And she was back, bursting into Acarald’s sleeping chambers in the tower.

  “Wake up, I had a breakthrough! We need to get going! I already booked us a portal.”

  In his nightshirt, he looked more like any old frail man than a wizard of immense power, not that that would have impressed Triand. He half sat up and rubbed his head; while his beard was growing ever longer, the hair on his head was in no such luck, which was why he kept it cropped short these days. He usually hid it under his robe hood, though the vanities of youth, as he called it, bothered him.

  “Wakey, wakey, it’s five o’clock, you’re always harping on me for sleeping in.”

  He scratched his head and looked at her somewhere between annoyed and amused. “Triand. Have you slept at all?”

  “Uh... no.”

  “Then it doesn’t count.”

  “Does so. And I made you breakfast!”

  Acarald inspected the tray that was dumped enthusiastically on his lap. “Cooked it yourself, I see. My dear, we have to get you wifed. You can’t subsist on burned porridge forever.”

  “What if the wife can’t cook either? C’mon, hurry up, get your robes on … or don’t, it’s gonna be warm there anyway.”

  Acarald sighed, finished his bowl, and hurried to the wash basin. “My lovely girl, your antics shall be the death of me.”

  Triand opened her eyes, head aching with the memory. Hard to imagine this episode hadn’t been all that long ago. They’d ended up in a locked dwarf tomb near a volcano and a few hours later, running for their lives from a gigantic flaming demon, found out why it had been locked. Well, dwarves dig, it’s what they do, sometimes they unearth something besides ore. It ended up being a funny story.

  She might tell it to Iwy someday. Triand turned to see the girl fast asleep; one of the resident badgers had curled up on her. Iwy frustrated her. Every time the girl showed a glimmer of actual interest in magic work, she pulled it back like a very emotional hermit crab. Which meant, when it came to the artefact, she might as well get on with another spell she’d been meaning to try …

  Iwy woke up to a small explosion and a muffled curse. She pushed a curious badger off her chest, sat up in the damp straw, and checked if it was uncharred, which was when she spotted Triand standing in the middle of the stables, hastily closing her robes. The ground around her feet was blackened.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Nothin’!” The mage scooped a book off the floor, a huge volume by a Miranora. “Or, well, more than you, at any rate. Did your parents let you sleep in this late?”

  “Is the sun even up yet?”

  “In a general sense. C’mon, put some life into it, we got a long way to walk.”

  The rain had decided to subside to an annoying, persistent trickle. During the night, the road had turned into the next best thing to a mudslide.

  Their food stores were slowly running out and – which was the bigger catastrophe – Triand’s flask was empty. She lamented this fact for an hour while they squelched up the miry hill path.

  Above the Midlands, the country was a variable medley of mountains, forests, and valleys that continued to the northern sea, as if the creator gods had decided a natural rollercoaster would be fun. The sun finally made an appearance shortly before noon when they reached the first hints of the mountain range that marked the border of the Midlands. According to the map they were called Woodtane mountains, and according to the laws of irony they were mostly bare rock.

  A shadow fell over them as something passed overhead.

  “That’s one big bird,” Iwy commented.

  Triand stopped on the road and squinted down into the valley. There was a town at the foot of the hill. A town clad in smoke that rose to the overcast sky.

  “I don’t think that was a bird,” she said and broke into a run.

  Iwy caught up with her at the town gate. The smell of burning wood was overwhelming. The town looked deserted. This was probably a good thing; it might mean that most people had managed to get out. Iwy noticed the forges as they walked on carefully; metalwork seemed to be their main trade. But the fires were out, and bits of metal were scattered about on every street. The general smokiness didn’t seem like an industrial accident. Every single house was blackened by soot; some were missing a roof or half a storey. Most of the street cobblestones were cracked, and a few were ... sliced?

  Hasty steps slapped on the stones as someone came running towards them. It was a middle-aged man, carrying a breadbasket and going at full speed. Triand tried to stop him.

