Hex turned and spat at me.
“Right. Not sweetie. Sorry.” I picked up my pace. “You’re the most impressive and scary familiar in the entire realm.”
That worked. Hex expanded and moved even faster. I had to jog to keep up.
Without incident, thank the fates, we made it back to my shop without the dragon waking, or any folk running into us.
Once we were inside, though, I was stumped once again.
Again, I wished Tandor was here. He was always better at brainstorming than I was.
I briefly considered waking him up, or Fiella and Redd, but they needed the sleep after running through the town all evening.
And I was supposedly the Hand of the Dragons. I could handle this.
Maybe.
I hadn’t even considered what I would do with the dragons if they ever hatched. Or where I would keep them. Or how I would stop the shop from burning down if they could actually breathe fire like they did in legends and storybooks.
“Okay, Hex. We can do this. You keep the dragon asleep and comfortable, and I’ll do… something. I’ll mix up a protection charm and strengthen my door and window enchantments. I don’t want to chase this one through the forest again.”
Hex promptly carried the dragon over to my bed, where they settled in on top of my pillows.
I should have expected that.
I sighed. At least they looked like they wouldn’t be moving for a while. Just to be sure, I dusted some sleep-inducing powder over the dragon, enough to keep it docile and dreaming for a few hours.
I got to work.
I packed up my incomplete Merry Day gifts to make room on my worktable. And then I gathered my ingredients.
The sprites were surprisingly helpful, now that they could speak to me in their weirdly admiring way. They still screwed things up by trying to be overly helpful, rearranging shelves on a whim, but since I knew they could understand my vague threats now, they were more effective. Sometimes.
“Hey, Scarlett! Where did I leave the willow bark? Don’t touch it, I don’t want it to burn, but I can’t remember for the life of me where I tucked it.”
“It’s in the bottle on the top shelf, Godsblood.”
“It’s Kizzi,” I reminded. “Thank you.” The bottle was corked and pushed to the back of the shelf, and I needed a stool to reach it. It would have taken me forever to find without the sprite’s help.
I smiled to myself.
Even if they moved my ingredients, at least they could now tell me where they were.
It was almost like having my own personal flock of tiny magical employees.
After many trips back and forth, my table was full. Tree bark, insect wings, plants, flowers, the trimmings from a horse hoof, three strands of my hair, and a spoonful of honey.
I grabbed a small cauldron and got to work.
This mixture would boil down into a fine powder that could be dusted on doors and windows to strengthen any existing enchantments. In my case, I needed to bump up my protection spells. To keep thieves and wrong doers out, sure, but also to keep precious critters in.
I set the brew to boiling. With a little magical encouragement, and a softly hummed chant, it would boil down in minutes rather than hours.
The smell wafting off the cauldron was nowhere close to pleasant. Actually, it was fucking gross, but it was a necessary side effect of the process. And there was no way I would beopening the window—I was still defrosting from my trip to the stables.
I grabbed a book from my shelf and sat down to read to pass the time.
Casper, the fluffy white cat that I hadn’t seen enter, jumped onto my lap and curled up comfortably. I didn’t try to pet her; she didn’t always let me and I didn’t want to make her leave.
