Chapter Five

The following morning, Twyla sat at the table with Frank to help him mop the golden shimmer off his face and hair and hands. Sparkles had buried themselves in the lines and grooves of his face, making him appear older than he was, and his eyes were extra hound-doggish.

"Thanks, darlin'," he said, managing a rueful grin that made Twyla's heart lurch. They'd seen each other raw and bruised countless times on the job, but the unguarded affection with which Frank regarded her now inspired that bewildering agitation within her to spike and flare. Twyla sent up another prayer of thanks to the Bride of Fortune that he was alive and seemingly well, and she snuffed out the disconcerting ripple in her rib cage with a joke.

"Look on the bright side. This is definitely going to get us out of the Marshals in the Community thing at Wisdom's Acres later this month."

"It's the little things."

When the distant gurgle of an equimaris heralded Maguire's arrival, Twyla and Duckers left Frank at the table to go outside and greet their boss.

As expected, Maguire had company, the expert she had notified them she was bringing. As the riders came into view, Twyla could see that the man wore a slouch hat, a khaki jacket cinched at the waist, a navy-blue scarf tied neatly at his throat, knee-high camping socks, and—the coup de grace of the entire ensemble—a pair of khaki shorts that showed off several inches of bare masculine thighs.

Twyla marveled at the man's remarkable appearance. "Is that our expert?"

"And, more importantly, is he on safari?" asked Duckers.

"Don't you dare make me laugh."

"Those are the shortest shorts I have ever seen. I didn't know they made shorts that short."

"They're not that short."

"Short-shorts for thick thighs!" Duckers's voiced cracked with hilarity. "Now, there's a man who should be covered in glitter."

"Gods, I think he's wearing an ascot."

"You said ass!"

Twyla fought back a laugh. "Whoever he is, at least he can ride."

This would prove helpful in Tanria, where New Gods technology didn't work. With the growing predominance of autoducks on land and sea, at least half of all islanders under the age of fifty had never ridden a water horse in their lives.

Maguire and the human spectacle she brought with her dismounted and walked the last few paces to meet the marshals in front of the barracks.

"Banneker, Duckers, good morning. Let me introduce you to Dr. Quill Vanderlinden. He's a dracologist with the University of Quindaro. He should be able to shed some light on our situation."

Quindaro was the premier university of the Federated Islands of Cadmus, and mere mention of the institution made Twyla, who had only a high school diploma to her name, quail on the inside. The competition to get into Quindaro was fierce. She couldn't imagine how smart you'd have to be to work there.

Maguire continued the introductions. "Dr. Vanderlinden, these are Marshals Twyla Banneker and Penrose Duckers."

"Excellent." Dr. Vanderlinden shook their hands in turn, reiterating each of their names in the smooth syllables of the very wealthy and highly educated. "Marshal Duckers. Marshal Banneker."

Even his handshake is posh, Twyla thought, noting the man's expensive wristwatch (which surely didn't work inside the Mist) as the strength and heft of his hand hugged hers. He appeared to be in his fifties, with the weathered face of a man who had spent time out of doors. His neatly trimmed beard was more gray than not, but a lock of hair curling at the nape of his neck hinted at a head of light brown hair under his slouch hat. He was not an obviously good-looking man, but self-assurance wafted from him like a spicy cologne, and the heat of his confident grasp crawled up Twyla's arm, all the way to her neck and then her face. She could feel herself go unflatteringly pink and blotchy and was, therefore, relieved when he relinquished her hand.

"This is all very exciting, but I don't want to get your hopes up—or mine—so I do feel that I ought to be honest with you up front," he told them in that resonant, plummy voice. "There are no known depositories of dragon fossils or prints on the island of Bushong that we know of. The climate simply wasn't amenable to dragons at the time, and so we tend to find their fossils in the northernmost islands and in parts of the continents. But then, one dares to hope that, perhaps, the Old Gods brought a handful of their battle dragons with them to their prison here on earth. I'm happy to take a look at this print you have found. No need to feel sheepish."

"Dang," Duckers whispered to Twyla, who was also taken aback by the man's lack of understanding of the situation.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Vanderlinden. You think we found a fossilized print?"

"I assume so, yes. Unless you've found a live dragon thousands of years after their extinction." He chortled the chortle of a man who assumed everyone was in on the joke. Twyla turned a questioning glance toward Chief Maguire.

"I may have been skimpy on the details for security purposes. Where's Ellis?"

