Chapter Twenty-Two

Twyla had the coordinates marked out on her map of Tanria. It was a location in the far northwestern corner of Sector W-7, deep in the Dragon's Teeth, rugged enough that she had to picket Saltlicker halfway up a rocky incline to make the rest of her way by foot. She was usually confident in her orienteering skills, but with Frank's life on the line and her watch quickly ticking toward five o'clock, she was getting nervous enough to be sick to her stomach.

That sick feeling wasn't helped when a man stepped out from behind a boulder, pistol crossbow in hand. A black kerchief hid most of his face.

Twyla put her hands up and prayed that Duckers wasn't far behind her.

"I'll take any weapons you have," the man told her.

"You said to come unarmed."

"That doesn't mean you did."

He kept his pistol crossbow trained on her with one hand and searched her with the other. When he was satisfied that she had no weapons, he tied her wrists together and pushed her through a landscape increasingly shrouded by scrub. Twyla had worked Sector W-7 several times over the years, but she hadn't come this way often. The terrain was treacherous, and since equimares struggled to navigate the landscape, it wasn't an area the marshals patrolled heavily. The logic was that if a marshal struggled to get somewhere in Tanria, a criminal would have an even tougher time.

Apparently not, thought Twyla as the man shoved her into a shepherd's hut she hadn't known existed. It was a two-room shack built at the base of a steep rock face, cobbled together by the sheep shearers who came to the mountains to harvest blue silksheep wool from time to time. It would have been a poor shelter in the days when the undead drudges infested Tanria, a place where a person could be easily trapped with no exit, but the smoke stains on the walls and the detritus of empty cans and bottles indicated years of use.

The main room was dimly lit by one lantern, illuminating Frank, who knelt near the far wall with his hands bound behind his back. His face was bloodied and bruised, and Twyla thought that whoever had done this to him might as well beat her own heart to a pulp. His left eye was swollen shut, but in his right eye, Twyla saw raw agony.

"Gods, no. Twy, why did you come?" he said in a voice made gravelly with pain and exhaustion and terror for what they might do to her now that she was here with him.

"As if I wouldn't come. As if you wouldn't come if it were me." She made to cross the room to him, but the goon held her in place.

"Oh, good, you got my note," said a very sweet and very familiar voice from the doorway to the second room. Disbelieving her ears, Twyla squinted until the speaker came into focus, at which point she was forced to disbelieve her eyes.

"Hermia?"

"Hello," said the nimkilim, stepping into the lantern light with a meek wave.

"You sent me the ransom note?"

"I did, and do you know how hard it was to cut out all those letters? The scissors barely fit in my tiny hedgehog hands. I ended up using a pair of nail trimmers, and goodness gracious, it took me ages."

Twyla gawped at the adorable hedgehog with her adorable glasses and her adorable sweater and her adorable blue rain boots with the adorable little clouds on them, and she could not, for the life of her, comprehend what in the name of the Unknown God was going on in this shack. She hoped Quill had found Maguire, and she hoped Maguire would come up with some way to rescue Frank—and also herself, now that she was thinking on it. She was in the process of hoping that Duckers was nearby and ready to help if she needed it when two more goons showed up, one of them holding a full-sized crossbow, the other collaring Duckers into the shelter.

"The lady brought a friend with her," a masked woman holding Duckers's confiscated crossbow informed Hermia. "We probably wouldn't have seen him, but he had this giant weapon that made him easy to spot."

"What did you think you were going to do with a full-sized crossbow in this situation?" an irritated Twyla demanded of her young partner.

"You said ‘armed to the teeth'! A full-sized crossbow is as toothy as it gets!"

"I meant the normal stuff! Like pistol crossbows!"

Duckers finally noticed Frank. "Dang, Frank, are you okay?"

"Been better."

"Hello-o-o? Excuse me?" Hermia waved her tiny little hand, which was too small for regular scissors but evidently large enough to carry out criminal activities inside Tanria. "Can we get back to the part where I make my demands, please?"

