Page 88 of Connor and the Dragons

The page took us down the east stair, along the gallery with four hundred years of people I didn’t recognize watching from the walls, and through a door I would not have found on my own, and into the Queen’s study.

The room where I had first met her was the formal one, with the tall windows and the settee and two women arranged on it who did not like me. This was smaller. There were papers on the table and a map weighted at the corners and a cup with something cold in it and a chair by the fire with a shawl over the back of it, and the Queen of Qoksmere was sitting on the edge of the table instead of behind it.

Kessrin took one step in front of me and bowed.

“Good day, Your Majesty,” he said. “We are newly returned from Clovermere, where we have tested the veracity of the information we discovered about the mirror.”

Oallian opened his mouth, and I clapped my hand over it before he could say something inappropriate.

“Sit down, all of you. Especially you, Kessrin, sit down before you fall down. You look pale. Paler than usual.”

“He injured himself,” I said. “But he says he no longer needs a bandage.”

She looked at me for about a second and a half, which was long enough, and then she went back to her friend. “So we must test the mirror.”

Kessrin nodded. “But Leo and Thyren have offered us a suitable alternative. They will be the first to walk through.”

She turned to me. “Will Thyren fit into your society?”

“Well enough,” I said. “He’ll have to keep his ears covered, but he looks human otherwise. Just… large.”

She nodded. “And humans come in a wide variety, so people will not see that as any sign that he is something other than what they are.”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Very well,” she said. “And you do not want to cross through the mirror yourself?”

“Not for now, at least,” I said. “Kess needs me, as does Oallian.”

The Queen’s eyes snapped to Kessrin. “He has given you a nickname?”

“Delsy,” Kess said.

“This goes deeper than I’d realized.” She set the cup down. “Mr. Liang. What do you imagine his name is?”

“Kessrin.”

“Say his title.”

“Lord Frostvael Shimmerlight.”

“That is his name,” she said. “That is what he is called by every living soul in this kingdom and in four others, and by the ambassadors, and by his own staff. Kessrin is his familiar name. He only allows it to be used by those he cares deeply for. And he gave it to you rather quickly, didn’t he?”

“Delsy,” Kessrin groaned.

“And then,” she said, “you shortened it. And he did not stop you from doing so?”

“I’m sorry. Was that inappropriate?” I asked, confused.

“One does not shorten an ice dragon’s name and live to tell of it. Do you call him Kess too, Oallian?”

“Sometimes,” Oallian admitted. “When he’s being particularly adorable.”

Kessrin had gone scarlet all the way down into the collar of his shirt. “I am not adorable.”

“Are too.”

“I knew he loved Connor from the beginning,” Oallian said. “Me too, of course.”