Page 70 of The Discount Damsel

CHAPTER 31

HOW DARE YOU STEAL FROM A PIRATE, UNSAFE MAGIC, AND CHEESE GRATER FUN TIME

In the end, it was Bradley who took Millie “shopping.” It was bad enough for a princess to be snooping about Master Excelsior’s things, and entirely unacceptable to let a foreign hedge knight join her. Sir Roger was dismissed to his cell for the remainder of the day, which was just fine with him. Rarely was a hedge knight, and an old one at that, afforded to nap as much as he been able to since coming into the dragon’s employ.

Bradley was an absolute bore to shop with, always sulking and hulking about, but he was very handy against anything creepy crawly that had no right to be lurking in bedrooms or storage rooms or in any part of any domicile, period. He had little to contribute conversation-wise, so Dirk and Millie chatted amongst themselves as she discovered a plethora of serviceable outfits for training in, plus a few things for Sir Roger.

Since her carpet bag was in the bedroom, Dirk practiced his flight maneuvers, particularly his loop-de-loops and sidewinders, by whisking all her discoveries to their respective locales. He didn’t know where best to put Millie’s things, since Bradley was so particular, so he piled them according to type—footwear, outerwear, underwear, and miscellaneous—under the bedroom window for her to sort through later. Sir Roger’s he just dumped on the floor at the foot of the snoozing hedge knight’s cot.

They were exploring their fifth room (which, like all the others, proved uninhabitable by any standard of living), when the unthinkable happened.

In order to drown out the princess and dragon’s vapid chatter, the apprentice had taken to reciting the tongue twister he’d learned that morning. Dirk the Dangerous dozes dreamily deep in dungeons dank. His words were soft yet confident, muttered under his breath so as to not attract attention, and since he was just slouching against the doorframe after clearing the room of creepy crawlies, it was easily done.

Dirk and the princess raided wardrobe, dresser, and closet with the aid of cinquedea letter opener and claw, and the princess discovered a salt-weathered chest tangled in a bunch of fishing gear under the bed. It was a strangeness that had become commonplace—there was absolutely no rhyme or reason to any of the storage decisions in this tower whatsoever.

Well, no one hid anything under the bed that wasn’t valuable or personal, so of course she had to open it.

Since no key could be found, Millie inserted her letter opener into the lock and gave it a wiggle. After a click, a pop, and a hiss of pressurized air now released, the sea chest opened. She replaced the letter opener in her corset, lifted the lid, and gasped.

Dirk immediately abandoned the wardrobe, a silk scarf tangled in his pearly horns. “What is it, Millie? What did you find?”

From across the room, Bradley quieted as the princess lifted a gold jewelry box into the sunlight. He straightened immediately, sensing a hum of power. Magic. What was a magical artifact doing outside the workroom?

“It’s gorgeous,” the princess breathed, turning it towards the window to reveal its details.

Whelks and scallops and sea grass decorated the top and sides, and if Bradley didn’t know any better, he would’ve expected to discover pearls inside. But he did know better, thanks to his Lost Relics course at the College, and he lurched out of his slouch. His long legs had him across the room in a second, and he yanked the jewelry box out of the princess’s hands before she could open it.

“Hey!” The princess jumped and flailed for the box, but he merely held it above her head, out of reach. “That’s for my little treasures and keepsakes. I chipped two nails digging this out from that pile of fishing gear. Get your own!”

Millie elbowed the apprentice in the gut, and when he doubled over with a wheeze, she grabbed the jewelry box.

Bradley had been clobbered before when fighting marlin and sea monsters, so while he gasped for air, his grip never once released the box.

“The gall of you, sir, to think you can steal what a pirate has already procured for herself!”

With one hand still fighting to wrest the jewelry box free, Millie unsheathed the letter opener from her corset. She wouldn’t deliver a mortal strike, but she would pepper him with a vast amount of very inconvenient holes. The first one indented the meat between Bradley’s forefinger and thumb.

“Gah!” The apprentice lurched back, bumping into the dragon.

Dirk careened into the open wardrobe. Vintage ballgowns, bonnets, and shawls sprang off their hangers and hooks and buried the poor little creature under pounds of silk, tulle, linen, and lace.

“Just let go,” Millie shouted.

In their skirmish, the jewelry box latch popped free and the lid sprang upright. A nautilus shell necklace, beautifully polished and preserved, seemed to jump off its velvet cushion and into the air.

Millie’s eyes sparkled with delight at the sight of such a beautiful thing, but the sorcerer apprentice knew its true danger. He caught the necklace by its chain, stuffed it into the pocket of his robe, and shoved the empty jewelry box into the princess’s stunned hands.

She threw it over her shoulder where it landed on the fishing gear piled atop the bed. “How dare you.”

The princess plucked the hairpin from her coiffure. Her auburn hair tumbled against her shoulders and down her back, giving her a wild look that was very distracting when combined with her corset and his boxer briefs.

Now that Millie was armed with something pointy in each hand, the hairpin and the letter opener, she had a desire to revisit her previous training in Stabbing a Yellow-Bellied Cad in the Guts with a Cutlass, for Beginners.

She advanced upon him, seething. “First you humiliate me and now to try to rob me of what happiness I can find in a simple jewelry box! Just because you’re a miserable grump doesn’t mean you have to pollute everyone else’s lives, too. Piss and plagues, I bet you can’t take any pleasure from this world, can you? You probably masturbate with a cheese grater!”

Bradley dodged the stab of the letter opener and the slash of the hairpin, caught Millie’s wrist, and flung her over his shoulder. She landed on her back on the bed amongst the fishing nets with a surprised, “Oof!”

Feather stuffing long since decomposed to dust rose in a mushroom cloud to the ceiling.