Page 13 of Meet Me in the Stars

Our conversation ended in the kitchen because all of the kids still young enough to be impressed by a sleeping dragon waking up, crowded around with their questions. I answered them all, laughing, while my coffee cup was filled and refilled. Lotus would’ve loved this. Only if Lotus was still alive I wouldn’t have taken a nap like that.

“Fred?!” An eager voice called from the door.

“Clarence? What the --- What the heck?” I corrected what I was going to say as not to cuss in front of the kids. “I know your son is here, but did you move here too?” I asked, stepping over a sleeping coyote pup.

“No, but I need to talk to you! You’re the man of the hour!” Clarance laughed, letting himself in through the storm door.

“For waking up?” I laughed.

“No,” he shook his head. “Let’s talk somewhere private.”

“It’s not like I have anywhere private here,” I looked around.

“We can go next door,” Teddy said. “Is everything alright, Clarence?”

“I think they might turn out that way,” Clarence nodded. “Your father has the timing of Frost and Juda.”

“Everything okay?” Duke called from the kitchen.

“Yes!” I called back to him. “We won’t be long.”

I said the last part making eye contact with Clarence. Whatever business or politics he wanted to discuss would have to be in a nutshell. I had too much lost time to make up for with my family.

Teddy’s house was like a freezer despite the warm-ish autumn sun shining down on Heartville.

“Still running the AC like global warming is only happening in your house, I see,” I chuckled walking in.

“My dragon is chiller this way,” Teddy shrugged. “I help make the crystals that keep the heat and air running. So, I’ll use as many as I want.”

“Fair enough,” Clarence said as if he already grew tired of our idle chit chat.

He glanced at Teddy as if he was going to leave, but he plopped down in an armchair and motioned that we could sit down on the sofa.

“Nothing’s private in this family,” I shrugged at Clarence and sat down on the sofa.

“This is of the utmost importance. We need to keep things quiet and not just for our sakes,” Clarence said, shutting and locking Teddy’s front door.

In his usual dramatic way, Clarence closed the blinds and sniffed around as if a spy hid in every corner. Before the war against Mundanes Before Magic, I’d have called him paranoid. Only now, he was still paranoid. I was just too nice to point it out to him because he may have been traumatized by his home being attacked even if he’d never admit it.

“Do you remember Starscale Search?” he asked me.

“I took a nap. I didn’t grow amnesia,” I shrugged.

“Making sure.”

“I remember it. I funded part of it. One of Duke’s cousins works for it. Well, did when I fell over anyway,” I shrugged again.

“He still does. Travis is a great social media guy. He still has to hear it from Bane and Lee that he never finished medical school like they hoped he would, but that was their thing, not his. He’s even done a few documentaries on the Starscales since then.”

“How? Did you find them?” I glanced at Teddy.

Surely, egg brat would’ve told me if something that big had happened while I was conked out.

“I didn’t find them,” Teddy laughed. “As far as I know they haven’t been found at all.”

“They found us,” Clarence said, still standing on the other side of the coffee table. “Well, sort of.”

“Sit down, Clarry,” Teddy sighed.

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