“Foxed?” Sasha says, sounding confused.
“It’s like when the pages get spots on them,” Amaritha says. “Or how about…Edition.”
Bash makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a laugh. Amaritha shoots him an irritated look.
“It’s not really the most evocative kind of name, is it?” I suggest. “I was attracted to the original name; it said exactly what it was: a bookstore. I liked that it might be anorc’sbookstore, if I’m being honest. That felt compelling, a little unusual. If I’m going to rename it, and I haven’t said I will, it has to be something reasonably straightforward.”
“But also cozy,” Sasha says, looking a little embarrassed to be suggesting a route contrary to Amaritha’s. “Because we’ve done a lot to make it like that. You know. Cozy.”
“Totally, I get it,” Amaritha says, not looking remotely put out. “How about some wordplay? Stay for a Spell? Puns are awesome.” She laughs to herself. “Come for the curse, stay for a spell.”
“The name needs to say ‘bookshop’ or else people will think it’s a spellshop,” Sasha says.
“Also, anyone who hates a pun will deliberately avoid it,” I point out. Hard to believe, but such people do exist.
“Yeah, that’s true,” Amaritha says, undaunted. “How about instead you tell me why you came in here in the first place?”
“The name?” I pause, considering it. “I’d never been in a bookstore run by an orc before, and Bonecrusher’s a pretty common orcish name. And ‘book emporium’ sounded, you know. Big. Lots of books to look at.”
“And what do you wantyourversion of the bookstore tobe?” she asks. It’s a good question for a fifteen-year-old. I can see why Sasha likes her.
“I don’t know how long I’ll be here,” I say, honestly. “I admit that’s one of the reasons I feel a little guilty about renaming it. But if I were here for the long haul…” I pause. “It should be like a second home. A place where you can always find an old friend, or discover a new treasure. A place where you feel like yourself.”
I stop myself before I say something too revealing.
Amaritha sighs. “I love that, but I don’t know how to turn that into a name. But you should rename it, and if you won’t go for The Cursed Princess Bookshop or something…since that’s what it’s going to be famous for from now on, I mean…” She trails off, lost in thought. “What about something that reminds you of home?”
I sit back and stare into the little fire, dancing in the grate. As a child, I’d joked that we were like royal snails, always moving our homes about; thebuildingdidn’t matter so much, since we didn’t have a particular one where we lived regularly. So home became the things we brought with us—little personal effects, books we couldn’t bear to be parted with. But that, too, feels wrong to admit to an excited fifteen-year-old perfidian. I shake my head.
“What about your dragon?” Sasha says.
“What dragon?” I ask, shaking myself out of my more melancholy thoughts.
“You know, the little one you told me about,” she says. “The green one you had. When you were young.”
Ah yes. I’d loved her and she’d been my constant companion, but little dragons, the really small ones, don’t live very long. She passed away when I was thirteen and is buried under a willow tree in a secluded corner of the garden of the summer palace.
I smile, a little wistfully. “It’s a nice idea, but I’m not sure anyone would be tempted by a bookshop called Piggle’s Books.”
“First of all,” Amaritha says, grinning, “you underestimate people. Secondly, we don’t call it Piggle’s Books. We call it…The Little Green Dragon Bookshop.”
“Piggle,” Bash mouths at me, over her head.
“Her Ladyship Pigglesworth the First,” I reply.
“Perfect,” Amaritha is still chattering away. “I can do a dragon in my sleep! And alittledragon; oh my gosh, so cute. We could do, like, ababydragon. Theittiestdragon. Here, look,” she says, flipping open a sketchbook and starting to doodle. Under her claws, a pretty little design takes shape. We all crowd in around her, watching as she sketches out a little dragon, curled round a book. I can’t fault her instincts; it certainly looks cozy.
“And then some really lovely script,” she’s saying, sketching in some lettering. “It’s a long name.”
“Perhaps just The Green Dragon Bookshop,” I murmur.
“Perfect!” she chirps, and flips a page to start afresh.
Chapter 34
Amaritha spends the next hour and a half bent over her sketch pad, bouncing ideas off Sasha. Bash and I politely make our excuses and leave them to it. I settle behind the desk and he, naturally, takes up his usual spot on the stairs. The cat, naturally, settles on his lap—judging from the purring coming from that direction, anyway. She stilllookslike she’s sitting on the pile in the corner where I last saw her.
“Honeyrose sent me a book on water magic, if you’d like to take a look at it,” I say. It arrived in the morning’s post. I’d leafed through it but found nothing remotely helpful. “You can’t steal it, though.”
