Chapter Ten

This is the longest they've stayed by the lake," Frank observed as he and Twyla sat on a couple of fallen logs around the campsite that afternoon. Since they were in the mountains, the sun was already setting behind a peak. The dragons lounged in the cattails on the lake's edge, sunning themselves in the last rays of daylight. Mary Georgina sat at Frank's feet, her head resting atop his thigh as she stared up at him adoringly.

Hoo boy, this is going to be a problem, thought Twyla. If the baby dragon had bonded this strongly to a human, how were they going to get her to live with other dragons? And if they did manage to successfully release her into the wild, what effect would losing her have on Frank? She didn't even want to think of that.

Twenty yards away, Quill appeared to be taking elaborate measurements with a compass and a ruler. He had two reference books open beside him, as well as a journal in which he scribbled notes. They could hear Duckers rather than see him. Bored to tears after a couple of hours of watching dragons, he had taken off some time ago to practice shooting with his crossbow. The occasional "Fuck yeah" made its way to their ears.

"How was the date?" Frank asked Twyla as she set up kindling for the fire they'd light later in the evening.

"Dates, plural, and the first one was as unromantic as it is possible to be." She filled him in on finding Wade and the kids waiting for her when she got home, finishing with "And then Hope showed up a day early."

"That's good, right?"

"With Everett."

"Who you like."

"Who is now her fiancé."

Frank blinked. "I didn't know she was engaged."

"That makes two of us." Twyla sat and began to worry at a piece of loose bark on the log beneath her. "It's all so sudden. She showed up with him on my doorstep and basically said, ‘You remember Everett. Hey, by the way, I'm going to marry him.' I feel bad, because I know my response was less than enthusiastic. I wish I could figure out why this is throwing me for a loop."

"Did Hope notice your less than enthusiastic response?"

"Yes, but I think I managed to gloss over it."

"This is maybe not the best thing to gloss over. This is maybe something you need to hash out with her."

"Hashing out: not my strong suit."

"I'm not winning any awards there either."

A prickle of concern poked Twyla's conscience. She'd been so wrapped up in her own dilemmas that she hadn't given Frank adequate thought lately—Frank, who'd been covered in glitter and who now found himself the parent of a baby dragon.

"What are you needing to hash out these days?"

"Nothing," he told her, brushing it off. "Listen, it's not wrong to have concerns about your daughter getting hitched, but at the end of the day, she's in love. She's happy. That's good news, isn't it?"

"I suppose it is. I suppose it'll have to be."

They both sank into a ruminative silence. As she suspected, talking to Frank had helped lessen her anger and her worry. But there was something peculiar lingering under the surface of their conversation, a subtext she didn't grasp. As she watched him pet Mary Georgina, she wondered if, with all her talk about Hope and marriage, she had inadvertently stumbled across one of the closed doors in the house that was Frank Ellis.

"You said you had dates, plural, with Vanderlinden. How was the second one?"

"His name is Quill, you know. And it was fine. We went to Proserpina's."

A torrent of words she couldn't and wouldn't say to Frank gushed through her mind: Dinner was amazing, and I enjoyed talking with him, and we drove on the ocean, and then I went to his hotel room, and we had sex, and it was decent, but I wish it had been better, as in an orgasm would have been welcome, but I wound up faking it, and now I feel guilty for faking it, but maybe he could have tried a tiny bit harder.

"Nice," said Frank, the exact word she had thought in the aftermath of it all. The kiss, the sex—they had been nice.

"It was."

Frank had never gone into extensive detail with her regarding his love life, and Twyla decided that she was equally reticent regarding her own. She didn't want to say any more on the subject, and Frank didn't ask. Thank you, Grandmother Wisdom, thought Twyla.

Meep chirr-chirr-chirrup, the adult dragon trumpeted from the lake, but it lacked the menace of her call the night she'd chased the goons to retrieve her eggs. The two babies obediently climbed onto her back and, with a wonderous unfurling of her wings, the mother lifted herself above the surface. She ran, skimming across the water on feet that were clawed at the tips and webbed between the toes. Her wings threshed the air with a whump whump whump as she took to the sky, soaring five, ten, fifteen feet overhead.