  “Whoa there! What’s going on?”

  “Get down!” He sped around a corner and was gone.

  Triand looked at Iwy, who shrugged. They followed, but as soon as they came around the corner there was no sight of him. The town’s marketplace was as empty as the rest of it, carts and wares left to their own devices. As they walked on, Triand stepped on what was left of the pub sign that had fallen off its hinges. All windows on the house had been boarded shut.

  A sudden screeching noise made the hair on Iwy’s arms stand up. It was like a thousand rusty metal doors opening at once.

  “In here!”

  Triand and Iwy found themselves dragged through a doorway. Iwy looked up just in time and caught a glimpse of red glistening scales speeding by overhead, followed by a long tail. The beating of mighty wings scattered every table and cart in the marketplace and broke the top off the lovely fountain that formed the centrepiece.

  A woman barred the door behind them. “You were damn lucky.”

  “Apparently,” Triand said non-committally as she looked around.

  The pub was mostly made of stone, which was probably why the entire town had come to huddle here. The tap room was packed; the noise was incredible. Up at the bar, people were talking over each other. Triand caught a few phrases that might have been suggestions for getting rid of the dragon. In a corner, an older woman was tending to the wounded. Somewhere in the back, a baby couldn’t stop crying.

  “Yup. It’s a dragon, alright,” Triand commented.

  “They’re real,” Iwy whispered. “They’re real? Dragons are real? Actually real?”

  One winter, Iwy remembered, a traveller without eyebrows had entered the pub and, after being supplied with enough beer to put some courage back into him, told an outrageous tale about narrowly escaping a swamp dragon outside Oldmoor. Good entertainment for a winter’s afternoon, everyone thought; suspense, danger, a thrilling chase, though innkeeper Theo said afterwards it could have used more romance. Farmer Danils had mumbled darkly about luring the dragon over to melt all that damn snow. Well, those hadn’t been his exact words, but Iwy’s father had covered her ears in time and scolded Danils for using that kind of language in front of a child.

  Triand raised a confused eyebrow at her. “What did you think they were?”

  “Not real!”

  “Critically endangered is not the same as not real.”

  “What else is real? Goblins?”

  “Oh sure.”

  “Fairies?”

  “Yep.”

  “Mole people?”

  “They’re called dwarves, and they don’t appreciate that nickname.”

  Iwy glanced at the boarded-up windows and the people who had taken up position next to them. “I thought the parts of your map that say, ‘Here there be dragons’ were a joke!”

  “Why would anyone joke about that?”

  “How have I never seen one before?”

  Triand wasn’t listening, tapping her fingers on her lips again. “A real proper dragon. That’s just what we needed.” For some reason, it didn’t sound like sarcasm. “Think these people know which mountain it lives on?”

  “I don’t think they want to know. Why?”

  “I have to talk to the dragon.”

  “Of course, sure, let’s hike up a mountain and talk to a ten-tonne death lizard, that seems sensible.”

  “Don’t worry, you’re staying here. Excuse me! Is anyone the mayor here? Or someone in charge?”

  No one was listening to her.

  Triand turned back to the woman who had let them in. She hadn’t left her post at the door. “Who’s in charge here?”

  The woman nodded to the bar but kept her eyes at the keyhole. “Vice-mayor Gedeon. The thin old guy.”

  Triand elbowed her way into the crowd. Iwy followed the mage to the bar where a man in a leather apron and an old man in shirt sleeves were arguing heatedly while the innkeeper was trying to keep them apart.

  “... need to get up there and ...”

  “We can’t spare anyo...”

  Vice-mayor Gedeon was tapped on the shirtsleeves and confronted with the gap-toothed grin of a stranger.

  “Are you the mayor?”

  “My good woman, I have no time right now!”

