Lily, Luke's seven-year-old, had climbed onto his back and was using his shoulders as a lookout post while she directed some kind of imaginary battle. Ramon’s twins, Emmy and Sam, were attacking his legs with foam swords they'd probably stolen from the playroom. And little Theo Blackwood, Maren's nephew, was solemnly presenting Rafe with a crown made of dandelions and clover, his face serious with the weight of the ceremony.
“You have to wear it,” Theo was explaining, his small voice carrying across the meadow. “Or the magic won't work.”
“The magic,” Rafe repeated, and his voice was different than I'd ever heard it. Softer. Lighter. Like something had unwound in his chest. “What kind of magic?”
“Protection magic.” Theo placed the crown carefully on Rafe's head, adjusting it until the stems sat just right. “Grammy says flowers hold the sun inside them, and the sun keeps badthings away. So if you wear the crown, the bad things can't find you.”
Something flickered across Rafe's face. Gone too fast to read, but I caught the edge of it. Something raw. Something that looked almost like grief.
“That's very smart,” he said quietly. “Your Grammy sounds like she knows a lot about magic.”
“She's a wolf,” Theo said, like that explained everything. “Wolves know all the magic.”
Lily shrieked with laughter from her perch on Rafe's shoulders as Emmy landed a particularly enthusiastic sword blow on his knee. “You're supposed to fall down! You're the dragon!”
“I'm the dragon?” Rafe twisted to look up at her, careful not to dislodge her grip. “I thought I was the knight.”
“Knights are boring. Dragons are better.” Lily bounced slightly, making Rafe wince. “Dragons can fly and breathe fire and they have treasure.”
“Do I have treasure?”
“Not yet. You have to earn it by being a good dragon.” She pointed imperiously at the tree line. “Go that way. We have to rescue the princess.”
“There's a princess?”
“Sam is the princess.”
Sam, who was currently trying to decapitate Rafe's ankle with his foam sword, looked up with outraged dignity. “I'm not a princess! I'm a warrior!”
“You can be both,” Emmy informed him with the supreme confidence of a six-year-old. “Mama says girls can be warriors and boys can be princesses and everyone can be whatever they want.”
“But I don't want to be a princess!”
“Then you're the treasure,” Lily decided. “Dragons guard treasure. So Mr. Rafe has to guard you from the enemy army.”
“Who's the enemy army?”
All four children turned to look at me.
I raised my hands in surrender. “Don't look at me. I'm just a bystander.”
“You can't be a bystander,” Theo informed me solemnly. “There's no bystanders in dragon wars. You have to pick a side.”
“And if I don't?”
“Then you're the enemy,” Lily said, in a tone that suggested this was obvious. “And we have to defeat you.”
Rafe's mouth twitched. The crown of dandelions sat slightly askew on his dark hair, and there was grass staining his knees, and for a moment he looked nothing like the wounded stranger who'd bled onto our border. He looked almost young. Almost innocent. Almost like someone who'd never learned to use vulnerability as a weapon.
“You should probably pick a side,” he said to me, and there was laughter in his voice. “I've seen these warriors in action. They're ruthless.”
“I brought cookies,” I said, holding up the plate I'd been carrying. “Does that count as tribute?”
The effect was immediate. All four cubs abandoned their positions and descended on me like a small, shrieking army. Rafe caught Lily as she launched herself off his shoulders, setting her down with careful hands before she could face-plant in her rush toward sugar.
“Cookies aren't tribute,” Emmy informed me as she grabbed two. “Cookies are a bribe.”
“Is there a difference?”