Twyla stood and walked toward the shore to get a better view. "Wow," she whispered as the lovely creature glided across the horizon and blotted out the setting sun for one breathless moment.

Frank came to stand beside her with Mary Georgina clinging to his back the way the other babies clung to their mother. "It's something, isn't it?" he said in hushed tones. "Watch. She'll circle around and head south-southwest."

She did exactly as he said, careening through the air in a graceful arc on wings tinted orange by the sunset. Awe expanded inside Twyla as she watched the dragon soar through the amber sky, the babies sweetly chirping on her back.

"Maguire and I tried heading that direction to see if we could find the nest, but that terrain doesn't lend itself to hiking. By the time we crested the peak, they were out of sight."

"Holy shit! Did you see that?" cried Duckers as he returned to camp. "Okay, real talk: Who's riding one of those things, and when can we make it happen? And please tell me the answers are ‘Penrose Duckers' and ‘soon.'"

Every maternal nerve ending in Twyla's body twanged with alarm. "The answers are ‘no one' and ‘never.'"

Duckers sucked his teeth at Twyla. "Frank, help me out. What about Mary Georgina? She's going to be that big someday. Are you trying to tell me you're not going to take her out for a spin?"

"She's not an autoduck, and I don't know how I'm going to teach her to fly when I have every intention of keeping my boots on the ground the way the Three Mothers intended."

"Come the fuck on! These things were made to ride! Why wouldn't we ride them?"

"Because we're not gods?" suggested Twyla.

"This sounds rather heated," said Quill as he returned to the campsite and set his pack by his tent. "What are we discussing?"

"Duckers wants to ride a dragon," Twyla told him.

"Ah."

She wondered how Quill's ah could sound so different from Frank's oh that there seemed to be an ocean between them. She wished she could put her finger on what it was, and why Frank's oh was full of comfort and understanding, while Quill's ah was… not. The latter joined them at the lake and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. Frank's eyes followed the line of the other man's arm before he disentangled himself from Mary Georgina and went to light the campfire.

Meep, the dragon whined at having been abandoned by her human parent. Duckers scooped her up, an action to which she gave a semi-mollified chirp.

Quill regarded Duckers as he nuzzled the scales between her growing horns with his nose. "I think we should refrain from saddling up any and all dragons until we are quite certain that they do not wish to kill us."

"They eat grass and frolic in the water, and they're cute as fuck. Even their horn things are soft and fuzzy." Duckers rubbed his cheek against one of Mary Georgina's nubbins. "Who's a cute baby dragon? Is it Mary Georgina? Is Mary Georgina the cutest fucking dragon of all time?"

"I'm not sure which one of them is cuter," Twyla commented to no one in particular as she shrugged out from underneath Quill's arm and returned to her log.

Quill reached into his pocket, pulled out a pipe, and lit it before following Twyla to sit beside her. "First of all, it would not be a great feat to be the cutest dragon of all time when, given our reconstructions of ancient dragons based on the fossil record, most if not all of them were hideous and rather terrifying. Secondly, cute does not equal friendly. Although I have developed a theory about the apparent docility of these Tanrian dragons."

"Which is?" asked Frank. He glanced at the pipe and narrowed his eyes, as if to say, Of course Dr. Vanderlegs smokes a pipe. The dracologist didn't notice, but Twyla did, and she shot him a look that said, Cut it out. Frank pretended he didn't see it.

"It is entirely untested. I should not speak of a hypothesis until I have more evidence to support it."

"We're not scientists, Vanderlinden. Tell us what you think. It's why you're here, to advise us."

"I suppose there is no harm in mentioning it in present company." Quill puffed on his pipe and released a plume of sweet-smelling smoke. "These dragons have much of what we consider dracological physiology, and yet I can find no description from any contemporary text nor reconstruction deduced from the fossil evidence that matches what we see here. Not even a close proximation. I begin to wonder if the Old Gods created this species with a new purpose in mind once they were imprisoned inside the Mist."

"What purpose?" Frank asked Quill.

"I hesitate to say something so ridiculous aloud, but I am tempted to postulate that the Tanrian dragons might have been created as companions rather than as weapons."