"Hermia, what is going on here?" asked Twyla.

"Well, I was working with Marshal Herd to smuggle illegally mined iuvenicite out of Tanria in my magical mail pouch for the Galatian mob. But then the illegal miners accidentally woke up the dragons with their illegal fireworks that didn't even work on the rocks they were trying to illegally blow up. And then Marshal Herd died, and the FICBI joined forces with the Tanrian Marshals to bust the iuvenicite crime ring, and where does that leave me?"

"That's… specific," commented Frank.

Duckers shook his head in denial. "Am I seriously going to have to listen to the villain speech of a hedgehog before I die?"

"This is how Frank and I ended up with bombs under our beds," said Twyla, addressing the traitorous nimkilim. "You knew we found the illegal mine, and you told the mob."

"True," said Hermia with a cute little pout. "Sad face!"

Duckers was still deep in his feelings. "I broke Zeddie's heart for this?" he said.

"It was the right thing to do," Twyla assured him, cold comfort though it was.

Hermia held up her increasingly not adorable hand again. "Sorry to interrupt, but I'm having a moment here."

"What do you want with us?" asked Twyla.

"I'm glad you asked. You've always been so thoughtful, Marshal Banneker. Here's my dilemma. I lost my illegal iuvenicite-smuggling operation, but now another Galatian mob family wants in. I convinced them that a real live baby dragon would be worth a whole lot more than a bunch of rocks someone would have to go to the trouble of mining. But now they want me to get it for them. I can't steal a dragon." She held up her tiny hands as evidence. "And even if I could kidnap a baby dragon, or even an egg, I wouldn't be able to sneak it out of Tanria in my pouch, because we nimkilim can't carry living material in our satchels. And these nice mob people wouldn't be able to catch a baby dragon, because the dragon mommies would attack them. So then I thought of Marshal Ellis, since he's already friends with a baby dragon, and it would be no problem for him to bring her to us. I invited him to join us here in Sector W-7—"

"You carjacked me outside of Callaghan's General Store," Frank corrected her.

"—but he's being super mean about the whole thing, to be honest."

"Go to Old Hell," Frank spat at the nimkilim. One of the mobsters punched him in the stomach.

"Oh dear!" exclaimed Hermia. "But really, you only have yourself to blame for that, Marshal Ellis."

"Leave him alone!" shouted Twyla.

"I'm afraid I can't do that. Since he won't bring me the baby dragon, I need to hold him hostage so that you can get it for me."

"Or what? You'll kill him?"

"Goodness gracious, no! I wouldn't hurt a fly." Hermia gestured toward the goons. "They'll kill him."

One of the mobsters held up a hand in greeting. "Hiya."

"Don't do it, Twy," Frank begged her, and was rewarded with another punch to the face.

"Okay! Okay! Stop hurting him! I'll get you the dragon," said Twyla.

"No!" cried Frank, but Twyla paid no attention to his protest. She wasn't going to let these goons use him as their punching bag. She decided the best tactic was to agree to the demands but delay as much as possible to give Maguire more time to find them.

"Hermia, why would you do this?" she asked the nimkilim. "What could you possibly stand to gain?"

"Lulu's Grape Fizzy."

A long, heavy pause followed this answer as Twyla tried to make the pieces of the iuvenicite puzzle fall into place.

"What?" she asked completely at a loss.

"It's impossible to find anywhere on the entire island of Bushong! No one around here carries it. My old mob friends kept me supplied with Lulu's Grape Fizzy for months, and all I had to do was smuggle some rocks out of the Mist. But my new mob friends said that if I give them a dragon, they can get me a job delivering Lulu's Grape Fizzy throughout the Federated Islands of Cadmus, and I will have all the Lulu's Grape Fizzy I want!" She clapped her cute little hands with giddy excitement.

"Lulu's Grape Fizzy?" asked Twyla, barely able to form the ridiculous words on her tongue.