  The argument went on and the mage found herself shoved back into the crowd. This was as fitting an opportunity as any for a silence spell, and Triand used one, of sorts. It consisted of climbing on top of a table and kicking empty mugs into the round until she finally had the room’s befuddled attention. A few people were nudging each other and shrugging. Two or three pointed out the staff.

  “Good people of ... whatever this town is called, I’ll take care of your dragon problem if only you get me some decent booze.”

  The town had had its share of dragon hunters. Most of them had been mercenaries, huge mountains of muscles wrapped in plate armour, armed to the teeth with enchanted weapons. The dragon had treated them like tins of corned beef. The few volunteers of a more magical nature had only been marginally more successful. One particularly lucky warlock had even escaped with all his limbs and enough robe to cover a subjectively more important part. The survivors charged a Well-I-mean-I-tried-but-it-is-a-dragon-fee, which had depleted the town’s already dragon-plundered funds significantly. And all this shabby-robed weirdo wanted was a stiff drink.

  Innkeeper and vice-mayor tripped over each other scrambling for the pub’s cellar.

  Triand, meanwhile, settled down into a chair and took off her bundle. She was immediately surrounded by people, and it wasn’t due to the limited space.

  “Are you a wizard?”

  “Are you a sorceress?”

  “Do you have any dragon hunting credentials?”

  “Yes, we’ve had so many people come through here without any dragon hunting credentials.”

  “We should really leave this to the professionals ...”

  “I think it’s gone,” the woman at the door said and the din subsided slightly. “I can’t hear anything.”

  Someone was brave enough to peer through the cracks of the barred window. “No movement here either.”

  “Do you know what it wants?” Triand asked conversationally.

  They looked at her as if she had asked why they didn’t have the dragon over for tea on Sunday. “Gold, of course,” someone said. “Dragons always want gold.”

  “It comes down once a month to search for ...”

  “Yeah, one of the warriors said he could see a hoard of it in the dragon’s cave before it fried him to a crisp ...”

  The innkeeper had returned and set about broaching a cask. The smell alone could cure a stuffed-up nose. Triand downed an entire beer mug of the liquid that was meant to be drunk from a much smaller glass before anyone dared to speak again.

  “So ... you can deal with the dragon?” the vice-mayor asked, in a tone that suggested he was sceptical but also out of options and there was still room in the local graveyard, so what the hay.

  “Yep.” Triand refilled her glass.

  “And all you want is drink?”

  “Weeell, maybe I have one or two favours to ask.”

  The crowd sighed heavily like people who knew there was always a catch.

  “My apprentice here hasn’t had a decent meal in days, wouldn’t want her to lose her strength, so that’d be one thing ... oh, yeah, and you also needed some laundry done, didn’t ya, so if someone could take care of that, that would be lovely.”

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “But you do not want any money?” The vice-mayor was not about to get distracted from what he considered the most important point of the discussion.

  “No money at all.”

  “Splendid! Do you need anything? We still have a few weapons lying around.”

  “What would you like your headstone to say?” a pale woman cut in. “What? Just in case.”

  Triand knocked on the cask to see how much was left. “So, where’s that dragon live?”

  “Up this mountain, as far as we can tell. We had a warrior here last year, says it lives in a cave near the left side ...”

  “We’ve had so many people come through I’m sure there’s a decent path by now ...”

  After another mug, Triand stood up and leaned on her staff, swaying slightly. “Iwy, you stay here, get those people calmed down.”

  Iwy followed her to the door. “And just where are you going?”

  “I’m gonna talk to the dragon. Hold this for me.” She handed her a leather pouch. Coins jingled as she dug around in it. “Only need the gold ones. Dragons love gold.”

  “Why?”

  “No idea. Maybe they make horn rings and claw bracelets in their spare time.” She briefly clutched the part of her robe where Iwy knew she wore her amulet. It was made of copper. At least, Iwy thought so. “See ya.”

  “Hey, but you’ll come back ... right?” Iwy had half a mind to swallow her fear and climb the mountain with her, not that she would be of much use; even if her power deigned to show its sorry flamey face again, it was likely no match for a dragon.