Duckers perked up. "You mean they're pets?"

"That doesn't sound too far off, actually," said Frank as Mary Georgina crawled into his lap.

"Think of it this way: if the war dragons of the Old Gods were analogous to wolves, these dragons are more like…" He looked at Mary Georgina, who snuggled her snout under Frank's chin. "Poodles."

Duckers, who'd been taking a drink of water from his tin cup, choked with laughter before he coughed out, "Poodles?"

"Toy poodles might be a more accurate analogy."

"Like, put-a-sweater-on-them-and-carry-them-around-in-a-purse toy poodles?"

"Yes, I believe it is entirely possible—although far from proven—that the imprisoned Old Gods created these dragons to be their pets, to keep them company in Tanria."

"And then they abandoned them like stray dogs," said Frank, drawing Mary Georgina more closely to him. Twyla wondered if he was aware of the cuddling or if it was unconscious. In either case, it was obvious to anyone with eyes that he was growing more attached to the dragon by the second, which was going to make it all the more painful when he had to give her up. Which he inevitably would.

"The gods' leaving might also explain why no one has seen dragons inside the Mist until now," Quill went on, warming to his topic, in full lecture mode as he punctuated important points with his pipe. "According to Bendel of Brackridge in The Chronicles of Lathford, the ancient battle dragons of the Old Gods would go dormant if they were injured or simply not in use. Of course, that particular source is a translation of the original, thought to have been penned by Woollven Hearthmaker in the second century ante-aspera, and it is considered apocryphal by many scholars, myself included. Until recently."

"Wake me up if he says anything good," Duckers whispered to Frank but not softly enough.

Frank waved him off. "So you're saying they hibernate?"

"Yes. It's the only way I can think to explain why no one has seen them since the portals opened."

"How does something hibernate for centuries?"

"Look around you, Marshal Ellis. Nothing about Tanria makes sense according to the laws of nature as we understand them."

"Do you think there are more?"

"I would be surprised if there were not more. I suspect it is only a matter of time before the dragon population of Tanria grows exponentially, at which time we will no longer be able to keep it a secret."

"How much longer do you think we have?"

"We've already seen a mother and three babies, including Mary Georgina. I can't imagine we won't see more within the next week or two. That is why Chief Maguire has asked me to prepare a report on my findings and to make recommendations therein by the end of next week."

"What are you going to recommend?" Frank asked warily as he stroked a hand along Mary Georgina's scales.

"I wish I knew. It would be most helpful if we could find the nesting site for at least one mating pair, if not more. That would be informative."

"Why now?" asked Twyla. "If the dragons have hibernated this long, why are they coming out now? Why not before? Why not ten years from now?"

"Something must have woken them."

"What can wake up a dragon?" Duckers asked.

"I don't know, nor do I care to find out. I'll leave answering that question to the Tanrian Marshals. Because whatever it was, it must have been extraordinarily disruptive."

The rest of the evening passed uncomfortably, at least from Twyla's perspective. As they discussed the best way to go about finding the dragon's nest, Quill toyed with a lock of her hair, which was distracting in the extreme, and not in a pleasant, sexy way. Her eyes flicked to Frank, who appeared to be looking everywhere but at her and Quill. Given the fact that Quill was practically sitting in her lap, Frank could hardly glance her direction without getting an eyeful of leggy dracologist at the same time.

When they turned in for the evening, Quill wrapped his arm around her waist and jokingly murmured in her ear, "Your tent or mine?" Joking in that he was substituting the word tent for place, but he clearly had every intention of getting her naked within the next ten minutes.

"There's not much privacy here," she hedged.

"It isn't a secret that we are seeing each other."

"I know, but I'm not comfortable sharing a tent with you—or with anyone—in this situation. Our private lives are… well, private. There's nothing private about a pup tent."

He frowned at the tents in question, four triangles of canvas lined up in a row. "I suppose you are right, but I have already been forced to miss you desperately for twenty-four hours. How shall I manage an entire tour?"

Missed her desperately? She could hear the humor that laced his words, and yet there was an alarming ring of truth under the surface. Surely, he hadn't really missed her. Then again, he was a man, and if there was one thing a man knew how to miss desperately, it was sex, no matter how recently he'd had it.

