“Of course not,” I snapped as I wrapped my arms around myself. “I was just trying to figure out how the ship was moving so fast.”
“Magic, of course,” he revealed as he crawled through the top of the window and down the wood frame to the sill, where he perched himself. “Nothing else can propel a ship this fast through water, and no one does it better than Torvus.”
“Magic. . .” I muttered as I stumbled over to the bed and plopped myself on the foot. I studied my scaled companion. “Do all lizards talk in this place?”
His nostrils flared. “I am not a lizard. I’m an agama. There’s a difference.”
“Such as?”
He puffed out his chest. “Others don’t talk, nor have as high an intellect as my species.”
The corners of my lips twitched up. “So you’re on this ship to give advice and gnaw through ropes?”
Some of the steam escaped his ego, and he glared at me. “I’ll have you know I’m on this ship because I currently have a dispute with the authorities.”
My curiosity was piqued. “You mean the Admiralty?”
He lifted his chin and turned his face away from me. “I don’t care to tell you.”
This old game. Tim played it a lot when he was a kid. I folded my arms over my chest and shrugged. “Alright, if you don’t want to tell me, I won’t pry.”
The agama twitched his snout. “Maybe if you asked nicely.”
I suddenly had a very interesting loose thread on my nightshirt, which I picked at. “No, it’s alright.”
His tail tapped against the outside wall of the boat. “You’re not a little bit curious?”
“Nope.”
“Then I guess I won’t tell you about my past.”
“I suppose you won’t.”
We fell into silence, but not his tail. That thumped against the ship like the beat of a drum. My eye began to twitch in time with the rhythm. I tapped my finger against the wooden foot of the bed to distract my eye.
The agama narrowed his eyes at me. “Will you stop that?”
“Stop what?”
“That infernal tapping!”
“It soothes me.”
He snuffed out a mess of air. “Will you stop that if I tell you my history with the admiralty?”
I tamped down a snort and kept up the charade of nonchalance. “Well, I wouldn’t mind hearing about it if you don’t mind telling me.”
Ramaro skittered down the sill and over to the bed, where he climbed the sheets and plopped himself on the edge beside me. “Well, it all started when I licked the icing off an admiral’s birthday cake.”
I blinked at him. “Why did you do that?”
“Because it was lemon custard cream!” he revealed before his long tongue flicked out and ran along his mouth. “How could anyone resist that?”
“And then?”
“Well, I was locked in a cage. One specially made to fit me, I might add.”
“Because you’re too small for a normal cell?”
