I sprinted into the windmill, running to the far side and ducking under the overhang of the half-destroyed staircase. Sindari rushed inside as the dragon roared. Not with frustration at losing his prey—he knew he hadn’t lost anything—but in preparation.
The sky outside exploded with brilliant orange light as the dragon breathed fire onto the windmill.
5
I crouched beside Sindari at the back of the windmill, fingers wrapped around my fire-protection charm as flames obscured the exit.
The wood frame that I’d broken earlier charred and incinerated in two seconds. Much of the exterior was made from stone, but the heat was so intense that those stones were exploding or crumbling to ash. After twenty seconds under the dragon’s fiery assault, the windmill already felt like an oven inside. My charm protected me from direct flame, but I doubted it would keep me from roasting alive.
Think it’ll be cooler in the basement or worse? I silently asked, trusting Sindari to read my thoughts.
Possibly worse.
At what temperature do magical tigers burst into flame?
The same as half-elves, I suspect.
You better go back to your realm. I tapped the cat figurine. It was so hot to the touch that I jerked my finger away.
If Sindari burned to death here on Earth, would any part of him survive to return home? Or would he die as surely as I would?
I’m not leaving you here alone. Sindari pointed his nose toward the exit, the flames still roiling down at it from the dragon’s maw. I’ll run out. Maybe he’ll chase me again and you can get away.
I don’t think he’s going to fall for that twice.
Smoke filled the interior of the windmill and made me cough. My airways tightened predictably, and I wondered if there was any point to digging out my inhaler. Did it matter if I died of suffocation before being burned to a crisp?
The flames in front of the exit disappeared. I sensed the dragon standing right outside, so I knew we weren’t safe. He was probably inhaling for another round.
“Hey, Dragon!” I called, mopping my brow. “Let’s talk. Why are you kidnapping children? What do you want?”
I expected this attempt at dealing would work about as well as it had with Zav, but maybe I would be wrong. Maybe this was a chatty dragon who was misunderstood and longed for someone to listen to his plight.
A scaled snout came into view, one of those silver-blue eyes just visible at the top of the doorway hole. It gazed at me.
I did my best not to look toward the dead ranger and imagine the dragon chomping my head off. Chopper was in my hand and ready if he tried. I was slightly bolstered that the blade had managed to cut into him when Fezzik’s magical rounds had not, but I hadn’t even given him the equivalent of a hangnail.
The eye squinted.
You, the dragon spoke telepathically, his voice as powerful and resonant as Zav’s as it rang in my skull, smell of Zavryd’nokquetal.
My mouth dropped. I didn’t know what I’d expected, but it hadn’t been that.
“That can’t be. I’ve showered and scrubbed myself dozens of times since I saw him last.”
The eye continued to squint at me. I hoped to lure him here with my antics, but it’s been days, and I grow weary of this game.
“Antics? Wait, you’ve been commanding the kobolds to kidnap children, hoping to attract Zav’s attention?”
Zav? Surely, he does not permit a mongrel to call him by that diminutive name.
“I can’t pronounce his un-diminutive name.”
That’s pathetic.
“Sorry, I’m half-human.”
Yes. I can tell. Even through telepathy, dragons could manage to be supercilious. I am Dobsaurin the Most Magnificent.
Great, he’s even more pompous than Zav. I meant the words for Sindari, but the dragon’s visible eye opened wide.
I can hear you when you think words to your stolen dragon slave!
“He’s not a slave,” I said as Sindari put in his own objection, an indignant roar that filled my ears.
The Zhinevarii are promised to dragons. You have no right to that charm.
“Uh huh. Why did you say you wanted to lure Zav here?” I asked, hoping to distract him from his new interest in Sindari—the last thing I wanted was for him to take the figurine away. “And why were you kidnapping children to do it? He thinks humans are vermin and is only here to get criminals that fled from your worlds.”
He is insufferably righteous and resents those who prey on the small and weak, as if the small and weak are worth paying attention to. Dragons are gods in comparison to all the lesser species. Gods should not concern themselves with those who are so clearly inferior to us. But I knew Zavryd’nokquetal would come to challenge me if he found out I was meddling with the peoples of this world. I am disappointed by how long it’s taking him to respond. I know he is here on this overpopulated, scum-infested planet.
“It’s a big planet. He could be anywhere.”
