Page 195 of The Discount Damsel

“More than I’d like.” He lowered his ice cream cone to the princess’s height. “Here, so you can stop staring at it like one of those gulls.”

“Thanks!” Instead of claiming a lick with dainty swirl of her tongue, Millie bit off a whole mouthful.

Without thinking, the apprentice thumbed the smudge of ice cream away from the corner of the princess’s mouth and brought it to his tongue. Lord Matcha flushed and Miss Lavender hid her smile behind a lace-gloved hand at the familiarity of the gesture, not to mention the sensuality. Bradley froze.

“Thief,” Mutineer Millie declared. “How do you know I wasn’t saving that for later?”

Their companions tittered, and Bradley felt his face lifting into a smile. If more nobles and royals behaved like Bobby and Millie, perhaps he would’ve had friends amongst his peers at the College.

After a brief stop at the marines post for more secretive business between the two nobles, the four spent the rest of their day together, promenading, shopping—“Oh, look! They have raffia purses here just like Pocket’s!”—swimming, and Millie purchased an entire bouquet of pink tulips to adorn her hat and a baguette to rip into pieces for the gulls. When the sun began to set, Lord Matcha and Miss Lavender invited the two to join them at Crystal-Upon-the-Sea for scallop ceviche, but they had to be on their way to collect Dirk from the library.

The little dragon emerged shortly after they rung the bell, looking worn. “Well, I got the answers I needed. Finally.”

Renaldo loomed in the doorway behind him. “Remember, Master Dirk, what you learned cannot be shared outside the dragon community. We keep record of who reads such texts should information leak. If you violate this trust, you will be brought forward to the dragon queens. And they are not ladies you’d like to meet outside a solstice or equinox ball.

“And you.” His attention sharpened on Millie. “I would ask you to refrain from speaking about the subject as well, Your Highness.”

She placed her hands on her hips. “You can certainly ask.”

The Komodo’s emerald eyes slitted.

“Whatever I know will only be shared with Master Dirk’s Designated Sorcerer, how’s that?”

“Sufficient, I suppose.”

Bradley lifted his arms, encouraging the Mini Red closer. “What do you need, Dirk?”

Dirk came and coiled around his best friend’s shoulders. Bradley grunted under the weight.

“I need to go home,” the dragon said. “Right now.”

Millie nodded. There was no protest to see one more seaside sunset or grab another ice cream cone or bid one last farewell to Lord Matcha and Miss Coletta. She simply said, “Then away we go.”

The three bid Renaldo a very good evening and returned to The Dreary Pelican to collect their things. When Mr. Jameson tried to tell them about the late check-out fee, the princess, in wildly profane terms, told him exactly where he could shove that fee. Then they hurried with their luggage to the western end of the boardwalk where the cargo net was hidden, lest the wretch call the marines on them. Within minutes, the Mini Red had become a Great Red and they were in the air and headed for Ashburnum.

“All things considered,” Millie sighed as the boardwalk thinned to a thread in the sand behind them, “this was a lovely holiday by the sea.”

CHAPTER 80

DIRK BLABS EVERYTHING, THE FATE OF DRAGONS, AND THAT DAY IN THE LILACS BY THE LAKE

Wyrm.

That was the term for what Dirk was becoming.

At the beginning of time, Caelus the Maker had cast some of his precious stars from the sky to seed the world with magic and dragons. There were wise gold dragons and headstrong red dragons and prankster green dragons. Moody black dragons and joyful blue dragons and the (most commonly white) luck dragons from the mists of Tianzi. They all had purpose, all a different magic to share with the world to keep it in balance.

For one gold dragon, it wasn’t enough. He wanted dominion over the earth, not balance.

The legends were unclear if it was greed or pride or anger that drove him to rise up against Caelus, but the legends were all in agreement about the result of that failed uprising: Caelus stripped him of his beautiful golden scales and his strong wings to eke out a living as a blind, ugly wretch in caves and other subterranean dwellings away from the blessed sky. A wyrm.

And, as a warning to all other dragons, Caelus cursed them to the same fate should they ever try to disrupt that balance ever again.

What that slim leather-bound book, as well as the rest of the literary works in the restricted section had failed to note, was what disrupted that balance.

“I don’t see why this is restricted information,” Millie groused when Dirk had finished telling them absolutely everything, despite Renaldo’s warning. He was done keeping secrets from his friends. “So what if wyrms were once dragons? Are the dragons worried the humans will hold them responsible for the destruction wyrms cause?”

“The last wyrm who came to the surface did more damage than the last century’s worth of Great Reds combined,” Bradley pointed out. “You know how humans are—they want someone to blame and someone to make reparations. If it all could’ve been avoided by the dragons taking the initiative and disposing of one of their own. . .” He shrugged.