Ginger held her breath where she stood, and Tandor nervously shifted his weight. Redd merely observed, calm and stoic.
Kizzi passed the egg to me. It settled in my arms like it belonged there, warm and heavy and almost buzzing with energy. My veins flooded with a feeling somewhere between love and awe, a sensation that I was beginning to associate as uniquely from the eggs. It was innate, like I couldn’t help but respect the small dragons. I instinctively knew the critters were more powerful than I could ever dream of being.
It was mind boggling. Not even hatched yet, and the critter already had me wrapped around its little claws.
I tucked the egg more securely into the crook of my elbow.
Quietly, Kizzi murmured soothingly to Hex, trying to seek forgiveness from her familiar. It didn’t sound like it was going well.
Tandor drifted over to me, leaning in to get a good look at the egg. “Wow. It really is cracked, huh. That’s unbelievable.”
“I bet it was my saw that did it,” Redd stated from where he stood.
“Sure, my love. I bet it did.” But I knew it was more likely Kizzi’s doing, or something related to the magic returning to the realm. Or one of the cats, who we had caught clawing at the eggs more than once.
I still could hardly believe it. That magic was back. It didn’t feel real.
“What do we do?” I asked nobody in particular.
“Should we pry it open?” Tandor asked. Overhead, I heard a chorus of horrified gasps. The sprites clearly didn’t think that was a good idea.
“Maybe you should try a potion, now that it can seep inside,” Ginger suggested helpfully. She didn’t seem shocked by the situation whatsoever—she had simply hopped on board.
But that idea didn’t feel quite right, either. The potions were abrasive and aggressive, and I didn’t like the thought of them harming the fragile little dragon inside. We didn’t even know if a dragon would be inside the egg, and if so, if they were stillalive. It seemed impossible, to be trapped for countless years and remain with the land of the living. For all we knew, there could be a tiny sad corpse inside.
But I didn’t think so. Somehow, miraculously, I thought magic had found a way to protect the creatures, even during the years when there were only crumbs of residual magic left in the realm. It found a way to cocoon them. To keep them safe.
I didn’t want to test that theory too rigorously, though.
“Maybe we should just wait,” I said, bouncing the egg gently in my arm as though I were rocking a baby.
“We’re running out of time,” Kizzi gritted out tightly. “Merry Day is only a week away, and we told the witch at Rockward that we would return the eggs if they didn’t hatch by then.”
I considered this. “There’s still time. We don’t have to panic yet. Clearly,somethingis happening. Let’s give it a day or two before we take any drastic actions.”
And as I said the words, the egg in my arms seemed to tense, to vibrate.
Crrrrack.
Slowly, another tiny fissure opened up on the egg’s surface.
I couldn’t help myself—I screamed.
CHAPTER 3
Kizzi
Chaos erupted.
Absolute chaos.
The sprites exploded into motion, panicking in their tiny, shrill voices while they either fled, hid, or simply flew around in a flurry of excess energy.
Casper, the fluffy white cat who had previously been sleeping peacefully in a basket of sheets, strutted into the room, watching the scene unfold with bright green eyes.
Fiella frantically bounced on her feet, clutching the egg with both hands and holding it out in front of her like it would explode.
Which it totally might. We had no idea what was supposed to happen when a dragon egg hatched. There were no helpful texts on the matter.