"I love it so much."

"The Galatian mob is bribing you with soda pop?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" asked Duckers.

Twyla wished her hands weren't bound, so that she could rub away the enormous headache forming at her temples. "I want to make sure I understand you correctly: You betrayed the Tanrian Marshals and the Eternal Order of the Nimkilim for grape soda?"

Hermia, noting the disapproval in Twyla's voice, put her little hands on the approximate location of her little hips. "Have you ever had a Lulu's Grape Fizzy?"

"No."

"Then maybe you shouldn't be so quick to judge."

The goon guarding Twyla jostled her and asked the nimkilim, "Are we killing someone here or not?"

"Salt fucking Sea," said Duckers, "I can't believe that I'm going to die because of Lulu's Grape Fizzy."

Time was running out, and Twyla knew it. Her mind whirred, forming a new plan. "If I get a baby dragon for you, you'll let us go?"

"As long as you don't turn me in for breaking every postal code imaginable. But if you do, I'm afraid that my new friends in the Galatian mob will kill you until you're very dead."

"I think there's only one kind of dead."

"And I don't want to be that kind of dead," added Duckers.

One of the mobsters grabbed Frank by his collar and held a pistol crossbow to his head, making Twyla's heart stop. He looked her dead in the eye. "Are you getting the fucking dragon or not?"

"Yes! I'm going!"

"Twy, it's not worth it," Frank pleaded with her.

Twyla had no intention of declaring her love for Frank in front of four mobsters and a villainous hedgehog, but there was no way she was leaving him without making sure he knew what he meant to her. "You're worth it," she told him.

He closed his good eye, his face painted with pain and regret.

"I'll get you your dragon," she announced as she held up her arms to be cut loose of her bonds.

Hermia slapped her hands on her sweet hedgehog cheeks. "Oopsies! I forgot to mention: You have one hour. If you're not back by then, someone who is not me will kill your friends, all right?"

Twyla had to bite her lip for a few seconds to stop herself from saying all the things she wanted to say to this hedgehog. Her anger wouldn't help Frank or Duckers. She took a calming breath and said, "Goodbye."

"Okay, bye," answered Hermia.

"Bye," said a couple of the mobsters.

"Bye," Hermia said again.

Duckers gave Twyla a knowing wink and said, "Bye, Twyla. Good luck."

"Bye," Hermia said yet again.

Twyla left the shack before she was subjected to any more goodbyes from that fucking hedgehog.

She lost ten minutes simply returning to the place where she had left Saltlicker. "Giddyup!" Twyla hollered at the equimaris as soon as she was situated in the saddle, and then she held on for dear life as the stallion took her at her word. As she raced toward Sector W-14 on the back of a mount that was far too large for her, Twyla found herself questioning her life choices. But there was nothing for it now. She had pushed the metaphorical rock, and now it was rolling down the metaphorical hill.

Twyla had hoped to reach the lake before the dragons made their evening sojourn to their nests, but as soon as she arrived on the lakeshore, they began to take off in groups of twos and threes, the mothers with their babies clinging to them.

"No, no, no," she groaned as she dismounted and took the trouble to tie Saltlicker up extra carefully. She didn't need to lose her equimaris now, and Saltlicker had a reputation for pulling free of his pickets and heading for the nearest body of water. She'd never catch him if he got into the lake.

She spotted Mary Georgina meeping inconsolably between two of the scientists Quill had brought in.

"I know the feeling, honey," Twyla told her as she approached.

Mary Georgina perked up at the sight of her and came to nuzzle her hand.

Chirrup? she chirped in a hopeful, questioning tone, and Twyla knew what she was asking.

"He's not with me." Her voice cracked at the end, and she had to rein in the tears before the scientists noticed.

"Can we help you, Marshal?" asked the zoologist, a blond woman dressed similarly to Quill, but with longer shorts and higher knee socks. And no ascot.

"I'm Twyla Banneker, one of the marshals of record on the dragon case. I need to do a quick check-in. Have they all flown back to the nest for the day?"