"This should be fun," muttered Duckers.

"Is something the matter?"

Twyla valiantly kept a grimace from taking over her face. "You'd better come inside. There have been a few developments in the case since the last time we saw you. Dr. Vanderlinden, if you could wait for us here?"

"Er—"

"Great. Thank you." Twyla gave the professor a fake smile and a truly cringeworthy thumbs-up before she ushered Maguire into the barracks with Duckers bringing up the rear.

"Close the door!" Twyla hissed at him, and he fumbled to obey, slamming the splintery wood shut in Dr. Vanderlinden's face as the man sputtered, "I say, what—"

Frank stood at the stove, pouring himself a cup of coffee. He turned at the sound of their entrance, giving Alma Maguire a good look at the semi-glitter-coated veteran with a pink winged lizard clinging to his front. He raised his mug in greeting. "Hey, Chief."

Maguire stared at him, her face devoid of expression. Twyla wasn't sure she was breathing. After the silence stretched on for several uncomfortable seconds, Frank said, "Long story. Got a minute?"

"Mother of Sorrows, have mercy." Maguire went to the table, pulled out a chair, and collapsed onto the seat. She let her forehead smack the tabletop, and her hands came up to cup the back of her head as if she were taking shelter from a tornado.

"Uh, Chief? You good?" asked Duckers.

"Do I look good?"

"That sounds like a trick question," Duckers told Twyla, who set a freshly poured cup of coffee at her boss's elbow.

"Cream or sugar?" she offered.

"Whiskey."

Duckers coughed in alarm. "No, ma'am, no alcohol on these premises."

Maguire sat up in her chair and leveled him with a piercing glare. "You apprenticed under Hart Ralston, so don't tell me you don't have whiskey."

Duckers's shoulders drooped. "Coming right up."

"Any word from the FICBI labs on what this glittery stuff is?" Frank asked as Duckers dumped a generous glug of whiskey into his boss's mug.

"No, but it looks like it's not lethal, thank the Bride of Fortune."

There was a light rap at the door. "Hallo?"

"May as well let him come in," Alma said resignedly.

Upon hearing this, Duckers poured a dollop into his own mug and made an offering gesture to Frank.

"No, thanks."

"You haven't seen the man's ass-cot yet."

Frank tilted his head in confusion as Twyla opened the door and gestured for the dracologist in safari attire to come inside.

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting. Come on in."

"Thank you." Dr. Vanderlinden doffed his slouch hat as he stepped into the barracks, revealing an expensive haircut, barely going gray at the temples. Frank, Duckers, and even Maguire raised their mugs in a gloomy greeting.

Twyla stepped in to make the introductions since Maguire didn't seem inclined. "Dr. Vanderlinden, this is my partner, Marshal Frank Ellis. Frank, this is Dr. Quill Vanderlinden. He's a dracologist from the University of Quindaro."

The professor squinted at the pink baby clinging to Frank's midsection, and then he froze, save for the rapid blinking of his eyes.

Frank extended his hand, revealing patches of gold sparkles that Twyla had yet to scrub off. "Nice to meet you."

Dr. Vanderlinden continued to gawp at the little dragon as he absently shook Frank's hand.

"Can I offer you some coffee?" asked Twyla.

The professor could not tear his eyes from the creature that continued to cling to Frank for dear life. "May I ask… what is that?"

"Baby dragon," said Duckers. "Latched on to Frank last night."

"Ah."

A pregnant pause filled the room.

"Yes. Yes, of course. I see," said Dr. Vanderlinden.

And then he passed out.

Twyla continued to help Frank get himself cleaned up while Maguire and Duckers tended to Dr. Vanderlinden. The professor was sitting up on one of the cots, holding an ice pack to the back of his head.

"I feel like I should avert my eyes from all that leg," Frank observed, pitching his voice extra low to make sure he wasn't overheard.

"Don't you start. Duckers has already had a field day. I mean, Pen. You're right. I can't not call him Duckers."

"First Pen, now Quill. We're surrounded by writing implements."

"I'm going to start calling you Pencil."

"Pencil? Are you casting aspersions on my manhood?"

"Hey now, if I can't make pie jokes, you don't get to make dick jokes."

"Fair enough, Chalk."

"I think I'm more of a Crayon."

She was glad to banter with Frank again. It lent an air of normalcy to the interaction, even if nothing about the current situation could be considered normal. Their jocular conversation came to an abrupt end, however, when the baby dragon suddenly popped up its head from Frank's sternum.