  “We’ll see.” Triand turned with her hand on the door handle. “One last thing, folks. If anything happens to her while I’m gone the dragon will be the least of your problems. “

  People began to crowd in the doorway, mumbling to each other as they watched her go. Someone elbowed Iwy in the side. “Do you think she can do it?”

  Iwy looked at the retreating mage’s back. “I have absolutely no idea.”

  The way up the mountain was not the most pleasant walk she’d ever had. At least the weather stayed somewhat dry with only an occasional drizzle. The townsfolk had been right; there was a path, created by the boots of many wannabe fortunates, but it was a very slim one on the edge of the mountain. Triand scooted along sideways. It was a good thing she had left most of her luggage with Iwy. And another that she didn’t bring the girl either. Never bring someone who’s scared of dragons to a dragon’s cave; they’ll forget all etiquette.

  She knew she was getting nearer by the smell of lightly charred stone. It had to be over the next ledge. Triand’s hypothesis proved correct as a darting flame shot by overhead accompanied by a deafening screech.

  Triand waved her staff over the edge.

  “Don’t breathe fire or anything! I come in peace.”

  The dragon snarled, and another wave of flames drove past her.

  “I got something for you!” She threw the gold coins over the edge.

  The dragon huffed, then sniffed. Its huge claw grabbed the coins and dragged them towards itself.

  The mage pulled herself up to the platform in front of the cave and finally got a good look at the dragon. Wine-red scales, black claws and horns, but red spines on its back ... buggered if she could remember the species name. Which wasn’t that important at the moment. Triand noticed it didn’t leave the entrance of the cave. It had something hidden there ... Would any creature really defend a bunch of metal so fiercely, even if it was shiny?

  She sat down and unpacked one of her stolen books. “Don’t mind, do you? It’s good reading light up here.”

  The dragon looked at her confused, which was an astounding feat considering the limited flexibility of scales.

  Triand went on reading. Always good to catch up on the old invisibility conundrum and a refresher in illusions never came amiss ...

  “What do you want?” the dragon rumbled in a voice deep enough to shake the mountain.

  “I knew it!” Triand clapped the book shut triumphantly. “I knew you could talk!”

  The dragon looked almost insulted. “Of course we can. You two-legged irritants have no monopoly on communication.”

  “Well, now that we’ve established that ... I’m Triand. What’s your name?”

  “Must you call me anything?” the dragon grumbled.

  “I’ll call you Ilsra, after an aunt of mine.”

  “What are you anyway, some sort of witch? Did they send you up?”

  “Nah. I’m only passin’ through. I got a question or two for you.”

  The dragon huffed. “Is this some sort of trick?”

  “What’s going on with that town and you? Ah, no fire-breathing, you could damage my book. Come on, just an honest answer.”

  The dragon fidgeted. “I need gold.”

  “Would you settle for copper?”

  “They need gold!”

  “They?”

  ‘Ilsra’ sighed heavily, heated breath nearly singing Triand’s hair. “You hindleggers have forgotten everything, haven’t you?”

  The dragon gestured with one claw for the mage to follow. It apparently considered her harmless.

  The cave was so warm Triand was tempted to throw off her robes, and everything else too for that matter. The walls and ceiling were blackened with soot, a contrast that made the mound of gold in the middle of the cave sparkle even more. And under all that splendour glittered something else, something far more valuable ...

  “Eggs? You’re having eggs?”

  The dragon nodded. “I have been a mother many times, but this clutch has me worried. There is not enough gold for them. If I can’t find enough ...”

  Triand looked at them, glowing like head-sized diamonds. “Then what?”

  “Only gold can help them break through the shell. In the old days, we laid our eggs in gold veins, deep under the mountains. All those veins are used up because your lot decided they wanted it. You don’t even need it. Your younglings aren’t even hatched properly.”

  “Why didn’t you tell them?”