"I'm afraid so, all except this one. We think she was the one who imprinted on a marshal."

"Yes, she imprinted on my partner."

"Is your partner here with you?" The botanist glanced over Twyla's shoulder, as if he anticipated the arrival of the marshal who could soothe the pitiful baby dragon.

No, he's not here with me. He's tied up in a shepherd's hut, and he might die if I don't save him. Obviously, Twyla couldn't say that, but since thinking it made her want to sob, she simply shook her head.

"She never goes to the nest, but she seems so forlorn here at the lake once the other dragons leave."

Twyla regarded the small pink dragon who peered up at her with innocent green eyes. Theoretically, she understood that she could trade this life for Frank's, but she knew she could never go through with it, and it wouldn't matter, because Frank would never forgive her if she did. And that left her with her half-formed plan, which ran a high risk of not working.

And which was now running horribly behind schedule.

She crouched down and hugged Mary Georgina, who nuzzled her snout into Twyla's neck. "I'll save him," she whispered. "I promise I will."

She stood and told the scientists "I have to go" before dashing to Saltlicker. As soon as she untied his reins, he fought her, trying to get to the lake when she needed him to go the opposite direction.

The stallion had picked the wrong day to mess with Twyla. She got in his face and seethed. "Frank loves you for no reason I can think of, and if he dies because you decided to be a jerk today, I'm going to turn you into a pair of boots. Is that clear?"

Saltlicker snorted and shrank away from her. Docile as a lamb, he let her mount up without complaint. Twyla heaved herself into the saddle and growled, "Let's go."

And go he did. Twyla was so worried about being hurled out of the saddle that it took her some time to notice a pink blur off to the side. She dared to glance over her shoulder to find Mary Georgina flying beside her and Saltlicker, the scientists left far behind. It was another complication in an already complicated plan, and Twyla allowed herself a good deal of cursing, much good it did her.

Since Mary Georgina was new to flying, Twyla hoped she might lose the dragon en route. But no, Frank's baby stuck with her all the way to the mine, where several federal agents were milling around, looking both official and completely out of place in their dark blue jackets with FICBI printed on the back in yellow letters. Standing amid them was Marshal Rosie Fox. The towering, redheaded demigod regarded Twyla's arrival unperturbedly with ruby-red eyes, her appearance so striking that she was the only person present who looked like she actually belonged in the bizarre otherworld of Tanria.

"Hey, Banneker," Fox greeted her, coming to take Saltlicker's reins. "What's the rush?"

Before Twyla could answer, Fox added, "I see you brought a friend."

Mary Georgina landed beside Twyla in a graceless tumble. "Why?" Banneker asked the dragon in a long, beseeching syllable.

Fox, who was one of those aggressively chummy people, slapped Twyla's arm in a bruising gesture meant to be friendly. "Guess you've got to ride like the old God of Vengeance is on your tail to fly with a dragon, huh?"

By now, the FICBI agents had gathered around Twyla and Fox, making polite but stern statements about how Twyla wasn't allowed to be here.

"Mrs. Banneker?" came one incredulous voice from that crowd.

"Nathan! Or, I guess, Agent McDevitt now," said Twyla.

He flourished his FICBI badge to show off. Nathan McDevitt had been a sheriff's deputy in Eternity before leaving Bushong for a career with the Federated Islands of Cadmus's Bureau of Investigation. He had also been friends with Wade when they were kids. Part of her wondered if she could use the acquaintance to her advantage here, and part of her wanted to throw him over her knee and spank him for calling her Mrs. in the middle of Sector W-14.

"It's Marshal Banneker," she reminded him as she reached out to shake his hand, the picture of professionalism. She wondered if it flashed across his mind that she made a lot more money than he did. That fact certainly flashed across her own mind.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, and all of a sudden, she was grateful for Mary Georgina's presence.

