Page 60 of The Discount Damsel

And that simply was unacceptable.

Bradley carefully extracted himself from the dragon’s heavy embrace and signed, “I’ll use the last pancake and write you another endurance spell. Then you’ll fly the barbarian far away from here. He might come back, but it’ll take him some time. And during that time . . . you must train. That heart stays in your chest where it belongs.” The apprentice smiled. “And your testicles stay attached where they belong, too.”

Dirk barked a laugh and wiped the tears from his eyes. “You mean it?”

“I-I-I’ve only w-w-wanted the b-b-best for you. Th-th-this is it n-n-now,” he said, not caring that he stammered. This was too important.

The dragon nodded. “But where should I take him?”

“That’s up to you,” the apprentice signed. “The low country of Tupelo, the mountains between Tianzi and Bellafont, just pick a direction and go.”

“Okay. I’ll go, uh, prep him for his journey.” Dirk wrinkled his snout. “He should be clothed so as not to shock the local population, even if they’re just the frogs of the swamps. No one needs to see that.”

He disappeared over the balcony, and Bradley took to the stairwell. There, striped with afternoon light and the purple glow of crystals, was the princess. She leaned heavily on Sir Roger as he guided her up the stairs with the aid of his cane, her fingers just barely clinging to the rope handle of the potato bucket. She looked a wreck with tear-stained cheeks and her clothes rumpled, smears of grime across her forearms and cobwebs clinging to her hair.

The apprentice did not stop his descent until he met them on the landing marked by the ribbon on the door handle—the training room.

Sir Roger swept his gaze between them and unclamped Millie’s hand from his arm, traded it for the doorframe. “I’ll be in my room,” he said, and headed downstairs to the dungeon.

The princess didn’t have the energy to stand up straight and look down her nose at him, but her voice had pluck enough. “Do you have something to say to me or were you just going to stand there and block my way to the shower? Let me assure you, Mr. Donmarin, that my desire for hot water will overcome anything you⁠—”

She choked off her threat as he leaned forward and took the potato bucket from her hand. Her suspicious yet curious gaze followed the bucket as he settled it on the step next to his boot, then lifted to his face. What she saw there gave her pause.

Those beautiful blue eyes were miserable behind the sheen of his spectacles, his shoulders bowed, but his jaw set and determined. The sorcerer apprentice rolled back his sleeves, revealing muscled forearms, and signed slowly so he would not be misunderstood.

“I need your help.”

Millie blinked, and had she not already been propped up against the landing, she would have collapsed in shock.

Bradley bore her scrutiny without fidgeting. Much. Dirk’s fight with Ivar—the whole day, actually—had instilled a sense of helplessness within him that he hadn’t felt since the day his power had manifested during that pirate attack on his village. He never wanted to feel worthless ever again. Dirk was counting on him. As was his future.

The apprentice swallowed against the lump of shame that had lodged in his throat. “P-p-please.” He couldn’t manage more than that, so he signed, “If my curse truly is a psychosis, I need your help. I can’t help keep Dirk alive if I can’t speak, and I know now, truly, that you care about him as much as I do. Please help me so I can help my friend.”

The princess forced herself upright and attempted to straighten her appearance, but quickly gave up on it because she was too much like a Briard who’d enjoyed a lovely chase through the marshes after a flock of ducks—she was an absolute wreck that only a power washer could possibly handle. “You will never throw tea at my feet again.”

Bradley blinked, surprised at this odd request. “Yes.”

“Good. And you must do everything I say, even if you don’t understand why I ask it of you.”

The apprentice ground his teeth together, suspecting a trap.

She crossed her arms over her chest and thrust her hip out to the side, a feat she was very proud of because her jelly legs threatened to buckle under her. “Say ‘yes,’ Mr. Donmarin.”

That earned her a bit of snarl and some sharp signs. “Listen here, Tula. I am the master of this tower while Master Excelsior is away, and you will not be lording anything over me. Your talent harem, for inevitably you will collect more men—something I’m somehow powerless to stop—stay locked in that dungeon when you’re not training. Dirk can’t stay under the effects of my spells forever, and he mustn’t be seen by anyone other than Sir Roger. That is non-negotiable. And he has to keep his mouth shut about it.”

She nodded, though she still didn’t understand his paranoia.

“You will be under my supervision, too.”

Millie opened her mouth to protest.

“Uh-uh,” he warned, and finished signing, “Those are my conditions. And in regards to yours: I still don’t like you, and this is still all your fault, but I will be a willing student. For Dirk.”

“For Dirk,” she agreed, recognizing her victory and showing what her fourth etiquette tutor, Miss Cordelia, would consider a remarkable amount of restraint by not pushing it. She stuck out her hand to shake on it.

Bradley rolled his eyes, picked up the potato bucket, and, in a surprising maneuver, trapped the princess’s outstretched hand in the crook of his elbow. Her fingers gripped instinctively, her worn body desperate for a buttress. With his eyes fixed straight ahead, he helped the stunned princess walk the rest of the way up the tower.

CHAPTER 26