  “What?”

  “Absolutely no one knows this.”

  “That’s because your ancestors spread rumours about us and you hunted us. I won’t talk to you.”

  Triand found herself shoved out of the cave. The dragon grabbed the back of her robes between two claws and held her up to eye level. “Now. Will you go back willingly? Or do I have to make you?”

  “Before you boot me off the mountain, have you ever heard of wages?”

  “What?”

  Triand was talking very fast, as always when she had an idea she thought was great. “You know how humans give other humans gold when they work for them? Why don’t you just do that? They’re a smithery town, there’s always fires to keep up and hot. You can do that with a single breath. They could give you gold for that.”

  “Why would they do that? Where would they get the gold?”

  “Weeell, for one, they wouldn’t have to rebuild the town every couple weeks.”

  “Hm.” The dragon let her drop.

  Triand dragged herself up and dusted off her robes. She had a good feeling about this.

  The dragon tapped her gigantic lower lip with her claws. “It is tiresome wrecking the entire town in search for their little coins and trinkets.”

  “Exactly. Think about the advantages.” Triand began to explain. Money economy wasn’t a system dragons were overly familiar with.

  “So instead of burning down the town and getting fifty coins you want me to heat their forges and get a guaranteed twenty-five coins. Every week.”

  “Yep. A lot more reliable that way.”

  Triand could tell the dragon was doing mathematics in her head, probably even computing how fast her young would hatch with twenty-five a week.

  “I’ll talk to the people. I can be very convincing.”

  “Hm. They will comply, or I will eat them.”

  Trust a dragon to blackmail her way into a job. Triand shrugged. “Or that.” Now that Ilsra had calmed down, it was probably safe to ask the other thing. “Say, no offence, but ... you’re old, right?”

  “That’s a matter of perspective, surely.”

  “Yes, but would you say around a thousand human years? Or older?”

  “Older, I suppose. Why?”

  “I’ve one or two small questions. You ever hear of something called the crucible of Atrius?”

  “No. But it sounds like a human thing.”

  “Well, it is. Next question ... one moment.” The mage turned around as the bewildered dragon looked on. She tugged something out from underneath her robes. Something that glowed. “I’ve been wondering ... You know what this is?”

  She laid the glistening orb on the ground. It was bigger than her fist and deep red. The core of the orb looked almost black, the darker colour bleeding into the red seamlessly.

  The dragon drew nearer. “It’s the eye of a naudonite. My grandmother used to keep one. They stay shiny for a long time.”

  This wasn’t the answer Triand had expected. “What in blazes is a naudonite?”

  “A creature from the Quiet Deep.”

  “The what now?”

  “Ocean. Huge body of water? You know what that is, right?”

  “Sure.” Triand had never heard of any ocean called the Quiet Deep. How old was this thing?

  “Grandmother said it had more arms than you can count and thousands of eyes all over its body. The eyes were also its mouths. It lived off the blood of other sea creatures, opened its eyes and fed. They died out when your kind was on the brink of learning how to make swords.”

  The mage looked at the faintly glowing orb. She had never considered that it might have been part of a being. It felt solid as stone. “Huh. Were they in any way magically inclined?”

  “Everything was, back then.” The dragon rolled the eye over. “It’s in very good condition. It looks younger than my grandmother’s. This must have belonged to the last of them. The last one lived long after all of its kind died, grandmother told me. We gave it a name back then ... can’t quite recall ...”

  “Can you destroy it?”

  “What?”

  “Your flame’s pretty strong. Can you destroy it?”

  Ilsra’s scaly brow lifted. “Why do you want me to?”

  “Because some of my kind have found a way to use this to kill people.”

  The dragon scoffed. “How your species survived so long I’ll never know.”

  “Can you try? Please?”

  “This is really important to you, isn’t it?”

  “I know you’ve no reason to do me a favour ...”

  “Oh, just step back.”