"Frank Ellis and I have been assigned to the dragon case from the get-go. I'm escorting this young one into the nest."

"You know, it's not safe to go down there, especially when the mothers are in residence."

"I've already been down there while the mothers were in residence. We were the ones who blew open the FICBI smuggling case in the first place."

Another FICBI agent stepped forward, his eyes hidden behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses. "We can't let unauthorized persons into the habitat, ma'am."

"Excuse me?"

"I—"

"I'm a Tanrian Marshal standing on Tanrian soil. I am authorized."

"Oh, I like you, Banneker," said Fox.

Nathan McDevitt turned to his colleague. "It's fine. I went to school with Mrs. Banneker's son, and I can tell you that she is more likely to bring cookies to the temple bake sale than to cause any trouble. Let her go."

Twyla didn't correct him on her title. For once in her life, her invisibility as a middle-aged mother was working in her favor, and she wasn't about to blow it out of pride, no matter how sorely tempted she was to box Nathan McDevitt's ears.

"I don't think—" began Agent Sunglasses, when Rosie Fox intervened.

"I'll go in with her."

"It's dangerous."

"My dude. I literally cannot die. Come on, Banneker."

The marshals did not wait for approval. They descended into the cave, Twyla first, then Fox. Twyla gazed up at the opening and said, "Don't fail me now, Mary Georgina." She gave a sharp whistle, and the dragon's head appeared at the entrance. "Come on, girl."

The skittish baby tentatively lowered her head into the hole.

"You are my cover," Twyla whispered up at her. "We're saving Frank. Now come on."

"Wait, what?" asked Fox.

Mary Georgina took the plunge, landing on the cave floor in another clumsy tumble.

"Is something wrong with Ellis?" pressed Fox as she lit a lantern.

Twyla was already in the tunnel that led to the nests. "Yeah. I need a ride."

Fox hustled after her to light the way. "Why not take Saltlicker?"

"Not that kind of ride."

There was an ominous pause as Fox put two and two together.

"Oh, shit," she laughed, and Twyla sent a prayer of gratitude to the Bride of Fortune for putting Marshal Fox on her side. If anyone would approve of Twyla's outlandish plan, it was notorious troublemaker Rosie Fox.

"I'm in. How are we playing this?" asked the demigod, 100 percent game, gods love her.

"I wish I could tell you that I've thought through everything, but I haven't."

"Best way to go. Act first. Think never. Always works for me."

Twyla decided not to point out the fact that being immortal probably made that approach work far better for her than for people who ran a high risk of dying in dangerous situations.

By now, they'd arrived at the nest of the mother dragon who seemed to have taken a liking to Twyla, or at least to her mom-ness. The dragon lifted her head as Twyla approached, her mate and babies curled in a heap around her.

"Hi, there," said Twyla. In any other circumstance, she would have felt silly or terrified or both. Then again, how often would she need to save Frank from a diabolical hedgehog by communicating with a giant pink reptile? "I know I'm not a god—not by any stretch of the imagination. I'm not even a demigod. But Frank—you know Frank, about this high, deep voice, very pro-dragon—he needs our help. He needs your help, specifically, and since he's done so much to keep you all safe, I thought you might be willing to… um…"

She was talking to an animal.

An animal that was blinking her glowing green eyes at her, displaying no understanding at all.

"Not to be a dick, but I'm pretty sure she doesn't understand a word you're saying," commented Rosie unhelpfully.

"If you have any other suggestions as to how I might lure a full-grown dragon out of her nest, I'm all ears."

As if in answer, the mother dragon leaned her head out of the alcove and nudged Twyla's hand, the way a dog might force a person to pet it. She acquiesced, stroking the dragon between the antlers. The dragon made a chirrupy sound and turned her head so that Twyla's hand ran along one of her horns. To Twyla's amazement, the protrusion wasn't bony or rigid. It was soft and pliable, bending under her fingers with ease, the soft peachy fur plush against her skin.