I suppose. But he has seen you recently enough to leave his mark on you. Will he come to see you again?
I didn’t mean to hesitate, but I had to consider the answer. Reluctantly, I admitted that Zav had found me useful several times now, so he probably would hunt me down again.
Belatedly, I said, “No.”
A lie. Your human half makes you weak and easy to read.
“Thanks for the analysis, but I already have a therapist that I pay for that. No need for dragons to butt in.”
Have we not discussed the foolishness of irking dragons, Val? Sindari asked.
Yes, but you can hardly talk. You roared at him.
He called me a slave. That is worse than being called a pet.
Perhaps you will do. The dragon—Dob-whatever—studied me with new contemplation.
I’d liked it better when he’d been breathing fire at me.
Deliver a message to him. Tell him that my family does not appreciate his sanctimonious meddling, and that I have been sent to put an end to it. Permanently.
“Deliver a message? I’m not a Post-it note.” I couldn’t imagine anything more dreadful than being pulled into what sounded like dragon politics.
Other than dying. I supposed this was a step up from that. And, with luck, the children had made it safely back to their homes by now.
Tell him, or I’ll flambé this structure with you and your tiger in it.
“I’ll let him know.”
Excellent.
The dragon backed away, sprang into the air, and flew off to the east. I wish he’d gone west. West was the Olympic Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. East was Seattle, my apartment, and millions of people.
As I stumbled outside, relieved to suck in a breath of fresh air, my phone buzzed. Expecting Willard again, I answered without looking at the number.
“Ms. Thorvald,” Mary Watanabe, my therapist, said. “I’m glad you answered.”
I wished I’d let it go to voice mail.
“Oh?” I couldn’t help it that I sounded wary. She didn’t call for social reasons.
“Have you been working on the 4-7-8 breathing technique we discussed? Are you finding it helpful for lowering stress in difficult situations?”
I coughed and dug out my inhaler. Right now, my lungs were too full of smoke for breathing exercises. They were busy working on just breathing.
“I didn’t have time during today’s difficult situation, but I’ve tried it a bit.”
“Excellent. You mentioned being willing to try yoga too. Have you gone to a class yet?”
“I’ve been busy.” I eyed the smoking windmill. The roof was burning heartily.
“Well, make room in your schedule. I was at a class this morning, and I learned of an opening at the Lotus Leaf Studio in Ballard. It’s a membership-only facility, and the instructors are very good. They really care about their students. They don’t just arrange your body in the right positions while in class but work on changing your mindset and teaching you to bring the tenets of yoga into your life as a whole. Of course we’ll continue to work on the personal issues you’ve acknowledged, but I think it’ll really help you if you can learn to take that philosophy into your daily life.”
What would really help me would be if dragons would stop trying to set me on fire.
6
A salty breeze tugged at the strands of hair dangling free from my braid as I leaned on the railing of the ferry taking me back to Edmonds. My Jeep was down in the car compartment with boxes of hard cider, wine, and chocolate in the back, gifts from the grateful orchard owners.
The children had made it back safely, though I didn’t think their parents had believed their story of being locked in a windmill by a dragon. Ayush, who must have had more encounters with magical beings in his life, had listened with wide terrified eyes. He’d been concerned that kobolds were still in the area and had spoken of listing the property and going back to being a software engineer in Seattle. I hadn’t had the heart to tell him that far worse things than kobolds lurked in and around the big city.
Seagulls squawked as they flew overhead, and I couldn’t help but look up to make sure they weren’t fleeing a dragon. The sky had cleared and the sun had come out, so it would have been easy to spot the new one and even easier to see Zav’s black form. Neither dragon was in sight.
How was I going to contact Zav? It wasn’t as if he’d given me his cell phone number before disappearing.
Normally, I wouldn’t care about delivering a message to him, but if there was a new, meaner, and more vindictive dragon in the world, he was the only one who could deal with it.
Fezzik’s bullets hadn’t done anything on that magical hide, and even Chopper had barely cut it. I imagined fighter jets launching nukes at a dragon and wondered if even that would do the job. Dragons could probably make a shield that bombs would bounce off before they got close.
My phone buzzed, and I groaned. Who, now? I’d given Colonel Willard a verbal report of the incident—as usual, she wanted a typed report sent in by morning—and told Mary I’d go to a yoga class and see her later in the week for a session. I didn’t want any more obligations, or to talk to any more people.