  Triand jumped as the dragon inhaled. Even staying flat against the side of the mountain she could feel the heat of the gigantic flame erupting from Ilsra’s mouth. Maybe Iwy could go home a bit sooner. She’d be glad to get back to her fields, surely. And Triand could get back to a more interesting continent.

  The dragon sat up and coughed once. The smoke finally cleared.

  The orb still lay on the ground, glistening innocently and not even the least bit charred.

  After five minutes of mouth-agape staring, Triand felt the dragon nudge her carefully.

  “Can ... you try again?”

  “Fine.”

  Another wave of flame hit the orb. Triand could have sworn it looked at her unimpressed. “Three’s the charm?”

  This was probably the largest flame the dragon had ever produced.

  Triand picked the orb up. It was significantly warmer than before. She thought she spotted a crack but on further inspection it turned out to be dust. She wiped it off the surface.

  “Anything?” Ilsra asked.

  “Nothing.” Triand had the feeling the orb stared back at her. Well, now that she knew it was an eye this actually made sense. She wished she could just squash it but last time she had sprained a finger. “You don’t think you could eat it, do you?”

  “They’re indigestible.” The dragon looked at her sideways. “Are you alright?”

  “No. Not really.” Triand turned around and hid the artefact under her robes again.

  “It might only be immune to dragon fire,” Ilsra said encouragingly. “Not that my flames are what they used to be. I’m getting on a bit.”

  “There’s probably some protective nonsense around it. Lots of wizards have used it, so ... I might have known.” She sighed. “Well. Wanna go to town?”

  The good people of the town had only just calmed down. Some were lifting the carts and tables on the marketplace into upright positions. They had even let the children go as far as the pub’s door when they heard the screech again. Everyone outside scrambled for the house. The door was bolted. There was a thud outside, of something big landing.

  A minute later, someone knocked on the door. “Hey folks, I’m back. Everything good? Why don’t you all come out and we can all have a leisurely chat about the future?”

  The door was opened. Vice-mayor Gedeon stared at the dragon sitting elegantly, like an oversized cat, in the middle of the marketplace. “We’re all doomed.”

  “... and that’s basically why you should let Ilsra the dragon work for you.”

  The trembling townspeople didn’t dare to breathe.

  Triand had spent half an hour explaining her plan, with the dragon huffing quietly in the background. So far no one had anything to say against it. The marketplace was so quiet you could hear a pin drop; only none would drop out of fear of being noticed by the dragon.

  “Well, uh, well, uh, I’m sure we can come, uh, come up with twenty-five a week!” the vice-mayor squeaked finally, trying hard to control his bladder. “I, I, I don’t know how my people will feel working alongside a, uh, a, uh, dragon ...” The dragon looked at him once. “... can you start Monday?”

  Triand clapped him on the shoulder. “Make her a citizen. It’ll strengthen bonds and all.”

  “Wond-wonderful idea! Clerk Rinus! Is clerk Rinus living?”

  One apparent smith raised his hand. “Shouldn’t we have a vote on that?”

  “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

  A murmur went through the assembled townspeople. A few shrugged; the rest cast anxious looks at the curved black claws that idly scratched trenches into the pavement and decided that democracy had earned a day off.

  While the vice-mayor went on a hunt for the town clerk, Ilsra leaned down and tried to whisper. “What is a citizen?”

  “It’s a human bonding ritual,” Triand explained. “They wanna make you part of their pack. They’ll trust you more.”

  “You people are strange.”

  The town clerk had somehow gotten hold of the charred citizen register. “Is, is, uh, that Mistress or Master Ilsra?”

  The dragon looked at Triand for clarification. “It’s Mistress,” the mage said.

  “Ms. Ilsra, occupation ... dragon. Thank you. That should be all.”

  Triand elbowed the dragon in the front knee. “Say somethin’. Something nice.”

  The dragon cleared her throat. A few hats took flight. “I pledge to keep your forges supplied with fire and your furnaces hot, eat troublesome foes, and melt annoying snow in the winter ... for twenty-five gold pieces a week.”