The strangest sensation came over Twyla, a deep calm, a tranquility that came not from within but from the outside. From the dragon.

Twyla kept her hand on the soft, silky antler as she closed her eyes and tried to convey what she needed to her huge reptilian ally.

Mary Georgina rubbed against Twyla's hip, reminding her of her presence. The mother sniffed Mary Georgina, then gently nudged her along until the baby was in her nest, settling beside the other offspring. The father dragon opened one eye and released an annoyed Meep, but the mother told him Meep meep in a way that sounded, to Twyla's untrained ears, akin to Deal with it.

"Oh, I like her, too," said Rosie.

The dragon uncurled herself from the nest and bustled past Twyla and Rosie, heading for the main entrance. The two women looked at each other, then scrambled to catch up. There were shouts of alarm coming from the FICBI agents aboveground as the marshals climbed the ladder. When they surfaced, they found the agents shying away from the dragon, with pistol crossbows drawn.

"Put those away. Y'all don't know how to shoot them anyway," Fox told them, her voice dripping with derision. "Okay, Banneker, do or die."

Twyla wasn't fond of Fox's choice of words, but beggars couldn't be choosers, and she was glad for whatever help she could get.

The dragon crouched low as Twyla approached, to a chorus of FICBI agents calling, "Ma'am! Ma'am, step away from the dragon!"

"Please don't kill me," Twyla mewled as she hoisted herself onto the crook of the dragon's front leg, then hauled herself onto its back. She settled into the depression where neck met shoulder blades as if it were a seat made for her.

"Ope!" she cried when the dragon stood to her full height. The creature extended its antlers toward her, and Twyla, not needing to be told twice, took them in her hands and gripped for all she was worth.

The FICBI agents were shouting to beat all now.

"Whatever you're planning to do, Banneker, do it fast," warned Fox, one hand on the pistol crossbow in her holster.

Twyla had no earthly idea what she was doing, but she did her best to communicate her thoughts to the dragon via the sensitive fur of the creature's antlers. The dragon began to trot, then run, then gallop, gaining speed quickly across the rocky plain as Twyla's hat blew off her head.

"Oh shit!" cried Twyla. "O-o-oh shit! O-O-OH SHI-I-I-I-IT!"

FICBI agents dove out of the way as the dragon took flight with Twyla screaming on her back.

A profound confidence pulsed through the creature's antlers, up Twyla's arms, deep into her heart, and along with it, a certain sense of irreverent fun. Twyla suspected that if the dragon could speak, it would have hollered a Duckers-esque Fuck yeah!

"I don't know how to steer," Twyla shouted over the wind. "That way! Go that way! There's a good dragon!" Doing her best to not look down, she sent directions through the fuzzy, squishy antlers, and the dragon veered toward the shepherd's hut.

The shack came into view in the distance, so small and insignificant from this dizzying angle, and yet there was nothing bigger or more important in the world to her than what was going on in there at this moment.

Twyla wished she had, perhaps, come up with a more detailed plan of action. Instead, she wound up conveying a heaping portion of creative license to the dragon, who once again pulsed a raucous sense of having an excellent time through her antlers. Incoherent screaming was all Twyla could manage as her scaly mount took a nosedive straight at the hut. She closed her eyes and screamed even louder when she thought they were going to go crashing through the janky roof and crush everyone inside. Instead, her stomach swooped as the dragon flew upward once more. Twyla opened her eyes in time for her mount to wing toward the shack at an angle so sharp, she thought she might slide off, but the dragon's shoulder blade heaved upward, keeping her from plummeting to the earth. Now she could see that the dragon had torn the roof off the hut, leaving everyone inside exposed.

"Fuck yeah! Go, Twyla!" cheered Duckers, lifting his bound fists as high as he could.

The dragon turned about again and came in low, landing in a graceful run.

"Ope! Good dragon! Shit!" cried Twyla as the dragon trotted straight for the shack, rattling every bone in Twyla's body. The creature spun at the last minute and used the momentum to swipe through the flimsy walls of the shepherd's hut with her long tail, sending two sides crashing to the ground and making Twyla dizzy enough to see stars.

