“Well, that one might have been my fault.” I couldn’t help but share a smile with Evander at that.

Dorrian made a pained, deflating air noise as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I at least put the stones in the jar.” Evander pointed at a ceramic jug heaped with stones of all sizes that sat by the door. The stones were piled so high that several had spilled onto the floor.

Dorrian huffed a breath. “Ah, yes. Your precious stones.” He shook his head as he crossed the room, kicking a few items out of the way as he went. After picking up the breakfast tray, he shoved it at Evander. “Take this and Nessa and go. I’m going to need the morning to get this mess straightened out. Don’t come back until at least lunchtime. Better make that supper. I’m going to have to toss out a few things, and you don’t want to be around for that.”

Evander gripped the breakfast tray and all but slunk across the room like a dog with his tail between his legs.

Or a reprimanded dragon.

I trailed after him, trying to hide my laugh. Probably unsuccessfully.

But he was a dragon. With wings and sharp teeth and fire that could burn a village. Perhaps an unhealthy hoarding habit wasn’t the best flaw to have, but it was far preferable to the fire-breathing, maiden-eating dragon I’d been raised to think he was.

Dorrian ushered us to the door, then paused. The annoyed scrunch to his brows eased for just a moment as he glanced between us. “Why don’t you show Nessa your hoard?”

“I…what?” Evander blinked and lurched back on his heels, making the plates and silverware on the tray rattle.

“Yes, you heard me. Show Nessa your hoard.” With that, Dorrian shut the door rather firmly in Evander’s face. Even through the wood, I could hear his exasperated muttering.

Evander shook himself, turning to regard me with a gaze that glinted both with shame and a light I couldn’t quite understand. “Sorry.”

I couldn’t help it. I burst out in laughter. “And here I was beginning to think you had no flaws.”

“I’m very much afraid that isn’t the case.” Evander sighed and winced.

“Why would he want you to show me another example of your hoarding? I’ve seen quite enough already.” I gestured over my shoulder and gave an exaggerated shudder.

“That’s general messiness.” Balancing the breakfast tray on one hand, Evander gestured to the closed door across the way. “My hoard is something else entirely. All dragons have one. It’s…special.”

“Really?” I glanced from him to the door across from us. What lay behind there?

“Most hoards are benign. Seashells or siren tears. That sort of thing.” Evander crossed the landing, then paused with a hand on the door, as if working up the courage for something. “Some dragons hoard jewels or swords or clocks. The bookwyrms might be lesser dragons, but they guard the Great Library and its hoard of books. But other hoards are…less pleasant. I’ve seen dragons hoard gold, then fall to gold fever. Some dragons hoard human captives.”

I shuddered. “I’m glad you’re not one of those dragons, despite what the village elders have made you out to be.”

He could have easily had a hoard of maidens, if he’d wanted one.

“I work hard to only hoard in a healthy way.” Evander grimaced and shook his head. “Well, mostly healthy way. Still working on the messiness that comes with hoarding tendencies. Anyway, I hoard rocks.”

With that, he straightened his shoulders and pushed the door open, holding it for me to go first.

Like his study on the other side, this room had long banks of windows providing light and a view of the mountains.

But it was hard to see the windows past the rows and rows of shelves. Each shelf was lined with velvet, and I could see stones with tiny placards lined up on each shelf.

That was the organized part of the room. All around the edges, jars upon jars overflowed with smaller stones while piles of larger stones heaped in the corners. A work table held scraps of velvet and half-finished placards.

Evander eased past me, set the breakfast tray on the table, and claimed one of the lamb sausages. Taking a bite, he pointed as we strolled around the room. “These shelves are for igneous rocks. Metamorphic rocks are on the next shelf, then sedimentary rocks over there. That shelf is semi-precious and precious gems. That one has fossils. This set of shelves is for my favorites. And, well, all this mess along the walls needs to be sorted and put on shelves yet.”

As we meandered past the shelves holding precious stones, I halted next to an emerald. Was it the same one he pocketed my second day here? I didn’t know enough about stones to be sure. “Why don’t you just collect precious stones? The gnomes are mining thousands of gems every year. You have access to as many as you could possibly hoard.”

“That’s just it. If I only hoarded what the gnomes mined, I’d struggle to send any of the stones to the rest of the fae courts.” Evander traced a finger over the emerald. “Besides, I don’t want to hoard things because of their supposed value. That’s an easy way to go down a bad path of obsession. Most of my hoard isn’t worth anything. It is just bits of random stone. But I like them, and that’s enough.”

That made a lot of sense. Good thing for me and all the maidens sacrificed by my village that Evander was the type of dragon to decide to hoard worthless bits of stones rather than anything worth money so that he didn’t become obsessed or lost to gold fever.

I meandered through the shelves, reading the plaques, though words like sedimentary and metamorphic went over my head. “Tell me about some of the places where you got these stones.”