folded his hands behind his back.
“Yes,” he said simply. Her expression faltered, eyebrows knitting together in frustration.
“You knew he was a dragon,” she deadpanned.
“Yes,” Adrissu repeated.
“And you didn’t alert anyone? You never thought to warn Polimnos about what kind of danger it was in?”
“Polimnos was never in any danger,” he countered. The captain’s eyes narrowed, but still he remained silent next to Willow as she huffed in obvious irritation.
“That’s clearly untrue!” she exclaimed, gesturing wildly. “He just destroyed several buildings, killed two of my employees. They were in danger, wouldn’t you agree?”
“He didn’t mean to hurt anyone,” Adrissu said. “He had no intention of any of this happening. Do you really think he would have agreed to create these successors of the dragon-slaying weapon for you if his intention was to terrorize the city?”
“That’s the part that still doesn’t make sense to me,” she relented, leaning back with a sigh. Her confident veneer started to slip, and for a moment she looked just as overwhelmed and afraid as she must have felt. “Why? Why would he make those weapons if he were a dragon himself?”
Adrissu did not answer. For a moment they were all silent, the air in the room thick with nervous tension. Finally, it was the captain who cleared his throat and broke the silence.
“Headmaster, how long have you known Pollux?” Dane asked, his voice low and calm.
“Close to a decade now, I think.”
“Have you always known this about him?”
Adrissu thought about the best way to answer, finally settling on a weary sigh of, “Yes.”
“As a citizen of Polimnos, it was your duty to warn city officials about this threat,” he said.