The diminutive yet deadly arrows of four pistol crossbows began to fly in their direction, but they bounced ineffectually off the dragon's rosy scales. Through the dragon's expressive antlers, Twyla sensed that her mom friend was now seriously pissed off.

Meep-meep-meep-meep-meep!

Twyla recognized the sound, and judging by the way both Frank and Duckers dove for cover, they recognized this particular call, too.

"Oh dear," said Hermia, rolling into a prickly ball a half second before the dragon let loose a thick stream of sparkly, slimy saliva, directing the spray at the nimkilim and her henchmen while keeping it away from Frank and Duckers. The rookie, catching on to the dragon's tactic, lunged for the nearest goon's holstered knife, held the handle between his knees, and began to saw at the rope binding his wrists.

With one last heave of slime, the dragon sent Hermia rolling across the floor toward Frank, at which point she stopped breathing glitter and started picking off the mobsters one by one. While she didn't have the sharp teeth of the battle dragons, she was big enough and strong enough to pick up a grown man in her mouth and toss him several feet to the side. Of the four mobsters in Hermia's company, two ran away in terror as soon as they could get up, one wallowed on the ground, crying in pain, and one huddled behind a flimsy chair, cowering in fear.

Twyla sighed heavily at him, wearing her best I am so disappointed in you face.

"What's your name, sweetie?" she asked.

"Alfie," he answered meekly.

"Alfie, you seem like a decent young man."

"I am! I swear I am! Please don't let that thing kill me!"

"It seems to me you've made a few bad choices somewhere along the way. Would you agree?"

"Yes," Alfie admitted in a watery voice.

"I know you're better than this. What would your mother say if she could see you right now?"

That pushed him over the edge. Alfie burst into tears and held up his hands in surrender.

"Dang, Banneker, that Mom Guilt is impressive," Duckers commented as he bound Alfie's hands together with the rope he'd cut away from his own wrists.

Frank managed to hoist himself onto his knees. Twyla was about to dismount to go to his aid, when Hermia uncurled herself at Frank's side and held a pistol crossbow to his temple. Gold glitter oozed over her spines, her Fair Isle sweater drooped low with the weight of dragon spit, and her glasses were fogged and sat crookedly on her button nose, and yet Twyla had never feared anyone as much as she feared this cute hedgehog who threatened Frank's life.

"Excuse me!" she squeaked. "Tell your pet to stand down, or Marshal Ellis gets it in the noodle!"

Twyla put her own hands in the air, releasing her connection to the dragon. "I thought you said you wouldn't hurt a fly."

"That was before you came in here with a nonbaby dragon and messed up my Grape Fizzy dreams!" She stomped her tiny hedgehog foot in its now sparkly gold boot for emphasis.

Frank began to cough, his head bent. And then Twyla realized he wasn't coughing at all; he was laughing. He lifted his head to gaze up at her, his good eye sparkling with amusement and mischief.

"Aw, darlin', if you sitting on that dragon is the last thing I clap my eyes on in this world before I sail the Salt Sea, I'm a lucky man."

He threw his shoulder against the nimkilim, knocking her off balance.

"Oh my goodness gracious!" cried Hermia.

The next five seconds passed incomprehensibly slowly from Twyla's perspective. Hermia pulled the trigger. The arrow blazed a two-inch trail along the top of Frank's scalp before it sailed past him. Duckers grabbed the nearest unglittered weapon he could find—the full-sized crossbow. He hoisted it to his hip, pulled the string into the nut, and took aim at the nimkilim.

Hermia made a run for it, bounding out of what remained of the hut and dashing for the cover of some nearby trees.

"Don't kill her!" Twyla shouted at Duckers, forgetting that the nimkilim were immortal.

"I got this," said Duckers. He pulled the trigger, sending the bolt into Hermia's mail satchel.

