Page 182 of The Discount Damsel

“I would if I could,” Bradley snapped. “Magic can’t alter anything inherent in a creature, at least not long term. To do so would go against the natural order of things.”

“If you say so. You are the magic student here, after all.” The Komodo’s bow was nothing short of patronizing.

Bradley ground his teeth. “What are the chances you’ll actually find what I’m looking for today in your library index, Renaldo?”

His smile was thin. “Slim.”

“I thought so. Dirk, you alright if I stay behind today? She’s still got a lot to learn.”

Renaldo’s eyes slitted as Bradley stepped back to Millie’s side.

“Sure.” Dirk swirled back to give his princess a quick peck on the cheek. “Make all the fishes jealous, Millie.”

“Obviously.” She gave them both a quick smile and a wave goodbye and started down the sand path.

When she heard the door shut, she glanced over her shoulder. The apprentice had been civil with her since last night, so she attempted a chance at reconciliation.

Lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, she asked, “So what did you do to piss that Komodo off?”

“I breathe.”

Millie chuckled. Sobering, she snuck another glance at him. “Are you sure you don’t want to spend the day in the library? We’re here for you and him, you know.”

“The dragon sage in residence doesn’t come back until the full moon, and so far the books have proven unhelpful. Or rather, Renaldo has. He’ll get anything Dirk desires, but for me . . .” He blustered a sigh. “Besides, neither of us can fully concentrate knowing you’re out here doing Caelus knows what without supervision.”

She blew a raspberry at him. “Because I’m so irresponsible.”

“Because you’re so driven you don’t know where your boundaries are,” he said seriously.

Was he calling her reckless? Well maybe that was the price of pursuing your dream! She stopped, turning to give him a piece of her mind, but she found no malice in his face. And maybe it wasn’t in her best interests—for now—to confront him about it, especially since he had agreed to help her. Millie swallowed her retort and followed the apprentice to a jetty full of tide pools.

At the edge of a large pool, Bradley stripped down to his boxer briefs. He discarded his clothes with the same irreverence he’d shown when he’d ripped a headscarf from his robe’s hem. Bracing one hand against the rock, he vaulted into the pool, feet pillowed against the sand that had collected at the bottom. Millie crouched, momentarily distracted by the wee red crabs scuttling away from his toes. The starfish clinging to the nearby rock remained unfazed at the presence of the pool’s nearest visitor.

For the next two hours, he drilled Millie in holding her breath, treading water, floating, and the breaststroke. They took the briefest break for lunch—more soaked oats and some of the perishable items she’d packed like fruit and cheese—before he had her in the water again.

“Come on,” he barked after another hour. “Kick your feet.”

“I need a break,” she gasped.

“No, you just need to concentrate. You’re getting sloppy.”

“Because I’m tired! Let me go.” She wrestled free of him, kicking fiercely to put some distance between them. “You’re being a bully. Why are pushing me so hard?”

His eyes burned with that strange intensity again. “Because you’re the tula.”

Her fists splashed in the water. “My name is Millie!”

“No.” He heaved himself out of the tide pool and shook the water from his black hair. He held out his hand to her. “Let me show you.”

Curious but mistrustful, she exited the tide pool on her own accord and followed him over the rocks as he looked this way and that before he stopped on the ledge of a smaller pool with no sand at its bottom. He crouched down and pointed. “There.”

She squatted beside him, not too close, and gripped the edge of the pool to keep her balance as she peered inside. “It’s an octopus!”

“A tula,” he corrected.

The tiny pink octopus with long trailing legs had itself wrapped around a purple scallop. Compared to the scallop, the octopus was a minuscule thing, a fact which the tula didn’t seem to notice or chose to ignore.

As Millie watched, the octopus did its darndest to pry open the scallop. When using just its legs failed, the octopus found a rock to use as a hammer. Then the little creature hurled the scallop into the wall of the tide pool. When the scallop made a valiant effort to jettison away by clapping its shell, the tula hitched a ride with two legs, snatched up a piece of broken shell with another two legs, then shoved that shell between the scallop’s lips. Unable to close and protect itself, the scallop was a goner, and the tiny pink octopus finally got to eat.