"Ope!" cried Twyla, startling, the cloth in her hand dripping glitter down her wrist and onto the floor.

Meep, said the baby, a softer, higher-pitched version of the dragon call they had heard the night before. It stared at Frank with huge tear-shaped green eyes. Although it was covered in abalone-pink scales, its face was more mammalian than reptilian, heart-shaped like that of a fox, with drooping scalloped ears, and two nubs on its forehead that hinted at horns to come. Duckers and Maguire left the dracologist to his own devices to come have a look.

"Is it me, or is that thing cute?" asked Duckers.

"I hate to say it, Ellis, but it is kind of cute," said Maguire, crouching with her hands on her knees to get a better look.

Frank reached out his hand, slowly, cautiously.

"Careful," Twyla murmured as his hand made contact. He stroked the baby's pink head once, twice, and the dragon closed its eyes and made a vibrating chirp reminiscent of a cat's purr.

"It's fucking adorable," cooed Duckers.

"It really is," agreed Maguire with an incredulous laugh.

Twyla pressed her hand to her heart. "Oh, Frank."

"By gods."

This last utterance came from Dr. Quill Vanderlinden of the University of Quindaro. The dracologist had recovered enough to come kneel beside Frank and examine the reptilian form curled around him.

"I assume you were present when it hatched?" he asked, his voice soft, as if he were speaking beside someone's sickbed.

"Yes."

"When was that?"

"Last night, shortly after sunset."

"And it latched on to you immediately?"

"Correct."

The baby looked at Vanderlinden and said, Meep-meep-meep-meeeeeeep, a call that was reminiscent of the sound its parent had made seconds before shooting a jettison of glitter out of its mouth. Twyla nearly took the professor by the shoulder to pull him away, but he was more than capable of flinching on his own. He scrambled to his feet and took several steps away from Frank and the dragon, frowning as he folded his arms and stroked his beard.

"Is something the matter?" asked Frank.

"I suspect that the hatchling has imprinted on you."

"Meaning?"

"It views you as its mother, as the adult who must teach it how to be a dragon."

Frank went green—at least, the parts of him that had been cleared of sparkles. "But I don't know how to be a dragon."

"The good news is that I do."

The dragon sneezed, spraying a fresh layer of glitter on Frank's neck.

"In theory," Vanderlinden added.

Frank smoothed his hand over the baby's head again, and it made the far less threatening chirping noises. "It hasn't eaten anything yet. Don't I need to feed it?"

"Absolutely. The sooner the better."

"What do dragons eat?"

"Well…" The professor didn't seem to know what to do with his hands. "People."

Maguire, who had been playing peekaboo with the baby, snapped to attention. "Salt Sea and all the gods of death, I need to evacuate Tanria."

"Well now, hold on," said Frank.

"I can't have dragons hunting people inside the Mist, Ellis. We're fish in a barrel in here."

"I understand, but Herd wasn't killed by a dragon, was he?"

"Technically, no."

"And the dragon we saw last night didn't kill anyone. Not us. Not even those people who took its eggs."

"What about this stuff all over you?"

"I'm fine."

"So far. We don't even know what it is."

Twyla asked Maguire, "Has anyone been reported missing in Tanria over the past, say, two weeks? Have any bodies turned up that have been… you know?"

"What? Like, chewed up?" offered Duckers.

"Thanks for the visual," said Twyla as the dracologist shuddered in her peripheral vision.

Maguire rubbed her forehead. "Not that I know of. I'd have to check with the Joint Chiefs to be sure."

"Let's play out what happens if you instigate the evacuation protocol," Frank suggested. "People are going to want to know why Tanria was evacuated. What happens when they find out there are dragons here?"

Twyla could already picture it. Big-game hunters would come pouring in, especially now that the drudges were out of the way. A hundred different dracologists and zoologists and the gods knew who else would go before the Federal Assembly, demanding their claim. Every crime ring in the Federated Islands would punch a hole in the Mist with their dicey, pirated portals to get their hands on a dragon. It would be chaos.

"We've got to do something," said Maguire. "We can't pretend these things don't pose a danger to anyone and everyone in Tanria."

"I'm only saying, whatever we do, let's do it slowly and thoughtfully and carefully."

"You're already completely in love with that thing, aren't you?"

"And you're not?"

Maguire ducked her head and sipped her coffee.

Dr. Vanderlinden cleared his throat from where he stood on the outskirts of the conversation. "I think it's safe to feed it a high-protein diet: mice, eggs, insects."