"Oh my goodness gracious sakes!" said Hermia as the force of the bolt carried her satchel—and her along with it—to the nearest tree. The arrowhead sank into the wood, leaving the mailbag and the hedgehog dangling several feet off the ground. Letters poured out of the bag, followed by the purple stream of an opened bottle of Lulu's Grape Fizzy.

"Shit, I messed up the mail," said Duckers.

"As if she was going to deliver those letters to the right place without setting them on fire or feeding them to a llama by accident," said Frank before slumping against one of the remaining walls.

"Frank!" Twyla nearly slid off the dragon's back before realizing that she could not simply slide off without tumbling to her doom. Duckers moved toward Frank, but Twyla told him, "No. I'll take care of him. You make sure that twerpy hedgehog doesn't go anywhere."

"That wasn't a very nice thing to say," commented Hermia as she swung from the satchel strap.

The dragon leaned its antlers toward Twyla again. Twyla grasped them and begged her pink companion to help her dismount. This involved sliding down the creature's neck, an act that Duckers no doubt would have found to be a lark but that proved to be fairly awkward and undignified for a fifty-three-year-old woman. Eventually, her feet hit the blessed earth, and she stumbled to Frank on unsteady feet. As soon as she had cut him free, she cupped his cheek with her hand to get a good look at his face.

He put his hand over hers. "I'm sorry to get you mixed up in this mess."

"Shut up, you dolt! You're alive!"

She threw her arms around him and hugged him, making him grunt in pain.

"Ope, sorry!" She let go of him to study his battered face.

"I'm all right."

"You don't look all right."

The scuffle of boots on the rocky terrain announced the arrival of Alma Maguire, a team of armed marshals, and Dr. Quill Vanderlinden panting closely behind.

"The area's secure, Chief," called Duckers as the marshals fanned out, a couple covering the fallen mobsters, a couple helping Duckers keep an eye on the nimkilim, and a couple more eyeing the dragon warily.

"She won't hurt you," Twyla assured the latter two, but they didn't look convinced.

Maguire walked toward the hut, unable to mask her growing bewilderment as she took in the scene.

"What in the Salt Sea happened here? And why is Hermia dangling from a tree?"

Duckers jerked his thumb at the hedgehog. "Turns out she's the bad guy."

"What?"

"Hermia was the go-between in the illegal mining operation," explained Twyla. "She was working with Herd to smuggle iuvenicite out of Tanria in her magical mailbag. The mob paid her in grape soda, and when the FICBI took down the crime ring, she hit up another mob family to see if they'd give her more grape soda if she could deliver an actual dragon instead."

"And I would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for you meddling marshals and that pesky dragon," cried Hermia from the tree.

Maguire pinched the bridge of her nose. "Ellis, are you okay?"

"Yeah."

"No," Twyla answered for him. "Permission to get him to the infirmary, Chief?"

"Granted."

"We'll have to borrow a couple of equimares."

"How did you get here so fast without an equimaris?"

Twyla glanced at the dragon.

Maguire pinched the bridge of her nose harder. "There is not enough aspirin in the world for this. Go. Both of you. On equimarisback."

A loud gurgle came from over the ridge, followed by the equimaris who had made it, a hulk of a stallion, clambering his way into the crime scene. The beast shook out his seaweed mane and slapped one of his front feet on the ground as if to say, I can't believe you assholes left me out of this.

"Guess I'll take Saltlicker," said Frank. Judging by the shape he was in, he was going to need help getting into the saddle.

Quill sat on a nearby boulder and mopped his sweating face with his dapper pocket square. "Thank gods it's over. Tweed is not the ideal fabric to be wearing in these rugged environs."

"Short-shorts are way better," agreed Duckers.

Suddenly, the crossbow bolt pinning the nimkilim's satchel to the tree pulled free of the trunk.

"Oopsie-doozles!" cried Hermia as she splatted into the puddle of mail and Lulu's Grape Fizzy below.