Page 97 of Wickedly Ever After
“No matter.” He sighed. “I’ll wash my things out and dry them by the fire. Yours too. And then we both need sleep.”
“Later, perhaps,” Ida said. “I’d better go see if Hector needs help. He was counting on the pony so he could prepare wound balms for Adair.”
“Tinbit was carrying as much on his back as the horse. He’ll manage. I don’t think there’s much he can’t do, except when he doesn’t want to.” He gave the pillow a particularly aggressive punch.
“Are you hungry? We ate grilled cheese. I’ll make you one—”
He sighed. “You’d burn it. I’ll eat later. Right now I want to bathe and rest my feet. It’s a long way up a mountain when you’ve been running half a day trying to get away from a manticore with kits.”
Feeling worse than before, she nodded. “Okay. I’ll leave you to it. I’ll go apologize to Cear.”
Hari said nothing. Something must have happened between him and Tinbit beyond running for their lives.
***
Ida found Cear in what she’d termed the dragon’s living room. She supposed Hector might call it a hospitality chamber, but hadthe furniture not been all stone with carefully arranged human comforts in various places, she could imagine the whole dragon family settling down to watch the latest sitcom on the crystal at night.
As in her room, a fire burned over the gas vent, soaring to the ceiling in a solid sheet of yellow, red, and blue, undulating softly. Sinuous and graceful, vaguely serpentine, Cear curled inside the flames, expanding, swimming back down, and as they turned, their eyes glowed a bright crimson, gazing at Ida.
“Are you well?” Ida asked, reaching for the sweetgrass bale. A few flakes were missing. Hector had seen to their comfort before going to attend Adair with Tinbit.
“I have not been so comfortable since leaving my home,” they said, assuming more of a human face, but thin and angular, shining like a multifaceted jewel. “This is how we exist in our natural habitat. I hope I do not distress you with my form.”
“Not at all,” Ida said. “I wanted to be sure you were comfortable and to apologize for leaving you alone at the hostel.”
“But I was not left alone. Your gnome is quite resourceful, and Hector’s gnome equally brave. They attended to me as well as you or Hector might have done.”
“We meant no disrespect. Hector thought we needed to speak with the dragon and the princess first, to ascertain how badly they were affected by the Happily-Ever-After. We were worried about its effects.”
“On your gnomes?”
Ida fed a flake of sweetgrass into the flames a handful at a time. “Yes.”
Cear curled down around the sweetgrass, nibbling it daintily. “Are you not concerned for yourself or for Hector?”
“I’m concerned for every creature who has been affected,” Ida said, not without a twinge of wry amusement at referring to herself as a creature.
“But you hold Hector’s heart,” Cear said in a sibilant hiss. “He is the one you fear for. You care for him.”
“Please don’t tell him about the heart. I don’t regret saving it, and I do plan to return it when all this is over, but I’d rather him not know that I have it for the time being.”
“I will say nothing. But Ida, don’t you wish to consult your own heart in this matter?”
“I don’t have anything to ask it, Cear.”
Her head ached. Somewhere far away, her heart probably ached too.
Fresh air might help with the first. Nothing would help with the second. She left Cear and headed for the cave entrance.
***
Outside the cave, dusk settled over the mountains like a gray blanket. The sun wouldn’t be down yet, not at this hour. The mountains merely blocked it from filtering through any place but the mountain passes. These lit up like red and gold torches, spreading their flames through the valleys wherever the evergreen forests didn’t swallow the light whole. Stars pricked the blue night above her as she walked a little way down the path.
She didn’t go far, despite the urge to wrap Morga’s overlarge robe around herself and walk home, dodging dragons, manticores, and bandits. Some good witch she’d turned out to be. She couldn’t get Hector to listen to her. Couldn’t get the princess to listen to her. Couldn’t even get Hari to listen.
A soft cough made her slip into the shadows of a large rock,thinking of a dragon blowing fire if they sneezed, but it was only Hector, coming back up the path. He wore a worn, black dragon robe, probably something of Adair’s, and leaned heavily on his staff like he wished it would bear up the whole world, not just him.
“Come to make sure I don’t wander off?” she asked, stepping out from behind the rock.
