Page 198 of The Discount Damsel

Suddenly the figurine spun and flared its claws. Its mouth opened in a soundless roar, and the baby luck dragon turned on a dime. Shrieking, he evaded the figurine’s snapping mouth as it was his turn to be chased around the lake.

Too soon, Bradley reached his limit, and he let the figurine dive into the lake and dissipate. The luck dragon hovered over the spot where his playmate had disappeared. “Are you coming back?”

“I think he’s just taking a break,” Bradley called, collapsing into a tired heap on the bank.

“Aww, and I didn’t catch his name.” The baby dragon swooped up to him. “I’m Dirk, by the way. I mean, my real name is Lung Shang, but I’m testing out the name Dirk. It sounds fearsome, right?”

“Sure. I’m Bradley. Why Dirk?”

“Because all the Great Reds have terrifying names. Names that command respect. And popularity. All the Great Reds are very popular and they have lots of friends, you know. Nobody picks on them either. Or makes fun of their scales.”

Bradley thought the little luck dragon was confusing popularity with infamy and friends with terrified masses but chose not to correct him. “I didn’t know that.”

Dirk clicked his front claws together, golden gaze shifting. “Thanks for, um, sharing the rain with me.”

The apprentice’s smile was warm. “Anytime.”

“Mr. Donmarin,” came a voice from the lilacs. “Lung Shang.”

Bradley scrambled to his feet and attempted to swat the grass and blooms from his robe, but everything was just too wet and sticky. He bowed quickly to the master sorcerer emerging from the lilacs.

Master Excelsior was one of the College’s most eccentric professors, teaching only Expert Configuration 301 and 302 and spending the rest of his time puttering about the campus collecting flowers to turn into bouquets—though no one ever knew whom he was attempting to woo—communing with the pixies, and taking brisk walks while muttering to himself.

Despite his peculiarities, he was brilliant, as evident by the force field emanating from his staff that repelled the rain in a perfect arch over his head.

“Master Excelsior. I wasn’t cutting class. I was sent to the dean’s office, but he was busy with a meeting.”

“I know,” the sorcerer said. “I was that meeting. And if you were told to wait, presumably on the bench and presumably by Professor Udora, given the hour, what are you doing here?”

“I heard Lung Shang crying, Master.”

“You were crying, Lung Shang?”

“No one wanted to play with me. They all flew away to enjoy the storm by themselves.” The baby luck dragon forced his sadness away. “But Bradley made me a friend out of the water. He had scales and claws and a feathered mane and tail just like me! We played tag. I almost caught him three times,” he added proudly.

“Scales and claws and a feathered mane and tail.” Master Excelsior’s gaze switched to Bradley with the intensity of a hawk finding new prey. “Configuration? That class just started.”

“Yes, Master.”

“But those idiots can’t even conform dry reeds into a wicker basket let alone create a dragon figurine from water with such detail and have it zip hither and thither to play with a luck dragon who almost caught it three times.”

Bradley rolled his lips inward so he wouldn’t laugh. When he was composed a second later, he replied, “No, Master, they cannot.”

Master Excelsior shoved the butt of his staff into his soft turf, placed his hands on his bony hips, and gave them a smile that conveyed how supremely pleased he was with himself. “Then it seems I’ve made the best decision regarding the both of you. Huzzah for me.”

“What decision is that, Master?”

“You’re going to be my new pupil, Bradley Donmarin—that was what my meeting with the dean was about. You’re to be my protégé, effective immediately. And you, Lung Shang, will be his Designated Sorcerer Companion. We’ll have the ceremony and the celebratory sherbet punch tonight. Now you will both join me for a nice hot cup of tea.”

“So that was it.” Millie passed Bradley the waterskin. “The day Dirk’s curse activated.”

They had beached the skiff on the crest of the dune for a short break. The sky was graying on the horizon, and if the wind kept up, they would arrive at the tower by sunrise.

“It’s not fair!” She jumped to her feet, kicking sand into the air that made Bradley choke. “All he wanted was to be accepted. To have friends! And now he’s turning into a wyrm? Unacceptable,” she shouted up at the dimming stars of Caelus’s domain.

Despite her shouting, Dirk snored away in the cargo net.

“Maybe that’s the balance the books talked about,” Bradley said in a far more reasonable tone. “He is shunning what it means to be a luck dragon to become something he has no right to be—a Great Red. They are ornery on their best days, greedy, impulsive, stubborn. Luck dragons are sensitive, loving, generous, and encouraging. Or he was—now Dirk’s moody, irritable, and he almost killed that one knight. He has abandoned his self and thus his magic.”