Frank and Duckers were milling about the fire, close enough to catch a whiff of what they were discussing.

"Take a walk with me." Twyla took him by the arm, robbing him of the option to refuse, not that he would. When they'd made it safely out of earshot, she turned to him. "Quill, I had a nice time with you the other night."

There was that word again: nice.

"As did I, darling."

And there was that word again: darling. A gag reflex pulsed in her throat, and she had no idea why.

"But I am at work. You are at work. We are both at work. And while we are working, I don't think we should…" She twirled her hand in the air, a vague gesture meant to contain multitudes.

Quill repeated the gesture, his eyes lit with mirth. "Is this your way of saying enjoy carnal bliss?"

The distance between nice and bliss opened up in Twyla's mind, as if she stood on one side of a vast canyon and Quill on the other. But having starved herself of male companionship for the past thirteen years, at least in the physical sense, she was interested in exploring the valley between those two points, especially when Quill rewarded her with the boyish grin he gave her now.

She performed the twirling gesture again. "This is my way of saying that I don't think we should be romantic with each other while we're on the job."

A pair of tragic crevices creased his forehead. "You are on a two-week tour."

"I am, and I'd prefer to behave professionally while I'm on this tour."

"I understand that, but…" The tragic crevices sank deeper. "Two weeks."

"Actually, I have Wardensday off for a wedding—"

"A wedding?"

"But it amounts to the same thing. It's only two weeks."

He heaved a theatrical sigh and took her hand in his. "Fortunately for me, you are worth the wait."

As he kissed her good night, she thought it was gratifying to be worth something to a man as smart and accomplished as Quill Vanderlinden, even if it was only a wait.

"Hold up," Twyla begged. She bent double, put her hands on her knees, and panted. She was not as young or fit as she had once been, and hiking at a high elevation was about to give her a coronary.

Duckers, on the other hand, had barely broken a sweat. His taking off his hat and fanning his face was the only indication that their search for a dragon's nest was bothering him in the least.

They'd found a silksheep trail, which had led them up to this wide ridge, giving them a good view of the surrounding mountains. So far, they'd seen no signs of dragon nests, not that they knew what they were looking for.

"I don't mean to be a whiner, but how are we supposed to find a dragon's nest in a whole-ass mountain range? We don't even know where to begin looking. In a cave? Under a tree? On a cliff?"

"Better than doing nothing," said Twyla. "Hold on. Give me a sec to catch my breath."

"Take your time," Duckers told her, adjusting the strap of his ridiculously enormous crossbow.

"You're not really going to shoot a dragon with that, are you?"

"Probably not. But we know they don't appreciate people fucking with their nests, and I'd rather not die today."

"So no glitter for you?"

"The glitter could be fun. Accidentally becoming a dragon daddy? Not so much. I'm not ready for parenthood."

"Good for you."

Duckers shot her a suspicious side-eye.

"That wasn't sarcasm. I meant it literally. Good for you for knowing that you're not ready to be a parent."

"Definitely not. Now, Frank? Frank is daddy material."

"That he is."

Frank and Quill had remained at the campsite to continue observing the dragons on the lake and to teach Mary Georgina how to be one of them, although Twyla was beginning to doubt their ability to incorporate the baby into larger dragon society. She already said Meep-meep in the exact same tone and manner Frank used when he started off a sentence with "Well now."

"Are you worried about that?" Duckers asked Twyla.

"About what?"

"Frank being daddy material for a dragon?"

"Are you a mind reader?"

"You don't need to read minds to see disaster written all over this. He loves that little fucker, and frankly, she loves him, too. Ha! Frankly."

"He hates that."

"I bet he does. But the point is, what's he going to do with a baby dragon that's going to be a full-grown dragon someday? Keep her in his backyard swimming pool?"

"He doesn't have a swimming pool."

"This is what I'm saying." Duckers surveyed the rocky incline sloping away from them to the east. "You take a breather. I'm going to climb up there for a better view and look for something dragon-y."

"Be careful."

"Okay, Mom," he said in a dopey voice before scrambling up.

