Page 128 of Nobody Told Me Thrift Shops Sell Stolen Dragon Heirlooms

Quinn turned from the window and caught me looking at her. “What?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“That was a very dragon-y nothing.”

I looked away before I smiled too much. “We’re almost there.”

The van turned through a simple iron gate onto a gravel drive. The woods closed around us, then opened all at once into a stretch of field bordered by oak, beech, and ash. The clearing lay beyond a low stone wall, its grass long enough to move in the breeze but cut in paths near the center. A circle of mushrooms stood beneath a stand of birches, pale caps clustered in an uneven ring. Sunlight filtered through the leaves in shifting pieces, and a narrow stream ran along the far edge, bright over stones.

Quinn went very still.

“Oh,” she said.

It was only one syllable, but it held more meaning than most people managed in paragraphs.

The driver stopped near the wall. I stepped out first, then opened the side door. Quinn remained seated for a moment, looking past me toward the clearing, one hand on Max’s collar.

“This is real?” she asked.

“Yes.” I smiled. “The property is warded.”

Max stood behind her, fully awake now.

Quinn turned to him. “I know, I know, you want to play. Best behavior until I say otherwise.”

She climbed out and let him follow. For a moment, Max stood beside the van, nose lifted, reading the place in ways I could not. His body changed before my eyes: the fatigue easing from his posture, his tail rising, his ears finding all the distant sounds the city smothered. Wind moved over the grass. Somewhere in the woods, a bird called twice and went silent.

Quinn unclipped his leash but kept one hand lightly on his head until his attention came back to her.

“Frei,” she said.

Max exploded into motion. There was no other word for it.

One second, he stood beside her, dignified and gray around the muzzle. The next he was tearing across the grass, tail high, mouth open, paws throwing up clods of earth behind him. He let out a deep, joyful bark, then sprang sideways as if surprised by his own happiness. He ran in a wide loop around the clearing, cutting through a patch of sunlight, then doubling back toward us with a speed that made Quinn laugh from somewhere deep in her chest.

Max came racing past, close enough that the air moved against my trousers, then veered toward the trees and barked again.

Quinn pressed both hands to her mouth. “Oh, buddy.”

Her voice had changed. All her usual brightness was still there, but it had cracked open around something tender and relieved. I realized then that this wasn’t merely recreation for her. She watched Max run the way one watched someone beloved receive a thing they needed and had stopped asking for.

I was very glad I’d brought them here.

Max returned after his first circuit, carrying a stick half the length of his body.

He dropped it at my feet.

Quinn wiped her eyes quickly. “You’ve been chosen.”

“So I see.”

“Don’t disappoint him. He has standards.”

I picked up the stick and threw it.

Max chased it with the force of a dog restored to a younger version of himself. He seized it, shook it once, then abandoned it in favor of a larger stick. The one after that had a forked end and required negotiation through a patch of grass. By the fourth, he had apparently identified my role as both thrower and logistical challenge supervisor.

Then he dragged over something that was less stick than narrow branch.