Maguire nodded. "I can take care of that. I'll have to bring it in myself since living things can't be delivered by nimkilim, and I don't want this information spreading any farther than it has already."

"If we could track down the adult dragon and observe it, we'd have a great deal more information to go on."

"I brought you in because you're supposed to be an expert on dragons. You are the information."

"Yes, well, the thing of it is, this little one does not fit neatly into any category of dragon species I can think of. We've found many fossils of young and juvenile dragons since the early days of dracology, including hatchlings, and we've reconstructed how they might have appeared in life. This…" He stroked his beard again. "I am afraid I don't know exactly what kind of dragon this may be. I certainly never imagined any of them would be pink. Or quite so comely in appearance."

Duckers nudged Twyla and whispered, "‘Comely'? Who talks like that?"

She nudged him in return to hush him.

"Are you saying this might not be a dragon?" asked Maguire.

"No, I do think we can all agree this is a dragon. A real one. A living, breathing dragon. Right here. Before our eyes."

Dr. Vanderlinden swooned and passed out yet again.

Maguire returned to the station to go about scrounging up a high-protein diet. Fortunately, the equimares that had spooked during the dragon encounter had eventually made their way back to the barracks' stable by the following morning, so Twyla, Duckers, and Dr. Quill Vanderlinden were able to saddle up and set out to find a dragon, leaving Frank behind to babysit his reptilian infant.

"I'm not incapacitated here. I can walk," Frank argued as everyone left him.

"And you can also safeguard the greatest scientific discovery of the century," the dracologist pointed out cheerily, an argument no one could refute, least of all Frank.

Frank clamped his lips and sulked. Literally sulked. Twyla had never seen him sulk before, but as he sat in his chair at the table with a scowl on his face and a shell-pink baby curled around him, she felt a twinge of sympathy. How many times had she put her life on hold to take care of someone else?

"Sorry, Frankie. Hopefully we'll find something that makes all this easier."

He sighed in resignation as they departed, closing the barracks door behind them.

It didn't take long to reach the site of Herd's demise, even at the equimares' most placid pace.

"This is where the egg hatched?" Vanderlinden asked as he dismounted.

Twyla slid out of her saddle beside him. "No, this is where we found Marshal Herd's body. The egg hatched near the Mist, but that was after a chase of several miles across two sectors. It may be Herd ran a long distance before a dragon caught up to him, but since he seems to have been on foot, he can't have gotten far. I think this is the best spot to start looking for… What exactly are we looking for, Dr. Vanderlinden?"

"Dragons, of course, although I must admit that I am not eager to come face-to-face with a full-grown adult. The next best option would be scat."

"You mean, like, poop?" asked Duckers with distaste.

"For lack of a better word." The dracologist turned in a circle, taking in the lay of the land, a flat rocky plain with rosy grass and rosier scrub, nestled within the imposing magenta peaks of the Dragon's Teeth range. "To be perfectly honest, this is the last place I'd look for a dragon. They favored forested areas, apart from but adjacent to human populations for feeding purposes."

"That's not terrifying or anything," said Duckers, taking the crossbow from his back to have at the ready.

"Yes, do keep that handy, will you?"

"Don't have to tell me twice."

"Excellent. Let's have a look around."

They spent the next hour walking in a slow spiral outward from the spot where Herd's body had been discovered. Soon, they came across a small pile of pink pellets, and the professor gave Twyla a questioning look.

"Rabbit droppings," she explained. "It's pink instead of green since that's the color of the grass they eat here in Tanria."

"The Old Gods seemed to have had a penchant for the color pink. Rather surprising."

"Right?" said Duckers, his eyes on the sky above rather than the ground below. "You wouldn't think the Old Gods would be all ‘Let fire and destruction rain from the skies and plagues decimate the land… but make it pink!'"

"Indeed. The war dragons of old are rather bleak and gray in the history book illustrations."

"Except for all the blood."

By the time they happened upon a pile of bright blue pellets, Vanderlinden was pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Silksheep droppings," Twyla supplied. "Their wool is the same color."

"I'm sure it is," the dracologist muttered.

Twyla found the man's growing discomfort oddly charming, and as they scanned the ground on their slow, careful, circular track, she sneaked glances at his profile to admire the long aquiline nose, resulting in her inadvertently stepping on his toe.