As Twyla scanned the mountainous landscape from the ridge, she considered Frank's dragon conundrum. She was certain that he had no intention of keeping Mary Georgina, but then again, they were planning to run their own bed-and-breakfast on an equimaris ranch on the coast once they retired. She knew he cherished a hope that at least one of his kids would come work at the ranch with him once they got it up and running. Surely he didn't believe that he could keep this new child with him as well, swimming among the equimares.

Did he?

She made a mental note to pull him aside at their earliest convenience for a heart-to-heart. This would not prove easy, since it was challenging to have any privacy while camping out, and she had the distinct sense that he was avoiding her, probably because Quill had a tendency to stick to her side like chewing gum under a school desk whenever they weren't actively working. She enjoyed having Quill around, but she wasn't a fan of not having Frank around. More fodder for that heart-to-heart, she thought.

"Uh, Twyla?" Duckers called to her.

She turned her attention upward to where he sat on a huge bolder twenty feet above her. His attention was focused on something below her position on the ridge, which she couldn't see.

"What is it?"

Her stomach dropped to her knees when Duckers's response was a worrisome "Uh."

She turned in time to see the mother dragon's head clear the ridge.

"Ope!" she cried, a ridiculous sound in the face of something so large and wild and majestic and frightful.

The dragon hovered, flapping her vast wings so that Twyla's hat blew off her head and strands of her frizzy hair came out of her ponytail to buffet her cheeks. She could hear the creature's breath, in and out like a bellows, and watch the thin line of her nostrils pulse with each respiration.

"Don't move," said Duckers.

This went without saying, since Twyla was pinioned to the spot by the dragon's piercing green eyes. True, she had spent the better part of the past several days watching this particular dragon swim and eat and doze, but that had been from many yards away. Now that Twyla was within glittery spitting distance of the enormous being, she pissed herself. A little.

With a dramatic upward surge, the dragon arced away from the ridge.

"Thank fucking gods," breathed Duckers from above, but he spoke too soon. Twyla's spine had barely had time to collapse with relief when the dragon looped back and landed on the rocky slope halfway between her and Duckers.

She yelped a much louder and higher-pitched "Ope!" this time, and when the dragon crawled toward her, she pissed herself again. More than a little.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck." Duckers fumbled for his crossbow.

Twyla put her hands up, as if the dragon could understand the gesture as surrender. The babies clinging to her back chirped, a delightful, happy chatter that contrasted brutally with what appeared to Twyla to be their mother's threatening approach. She had no way to escape, unless she jumped off the ridge into the valley below.

Behind the dragon, Twyla saw Duckers pull the string into the nut. She saw him hoist the crossbow up and take aim. She thought of the way he hit the target every time with a "Fuck yeah."

The dragon slowed to a halt three feet in front of Twyla, a mother with two babies, who had tolerated the humans' presence by the lake without so much as a threatening spit, who as far as Twyla knew, hadn't hurt a soul.

"Duckers, don't shoot," she said, loudly enough to be heard but calmly enough to (hopefully) not alarm the dragon.

"Fuck that!"

"She's not going to hurt me. I don't think."

"You don't think?"

The dragon stretched out her neck and snuffled Twyla's knees, then her torso, then her neck, her hot breath steaming Twyla's clothes and making her break out into a cold sweat.

"O-o-okay. A-a-all right," Twyla half sang, trying to keep her panic at bay as the dragon sniffed her.

Chirr-chirrup, it cheeped in her face. And then the dragon wagged her tail, swishing its length through tall pink grass on one side and sending pebbles tumbling off the ridge on the other. The babies on her back broke out into sweet chirps that echoed their mother's, as if they were serenading the marshal.

The dragon turned and settled herself in the sunlight splashing the ridge. The babies climbed off and began to tussle in the nearby grass.

Twyla stayed where she was, her hands still held in the air, as her brain tried to soak in what had happened.

"What do we do?" asked Duckers from his boulder.

"I guess we're lounging with dragons?" Twyla suggested slowly.

"Right. Okay. Did you piss yourself?"

Twyla put her hands on her hips and glared at him. "You give birth to three babies, and then come talk to me after you find yourself face-to-face with a twelve-foot dragon."

