I left Ollie chatting to Alison and Amy while I went upstairs to see Lillian. She harrumphed when she saw me.
“Took you long enough. I was discharged last Tuesday, you know.”
“How are you, Lillian?” I sat in the chair by the bed, which seemed sized more for a child than a grown man.
“If you break that, you’re replacing it.”
For the first time ever, Lillian sounded querulous. She was usually a force of nature, and I could only think that her fall and subsequent operation had brought her to a sense of her own mortality. Not wanting to spend an interminable half hour being ticked off for my shortcomings and having to listen to ancient history again, I had a brainwave. I told her about the moot.
“I don’t trust that Abimelech Mortimer,” she declared. “He’s got shifty eyes. Not that I’ve met him, but he’s always in the paper or on the news. He’s a wrong ‘un.”
Better for her ire to be turned against the Mortimers than me. I told her about the other dragons I’d met, and she was almost silent as she listened.
“I suppose this is gossip all around the family, and I’m the last to know, as usual,” she complained when I finished.
“Actually, you’re the only person I’ve told in this much detail.”
Her eyes brightened and she sat up straighter against her pillows. “When are you going to introduce me to this strange dragon? I know you brought him with you because I sensed him the instant he crossed the threshold.”
If she’d done that, she had senses no other dragon possessed. More likely our voices had drifted up the stairs to her room when I’d introduced Ollie to Lillian’s daughter and her wife. I worked my phone out of my pocket and messaged Ollie.
“Are you surgically attached to that thing?” Lillian demanded.
Ollie appeared at the door.
“It’s quicker,” I told her, and she harrumphed.
Despite her disapproval of my methods, she studied Ollie with sharp eyes, and I made sure to greet him with a kiss, myhand lingering on his back. My family needed to know he was mine. Theworldneeded to know he was mine and no one else’s, ever.
I let Ollie have my chair—it was better suited to his size—and leaned against the window sill, watching them. Ollie and Lillian hit it off immediately. I didn’t think there was anyone Ollie hadn’t charmed, except for possibly June and Chris. June had been texting him invitations, but he’d said with a look of relief that he’d managed to find excuses for most of them. With her, I thought it wasn’t so much that she was charmed by him as that she wanted to befriend him for her own purposes.
I came back to myself, aware that they were both looking at me. Ollie raised his eyebrows.
“Isaid,”Lillian enunciated forcefully, “has Chris spoken to you about the library yet?”
“The library? You meanmylibrary, at the Court?”
“Do you know another library?”
I kept my mouth shut about the enormous council-run one that was yards from her front door.
“He was asking me about it, but it’s been a long time since you invited me to visit, and so I couldn’t remember much,” she continued. “I told him to speak to you.”
“Chris was asking you about the library?” It made no sense to me.
“Does he need his ears cleaning out?” Lillian demanded of Ollie.
“Did he say why?”
“None of you youngsters ever explain yourselves. And when am I going to come and see the Court again?”
“You know you’re always welcome. Once you’re mobile, we’ll make a date.”
“See that you do.”
Despite the command in her voice, she was looking weary.
“Time for us to make a move, Ollie. Lillian, I’ll be back to see you soon.”