"Ope!" She grabbed his upper arm to steady him so that he wouldn't plummet into an equimaris puddle, reeking of ammonia. Twyla had thought him thin at first glance, but based on the evidence of her accidental groping, there was a well-defined bicep under the khaki safari jacket.

"Quite all right," he said, and she forced herself to relinquish her hold on him. Her hands, however, did not soon forget the feeling of muscle beneath the layers of cotton. When was the last time her heart had fluttered over physical contact with a man? Honestly, Twyla, she scolded herself, her internal voice sounding like her mother. It came with a disapproving sniff.

They plodded along for another five minutes in silence until Dr. Vanderlinden nearly stepped on a tripudium plant in full bloom. The flower head snapped upright in alarm. The red petals vibrated, and the yellow leaves unfurled wide as the orange center split open to issue a threatening hiss. The professor startled away several feet, as if a swarm of bees had attacked him.

"What in the name of the Unknown God?" His face was beet red as he stared at the tripudium, its leaves unfurled as it shook its razzle-dazzle warning meant to scare off anything that wanted to eat it.

"Everything all right, doc?" asked Duckers.

The dracologist placed a hand over his heart. "I don't mean to be rude, but quite frankly, no, everything is not all right. Everything is all wrong. This place is all wrong. That baby clinging to Marshal Ellis is all wrong. Literally nothing in Tanria is right." He sounded more overwhelmed than angry when he demanded, "How do you do this?"

Twyla and Duckers looked to each other in mutual confusion before Twyla asked, "How do we do what?"

"This! Tanria!" Dr. Vanderlinden gestured broadly, like an actor onstage. "How can you carry on as if this place were normal? La-di-da, another day at the office with pink grass and bizarrely triangular mountains and flowers that breathe! And hiss! And…" For lack of words, he imitated the flower's threatening posture, making Duckers turn his head away to cover his laughter with a fake cough.

Twyla looked at the perfectly harmless tripudium and watched as it folded its leaves into place with a humph. "You get used to it after a while."

"I suppose one might, but for the time being, I find it deeply unsettling. I must say, you marshals earn every copper of your exorbitant salary."

"Fuck yeah, we do," said Duckers.

"How am I supposed to carry out any kind of rational research in a place where nothing makes sense?" His frustration spent at last, he put his hands on his hips and bowed his head. "My apologies. That tantrum was unscholarly and unprofessional. I shall refrain from such outbursts in the future."

A grap, one of the weird furry frog-like creatures of Tanria, hopped by in front of them.

"What is that?" Vanderlinden asked, his voice weary.

"It's a grap," said Twyla.

"They're called graps because graps say grap," added Duckers.

"Of course they do."

Grap, said the grap.

Duckers slung the crossbow over his back. It was so long that it jutted out a full foot over his head. "If I take a piss in those trees, what are the odds that a big-ass dragon is going to find me and off me?"

"Fairly low, I would guess," said Vanderlinden.

"My bladder will have to take those odds. Back in a sec."

Having eschewed the standard crossbow, Twyla pulled the pistol crossbow from the holster at her hip. It could not possibly do much damage to a grown dragon, but she felt confident in her ability to wield it, which was more than she could say about her skill with the large-scale version. The professor eyed it doubtfully.

An awkward silence filled the plain as Twyla continued to walk beside the dracologist. "So, Dr. Vanderlinden," she said brightly. "This is your first time in Tanria, I take it?"

"Please, do call me Quill. And yes, this is my first visit to Tanria—my first time on the island of Bushong, in fact."

"It must be overwhelming. You've spent your career studying creatures that have been extinct for centuries—"

"Millennia."

"—only to discover they're running around the former prison of the Old Gods. And feel free to call me Twyla."

"I must admit, it's all rather astonishing. Twyla."

"For what it's worth, we'll take good care of you while you're here," she assured him.

"Thank you," he said in a way that sounded both surprised and sincere.

The increasingly dashing dracologist stopped and considered her. She began to wonder if she had something stuck in her teeth, when Duckers emerged from a small copse of fire oaks and announced, "Don't be jealous, people, but I am the winner of today's Giant-Pile-of-Shit Scavenger Hunt."

Quill tore his gaze from Twyla's. "As in, you found unusual fecal matter?"

"Either that or a bunch of animals got together for a big old poop party in those trees."

They followed him into the copse to an impressive and sparkly pile near the base of a fire oak. Duckers held up his small collection scoop and a glass sample jar, both of which were dwarfed by the evidence. "Think it'll fit?"