Duckers considered this. "My lips are sealed," he said. "So, picnic?"

They sat on a couple of boulders near the dragons and ate sandwiches while the babies chased grasshoppers, their mother calling chidingly whenever they got too close to the ridge. Twyla nodded in solidarity. She remembered this, the constant diligence required to keep small children alive when they seemed determined to get themselves killed. These days, she was experiencing it all over again with her grandkids, especially Sal.

"This is wild," said Duckers through a bite full of turkey sandwich as a baby clung to Twyla's leg, which didn't appear to bother her mother in the slightest. Twyla patted the little one on the head.

"I wonder if we're failing to integrate Mary Georgina with this bunch because we've been hanging back. Maybe Frank needs to get up close and personal with this lot."

"They're awfully cuddly for monsters. I'm kind of a dick for almost shooting one."

"But you didn't. No harm, no foul."

The baby climbed onto Twyla's knees, flapped her wings, and went airborne.

Meep! she squealed in surprise. Meep! Meep!

Her mother lifted her head and meeped approvingly. Twyla applauded until the baby pooped a slimy, glittery drizzle down the front of her dungarees.

Duckers held up his canteen in a toast. "To the purse dogs of the Old Gods."

"Twy, you up?" Frank called softly outside Twyla's tent at dawn.

"Be out in a minute," she mumbled. Sleeping in a pup tent with nothing but a thin pad between her and the ground wasn't doing her any favors. Getting dressed inside a pup tent was also a challenge. Twyla was glad that Quill couldn't see her wrestle her no-longer-limber body into a pair of dungarees and a work shirt that needed washing.

"Bless you," she told Frank when he handed her a cup of coffee as she emerged.

"I know better than to make you face the day without your caffeine, darlin'."

"It's too early for joking."

"Who's joking?"

"Why am I up this early?"

"I'll show you."

He guided her north along the lakeshore. She tried not to slosh coffee all over herself as she sipped and walked at the same time, but she was too groggy to pay much attention to her surroundings, until Frank came to a sudden stop. He stood behind her, pointed over her shoulder, and murmured in her ear, "There."

She blinked, taking in the sight of not one, not two, but three adult dragons on the water, each with their own young. She recognized the mother who'd joined her and Duckers for a picnic yesterday, but the other two adults were distinctly different. One was smaller and leaner, the color of her scales a fuchsia pink that leaned toward purple. The other was rounder, her coloring closer to a salmon hue. The babies showed even more variation. While all of them were pale, their coloring covered an array from orangey coral to bluer violets. They were here, and they were real, and they were breathtaking.

"Oh, Frank," Twyla whispered, clutching the warm mug to her heart with both hands. Sentimental slob that she was, she teared up as she watched the dragons swim on the lake with the solid comfort of Frank's physical presence at her back. Out of long habit, she melted against him, her back to his chest, her head leaning on his shoulder. His arm came around her waist, and he rested his chin against her hair. They stayed that way for some time, simply watching and breathing and living in the moment. Twyla sensed that this would become a perfect memory someday, one of those rare gems a person stored up in their heart over the years. She was glad that, of all people, she was sharing it with Frank.

As the sun rose higher in the sky and burned off the dew, her thoughts turned to the dragon expert sleeping in his lonely pup tent, whom she had completely forgotten in the magic of the moment.

"We should probably get Quill up to see this," she said. She had spoken softly, but her words seemed too loud, as if she had banged a gong.

Frank's hand slid off her waist. "Probably. Duckers, too."

Reluctantly, Twyla led the way to the campsite, where they found Quill already up, brushing his teeth. He spit and rinsed in the most delicate and polite way possible when he saw them, and came forward to greet Twyla while Frank went to wake up Duckers.

"Good morning, darling."

"Quill."

"Yes?"

Twyla pulled him to the side. "Remember what I said about being professional?"

"Of course."

"Calling me darling is in the same vein as kissing me, don't you think?"

"Marshal Ellis called you darling."

"No, he didn't."

"He most certainly did."

"When?"

"Literal moments ago."

