“Oh, I love that place!” Priscilla spoke up. She clapped her hands together excitedly and smiled. “Sonia makes the best pies in Boohail. Holly, we need to go after this. Now I’m craving her chocolate peanut butter pies.”
The dragon’s head perked up.“One of those, too. I wasn’t able to try those before she banned me from the store.”
“OK I’ll bite.” Holly sighed. “What did you do to get banned?”
His tail slammed into the ocean, sending a spray of water high into the air.“I did nothing,”he roared.“She banned all horned creatures after fucking Warwick, got his horns caught on a hanging lantern and crashed into her glass counter. Now I’m stuck pie less because that stupid Minotaur can’t stop tripping over his own hooves. Usha said she’d pick up a few for me when she made her supply run, but I haven’t seen her all day.”
Unsurprising. Warwick was as clumsy as a newborn fawn. I couldn’t even recall how many times we’d had to fish him out of the ocean after he fell overboard.
“And you’re not just going to…take her pies?” Holly asked. Clearly thinking the same thing I was. There wasn’t much one shop owner could do to stop someone as powerful as Dante from breaking into a bakery.
The dragon snorted, letting out a stream of flames.“Who am I to tell her how to run her business?”
“Alright, pies it is. So, can you stop the rain now?”
Dante nodded and stood.“Just leave them in my quarters and the rain will be gone before you make it back to your wife.”His winding body uncoiled itself from the cove. With another clap of thunder, he shot up into the air. Dark, angry clouds parted in his wake as he wove himself into the sky.
“Well.” Holly said, coming to my side. “That went way better than I thought it would.”
Chapter 9
Brie
“That’s not something you see every day.” Across from me, Felix glanced up but said nothing. I squinted and tried to focus on the massive dragon in the sky. It wasn’t Fallon. His scales were pitch black. The dragon dove low beneath the clouds, then reared up again, showing off its silver coloring. In its wake, the angry clouds parted into shining sun and rainbows. When the beast wove back again, the light from the rainbows reflected off his scales cast a ray of color on the trees below. “He must be that other dragon Fallon mentioned. Dillon or something.”
Felix laughed, pausing his rowing to clutch at his sides. “Is it not Dillon? I don’t remember.” I asked.
“No, please call him Dillon.” He said, grinning.
After I had finished tending to my animals, the pouring rain seemed to vanish as quickly as it appeared. Stranger still, the storm vanished in irregular patches that didn’t really make sense. After I left my barn, the clouds had all disappeared over my farm. But when I looked around, it was only my farm and a weird line in the sky coming from the direction of the beach. By the time I’d changed out of my soaked clothes, Felix had reappeared with a picnic basket and we set off toward the river for our date.
“What did you say your errand was again?” I asked.
“I didn’t.” He took hold of the paddles and resumed steering us down the river.
I waited for further explanation, but he merely smiled and remarked on a particularly colorful butterfly. “Alright, fine. I don’t like learning secrets, anyway.”
With Fall in full swing, the leaves that made up the river’s canopy were lit up in a blaze of color. Bulbous tupelo trees wound their way out of the water to champion their own foliage into the crowded sky. Moss draped over the branches, making up the meandering trail along the river bed, while the harsh midday sun was high in the air, which gave us a temporary reprieve from the bayou’s army of mosquitoes. I’d lived here my whole life, yet I never got tired of how beautiful the land could be when the leaves turned.
We came to a fork in the river, and I directed Felix toward the skinnier trail on the right. “If you want, we can go down that side another day. It leads through the village, and there are plenty of food stalls set up on shore this time of year. But there isn’t much canopy and I don’t feel like sweating.”
Felix dug an oar into the water and let it turn the boat down the proper path. With one more firm push, the smaller river’s current caught the boat, and he relaxed back in his seat. “Excellent, I’m still getting used to how unbearably hot it gets here.” He fanned out his loose white shirt to emphasize his point.
Stop staring at his collarbone, you little pervert.“Did it not get very hot in Volsog?” I asked, taking a sharp interest in anything that wasn’t Felix’s broad chest.
“It gets a little warm after the dark season, but nothing like this.” He brushed back his blond hair and fetched a bottle of mead and a few glasses out of the basket. He mentioned that he’d dropped by Cinnamon’s on the way back and I was more than a little excited to see what that foodie packed for us.
“What’s a dark season?” I took my drink and helped him set up the boat’s middle bench for the array of food he’d brought with him. Soon the bench was lined with sandwiches, cracklins, boudin balls, an assortment of fruits, a small blueberry pie, and various other treats. My mouth watered when I caught sight of Cinnamon’s signature meat pies. If she made those with me in mind, then I was in for a fiery treat.
Felix raised a brow at me. “You know, the dark season.” At my confused look, he continued. “When the sun goes away for the second half of the year.”
“Are…are you messing with me?” I asked.
His eyes widened, and he looked at the sky as if the sun would give him answers. “Do you not have a dark season here? The snow must get miserably high if it stays warm enough all winter.”
I clutched my drink to my chest and piled food on my plate. “Felix, I’ve never even seen snow before.”
His mouth dropped open. “It just stays warm here? Is that why you have so little food stored in your pantry? I thought the village had been hit with a terrible famine and you lost your winter supplies.”
