Page 231 of The Discount Damsel

“Griffins aren’t cart mules!”

Millie cradled her head in her hands. All those wildflower meadows, all those ancient forests, those tea farms, the beautiful creeks that threaded through her country like lace. They would never survive the dragons’ fire.

Her spine crunched as she dropped down onto the salt barrel, numb.

Bradley was kneeling in front of her in the next second, hands perching on her knees. “Tula,” he began.

“Please don’t call me that right now.” She trembled with the effort to stay strong. “That little creature had endless ideas and I’m afraid I’ve run rather dry.”

She wasn’t going to give up, but Crone’s Crooked Tits, she couldn’t think with all this noise.

One hand moved to her cheek, steadying her. The blue of his robe made his eyes shine like sapphires. “I have every spell in the directories memorized, Millie. Give me an hour, and I’ll figure something ou⁠—”

A flash of light burst above them. “I’ve got it!” Dirk shouted.

The little luck dragon with his cerulean scales and pearly horns all a-twinkle whooshed down from the beams. “Bradley, I need you. Millie, pack your things. Someone raid the pantry. We’re gonna need snacks!”

Without asking permission, Dirk ensnared Bradley with his wind and flew out of the kitchen.

“No wonder Sir Roger hates this,” Bradley fussed as he twisted about midair. “Dirk, you’re flying me down the tower ass-first!”

“We’re almost there.” He swooped into his bedroom and dropped Bradley on the bathmat in the adjoining bathroom. “Do you remember that day at the lake, when you created that playmate for me out of the water?”

Bradley rubbed the ache out of his bruised tailbone. “I used configuration magic.”

Dirk whizzed into his bedroom and collected all the fabric bolts and every odd and end he had ever extorted. The only thing he removed from the tub was the velvet purse with the princess’s kidnap money inside. He stuffed it into his satchel for safekeeping. “This is your water. Now configure me a ship with sails.”

Bradley caught on immediately. “We’re going to have to move this outside.”

The bathroom window burst open with a sweep of Dirk’s tail. “Let’s do it.”

An hour later, hoots and hollers encouraged the tower residents to abandon their tasks and seek out the nearest window. Millie had just finished securing the latches on her eighth and final travel trunk and bolted out of her walk-in closet. Her thoughts had been spinning ever since she’d relinquished command of rescuing her sister and country to the baby luck dragon. She trusted Dirk, and her stomach had still churned as if she’d eaten one too many egg sandwiches that had spent an unhealthy amount of time in the sun.

Now, she thrust open the shutters to either cry with relief or vomit down the side of the tower.

Instead, she flung her hand up with a shout as a lance of sunlight seared across her eyes.

“Sorry,” came Dirk’s faraway voice. “Just a moment!”

A moment passed with Millie’s smarting eyes firmly shut and both hands layered over them.

“You can look now!”

She spread her fingers and cautiously lifted one lid. Then she gripped the windowsill with a gasp.

A copper ship floated above the sand. It had all the features of a fine, three-deck galleon, but compact so it could be managed by a small crew. Windows dotted a fat raised aftcastle, jewels sparkled along the gunwales, cannons loomed in their ports, and the figurehead was someone very much like herself, hair unbound and cutlass raised. Yellow sails billowed from the masts, and from the crow’s nest, her sigil flag flapped in the desert breeze: a green cutlass crossed with a pink tulip.

In the shade below the floating ship, a figure in blue lay stretched upon the sand, exhausted. Sir Roger stood beside the supine sorcerer, waving at her.

“Millie, Millie, Millie!” Dirk zoomed up to where she craned out of her window. “Isn’t it wonderful? Bradley and Sir Roger designed it from all my treasure and bits from the armory. It’ll work just like the dune skiff so you won’t get seasick! Bradley imbedded a levitas inperpetuita spell or something like that into the metal itself so it’ll never touch the ground! The lowest it’ll get is that hover you see there. You just catch the wind to move it or change altitude. Or”—he fluffed out his mane and shimmered his blue scales—“you could ask a very talented master of the wind and rain to lend his magic and blow you about.”

The princess pirate slowly lowered the hands that had covered her mouth. “Master Dirk, it’s . . . it’s perfect.”

The luck dragon’s feathered mane swished with pleasure. “I was hoping you’d think so. I didn’t get a chance to truly thank you after the renovatio spell, or even Pierpont. I don’t suppose I can ever thank you enough, b-but I hope this shows that. My gratitude. M-my—” Bottom lip trembling, he shielded misty golden eyes with his claws.

Millie grabbed hold of his tail and pulled him in for tight embrace. “I love you, little dragon.”

A shudder rippled down his serpentine body. “I love you, too, Princess. My princess.”