Had he? Frank hadn't spoken a word since they'd returned to the campsite, so Quill must have overheard them speaking outside the tents before Frank took her to see the new dragons. What had he said? A twinge of panic mixed with guilt pinched Twyla until she remembered what it was Frank had actually said to her.

I know better than to make you face the day without your caffeine, darlin'.

For gods' sakes, how innocuous could you get?

"That's different," she told Quill.

"How?"

"He doesn't mean it romantically."

"Are you quite sure about that?"

"Yes."

"Well, I am not. I think his calling you darlin'"—here he imitated Frank's drawl—"is also in the same vein as kissing you, and I don't like it."

"You're being ridiculous, but you're cute when you're jealous." In fact, he did look adorable, pouting there in his safari jacket and ascot and shorts and knee socks, resembling an overgrown scout. She peered over her shoulder to make sure they were unobserved, then she kissed him on the nose.

A grudging smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. "Who's unprofessional now?"

Twyla laughed. She liked that he was affectionate, even if she wanted him to save that affection for her for off hours.

"How much longer until we don't have to be professional?" he murmured.

"Behave."

Duckers sliced through the romantic mood when he danced up to them—literally danced—singing, "Dragons, dragons, more fucking dragons, oooooh!"

A divot of confusion formed between Quill's eyebrows. "I beg your pardon?"

"There are more dragons on the lake," explained Twyla. "Frank and I saw them this morning. I was just coming to get you."

"This is excellent news! Let me… I shall get my… Wait for me!" He plunged into his tent to grab his notebook and a pencil and other scientific paraphernalia.

Frank joined Twyla and Duckers outside Quill's tent. "He's like a kid on New Year's morning."

Duckers performed a few more dance moves, singing, "More fucking dragons!"

"And you're like a kid on New Year's morning, too."

"I take that as a compliment."

They spent the rest of the morning watching the dragons on the north side of the lake. Frank, riding Saltlicker, led Mary Georgina closer to the group than he had before, but she stuck to her human parent and seemed shy of the others. As far as Twyla could tell, nothing terribly new or exciting was happening—the dragons ate grass and cattails, swam, meeped, pooped—but there was something riveting about the scene all the same, something calming and domestic. She felt at peace, even when her magenta friend from yesterday swam close to her and sniffed her where she sat on the bank.

"Do be careful, darl—Twyla," Quill fretted.

"It's fine. Duckers and I had lunch with her yesterday."

The dragon stretched her long neck across the water and pressed her snout to Twyla's forehead, knocking off her hat. Twyla's heart raced with exhilaration at the touch. The dragon gave her a chirp before swimming to her babies, who were now holding their own in the water.

"Salt Sea, Banneker, you're going to give me a heart attack."

Twyla turned to see Alma Maguire approaching them. "Hi, Chief."

"Don't Hi, Chief me as if you're not over here cavorting with battle dragons. Get away from the water."

"It's okay, Chief. They're purse dogs," said Duckers.

Maguire gave him a nonplussed look before turning to Quill. "What is he talking about?"

"Ah, yes, he is referring to my theory regarding this particular breed of dragon, which I am tentatively calling Draconis tanrias, but I am not comfortable stating it as fact—"

Frank, who by now had ridden ashore with Mary Georgina in tow, insinuated himself into the conversation. "The professor thinks these dragons were created by the Old Gods to be pets, so they're not going to kill us. They're likely to cause more damage wagging their tails."

Quill scowled at the interruption. "Yes, but it is only a theory."

Twyla could have cut the mutual animosity between Frank and Quill with a knife.

Men. Honestly.

A series of playful meeps caught Maguire's attention, and she staggered when she saw what was happening on the water. "There are more of them?"

"Yes, and their interactions are fascinating," said Quill, launching into a lengthy report of his observations since she'd been gone. When he was done, she nodded and addressed the group.

"I came here to check up on things, but I also wanted to let you know, in person, that the Joint Chiefs of the Tanrian Marshals have drafted a report for the Natural Resources and Environment Committee of the Federal Assembly."

"Saying what?" asked Frank, his voice edged with alarm as Mary Georgina climbed onto his back.

"That there are dragons in Tanria. I can't sit on that, Ellis. We're on federal land here, and the government needs to be made aware."

