“I’m having a definite sense of déjà vu.” Jonquil grinned at me before turning her attention back to her dragon, encouraging it to greater heights and faster speeds. My hair streamed behind us like a banner.
“Fine, leave me down here like a handbag!” Gnoflwhogir called up from her uncomfortable position clenched in the dragon’s grasp. “It is not at all demeaning for a proud warrior!”
“Littlebusy escaping from the evil right now, darling,” Jonquil said through gritted teeth. The dragon banked hard to the left. Jonquil peered over her shoulder for any sign of the dark bird following us, maintaining her sidesaddle perch without apparent difficulty.
The air was bitter cold, but the dragon was a furnace, the fire in its belly keeping me warm. Calla’s grip turned into the quick squeeze of a hug, before she reached up to bat my fluttering locks out of her face. I tried to gather it all up again. The pair of goldfinches nesting on her head chirped in my ear. “I missed you,” she said.
“Missed you, too.” I half expected to feel some lingering resentment over having to be saved by my sisters again, but none came. Other than the night I’d spent with Sam in Angelique’stower, it was the first time since I’d been attacked by the spider wolves that I felt safe. “How did you—LOOK OUT!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I’d seen movement. One of the furred snakes was creeping up to Liam, pulling itself along the dragon’s back with its little claws, nearly in striking distance. It must have hooked on when they picked me up. Jonquil began chanting the syllables of some spell. I couldn’t imagine she would complete it in time.
The furred snake stopped as Liam thrust a small hissing animal at its face. He was clutching Calla with one white-knuckled hand, but with the other he had pulled a furious mongoose from her skirt pocket.
The furred snake scrabbled backward in fright and lost its grip on the slick dragon scales. With a whistling shriek, it slid over the side and dropped until it vanished far below. The words of the spell died on Jonquil’s lips.
The danger gone, I looked around, but the dark bird was nowhere to be seen.
“Natural enemy of cobras,” Liam explained, glancing down at the forest, then away again, shutting his eyes.
“Good job, Lord Thrombwobbley,” Calla told the mongoose. It leapt to her shoulder and made proud chittering noises. Liam took the opportunity to wrap both his arms tightly around her.
“Lucky thing he came along,” I said.
“Not lucky at all,” Liam replied, his face buried in his wife’s back. “I told Calla to bring him.”
“Really? Why?”
His lifted his head, his eyes opening the barest fraction. His expression changed from one of nausea to one of puzzlement. “In case we met any dangerous snakes, of course.”
From experience, I knew there was little point in continuing that line of questioning. In any case, the magic mirror tied to his belt chose that moment to make its presence known. “I wasrooting for the devilserpent fireplatyfishes,” it said in a bitter tone. “But no one asked my opinion.”
“Where did you get that?” It occurred to me there were a number of other questions I should really be asking. “When did you get to Tailliz? How did you know I was being attacked?” I glanced around at all of them, trying to put the puzzle together but lacking far too many pieces. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” the mirror said. “I was brought here under protest.”
Calla rapped her knuckles against its frame. “Shut up, mirror,” she said. “It’s a bit of a long story. Why don’t you go first?”
“All right.” My own story was hardly a short one. It felt like ages had passed since my tooth guards were attacked on the forest road. “Things started going wrong,” I began, “when I was about a day’s journey away from Castle Tailliz….”
Chapter Thirty-Two
My Family Weighs In
When I finished giving an abbreviated account of everything that had happened since my arrival in Tailliz, the others fell silent. Calla absentmindedly stroked the mongoose. The goldfinches, whom she had introduced as Carduelis C. Carduelis and Beaky, blinked drowsily on her head.
We were flying toward the castle. A brief landing had let Gnoflwhogir pull off the seven-league boots and take a more dignified seat—and she’d done me the favor of cutting off most of my hair with her claymore. Cutting hair with a sword is awkward at best, but the haircut she gave me was still better than the hideous ragged mop the chirurgeon had left me with.
“We should have come sooner,” Jonquil said at length.
“No, we shouldn’t!” Calla scolded her. “We talked about this, remember? Only when she asks from now on.”
“Look, I’m…I’m sorry for yelling at you when I was a lake,” I told them both. “You were right. I was in trouble. Am in trouble.”
Jonquil shook her head. “You had every cause to say what you did.”
“You were just trying to help.”
“I knew how you felt,” Calla said, “but I kept interfering anyway.”