  “But anyone who goes near the mountain will definitely be grilled.”

  The dragon nodded, small wafts of smoke curling out of her nostrils. There was hasty agreement from the onlookers.

  “Won-wonderful!” vice-mayor Gedeon said over his trembling knees. “Welcome to the community. We, uh, we, uh, we better get on with the tidying up, yes?”

  Triand let her eyes wander over the dispersing crowd, stopping only twice on an attractive woman, before she spied Iwy hiding behind an apple cart. “Oh, before I forget ... Iwy, come here!”

  “What? No! Why?”

  Triand turned to the dragon. “This is my apprentice.”

  “The one hiding behind the cart?”

  “Yeah. She has fire magic, but she can’t control it. Can she touch your scales just once?”

  Ilsra lowered her voice, which was not an uncomplicated matter. “This whole dragon blessing thing doesn’t actually work, you know? We made that up so you’d stop hunting us.”

  “I know that, but she doesn’t. Maybe it helps.”

  The dragon rolled her huge eyes. “Fine. You owe me some favours, witch. Never let me catch you using dragon scales in your potions.”

  Triand’s brows drew together in confusion. “Who does that? You can easily substitute with soybeans. Iwy! Come on, she’s not gonna eat you!” The mage dragged her frozen-stiff-with-fear apprentice out of her hiding spot and placed her in front of Ilsra. “Dragon blessings help with fire magic. Just put your hands on her scales.”

  “I don’t think she wants that!”

  The dragon tried hard not to roll her eyes again. “Come forth, mortal, or whatever.”

  Iwy found herself shoved to the dragon’s scaly bosom. Her hand trembled so much it turned into a vague blur against the red.

  “This is humiliating,” Ilsra mumbled to herself. “Ahem. Receive a blessing of the ancient race, mortal!”

  Iwy dared to open one eye. “Is something supposed to happen?”

  “It takes a while to notice. Now bugger off before I change my mind.”

  Iwy scarpered back to the relative safety of the cart.

  Ilsra shook her head. “The hatchling needs toughening up.”

  “We’ll get around to that. You’re gonna be alright here?”

  “This is not the worst arrangement I have ever agreed to.”

  Triand took that as a yes.

  The dragon addressed the people; half a dozen dropped whatever they were holding and dove for cover. “Ahm. I will be here next Monday.” Then she spread her wings and took off.

  The woman whose former position was as the door lookout sighed as she took in the cracked pavement. “Maybe we should build her a landing platform.”

  They spent the night in the room of the inn that had the least amount of roof damage; vice-mayor Gedeon had insisted. Iwy was glad to sleep in a bed again; even gladder to do so after a bath; even more glad that the dragon had returned to her cave and they would leave well before Monday.

  She got through the first two chapters of The Casebook of Magical Depletion. It must be a staple of student literature, as the next chapter only appeared once she finished the last one; quickly looking up something wasn’t possible. Whoever wrote it wanted it to be read. So far, all she had learned were the general definitions and some facts about the hereditary issue. She stuffed it to the very bottom of her bag before she fell asleep.

  Triand came to bed significantly later. Iwy could tell she was trying to be quiet, but since she smelled like the inside of a brandy bottle, she bumped into every available item of furniture before she finally collapsed in the bed next to Iwy’s.

  The girl turned. “Everything alright with the people?”

  “Oh, sure. Yes, uh, I was just making, uh, sure. Did I wake you?”

  “A bit.”

  The mage wrapped her dishevelled self in the blankets. “They’re the lucky ones, they get to see tiny baby dragons in a few years.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “The dragon’s a mum. You ever see a baby dragon? They’re like big chubby ... geckos with tiny wings and the wings can’t support their weight yet but they still try to fly and they keep falling and it’s adorable and ...” The mage nattered on about baby dragons for fifteen minutes before she began to snore.