"What are they going to do?"

"I don't know. I'll be passing along Dr. Vanderlinden's recommendation as soon as it's ready. In the meantime, we're under orders to keep this a secret as long as possible. Although, I wonder how long we can pull it off." She said this last part while gazing doubtfully at the increasing dragon population swanning on the lake.

Maguire spent the next two hours with them, watching the newcomers and playing with Mary Georgina while trying to pretend that she wasn't playing with Mary Georgina. She sounded almost reluctant when she said, "I need to go. I'm off for a few days for the wedding. Duckers, I'll see you on Wisdomsday. Banneker, I'll see you on Wardensday. Ellis, do you feel comfortable leaving Mary Georgina here with Vanderlinden overnight? I think it would look odd if you didn't come to the wedding, and I want to raise as little suspicion as possible about anything strange going on in Tanria."

"I had thought I might accompany Twyla to the wedding," said Quill, to the shock of Twyla, who had not invited him.

"But you don't know the people getting married," she said.

"I know you."

Maguire intervened. "I'm sorry to put you out, Dr. Vanderlinden, but Ellis has RSVP'd to the wedding, and the man hasn't left Tanria in two weeks. It would do him good to get a night off. I'm sure you understand."

"Ah." There it was, the ah that said so much, but he caved to Maguire's request. "Yes, naturally, he should go. I shall stay here with our dragon compatriots, then."

Maguire shook his hand. "Much appreciated. Ellis, I hope you enjoy your weekend off. Weddings are always a good time."

"Speak for yourself," he muttered, but Maguire didn't hear him, or if she did, she showed no sign of it. She left them to return to her equimaris, and Quill returned to his dragon study spot. With nothing much to do, the three remaining marshals sat by the lakeshore with Mary Georgina scampering among them.

"What are you doing in the wedding?" Frank asked Duckers.

"I'm Hart's offer-bearer."

"Aw, that's sweet," said Twyla.

"I'm a sweet guy."

"That you are. How are you feeling about… things?" She animated her eyebrows in a way that said I know you're trying to navigate the Zeddie issue without actually saying it aloud, in case he didn't want anyone else to know.

"What's wrong with your eyebrows?"

"I'm being subtle."

"Frank's cool. He can know about what a shit boyfriend I am."

"You're not a shit boyfriend," Twyla and Frank said in unison.

"I need space," Duckers explained to Frank.

"That's understandable. Everyone needs breathing room sometimes, although I'm not the best person to advise anyone on matters of the heart."

"As long as you don't burst into song again, we're good."

Frank looked past Duckers to Twyla. "Did that sound like an invitation to you, darlin'?"

"It sure did."

"No," said Duckers.

"What are we in the mood for?" asked Frank.

"A love song, obviously."

"Please, no," begged Duckers.

Happily ignoring Duckers's protests, Frank launched into a classic. "I've drunk down half the bottle by the quarter chimes of nine."

"Good choice!" cheered Twyla.

"No," whined Duckers, but Frank kept singing.

"You're marrying a good man, but I wish that you were mine."

Twyla joined in with gusto. "I know it's wrong to love you—"

"Fuck, no."

"I'm a scoundrel through and through."

Mary Georgina began to chirp along with the song over Frank's shoulder.

"You hate me for my lawless ways, but bad boys need lovin', too."

"You call this a love song?" demanded Duckers.

Frank paused his singing long enough to comment to Twyla, "He misses the point of this entire genre of music."

"At least Mary Georgina gets it," she said before busting out the refrain, with Frank jumping in.

Dear, I need your lovin',

My heart is warm and true.

Sure, I cuss and fight and gamble,

But bad boys need lovin', too.

Twyla had screwed her eyes shut tight as she belted out the lyrics. When she opened them again, she found that Quill was standing over her, blinking in astonishment. "That was, er, something."

"If by something you mean the worst song ever, then yes, I agree," said Duckers.

"The Bushong classics are an acquired taste," Twyla conceded, embarrassed that Quill had caught her crooning a ridiculous love song at the top of her lungs. What on earth had she been thinking?

At least he hadn't caught Frank calling her darlin' this time.