by Kim M Watt
DI Adams pulled the car up outside Carlotta’s house and said, “I can’t take another cup of tea.”
“Just have some water,” Collins said. “You don’t have to drink it, anyway.”
“But then it’s a waste.”
He shrugged. “They have to offer it, you have to accept. These are the things you’re going to have to get used to around here.”
“On loan,” she reminded him.
“Keep telling yourself that,” he said, and DI Adams made a face, then stretched before she followed him, as if that’d somehow make more room for tea and cake.
Carlotta opened the door before they reached it. “Hello, inspectors,” she called.
“Hello, Carlotta,” they chorused, DI Adams still having to remind herself not to use last names.
“Come in, come in. I’ve just put the kettle on.”
DI Adams wondered if Thomas Wright could have died of tea overdose. She felt it was possible.
Twenty minutes later they were back in the car, DI Adams resting her forehead on the wheel. “I’m done,” she moaned, and pushed Dandy away as he shoved his nose into her side in a sympathetic sort of way. “Why are we interviewing them all separately again?”
“You do remember what it’s like when they’re all together?”
“I know, but …” she rubbed her belly. “I may never recover.”
“You didn’t have to have three ginger cookies.”
“They were good!”
“Pace yourself, Adams. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”
She lifted her head and glared at him. “Oh, is that what you were doing with all Gert’s custard tarts and Priya’s cookies?”
“Nankhatai.”
“What?”
“Nankhatai. The cookies.”
She waved him off. “Either way, I hardly call it pacing yourself.”
“I’ve been in training.” He grinned at her. “Anyway, let’s go see Auntie Miriam and Alice. Just two more stops, Adams.”
DI Adams wondered if her stomach could take two more stops.
4
Mortimer
Mortimer was arguing with Gilbert.
Well, he was actually trying not to argue with Gilbert, but the young dragon wasn’t making it easy.
“I’m telling you,” Gilbert was saying, his orange nose turning a little red with emotion, “these gliders will be amazing.”
“I just don’t think that having fire-breathing gliders is a good idea, Gilbert,” Mortimer tried.
Gilbert shook the glider at him. “You old dragons! You have no sense for innovation!”
“Hey,” Amelia said, before Mortimer could object. “That old dragon is the reason we have a trade in dragon scale toys at all, Gil. Never mind innovation – he created the whole damn industry!” She was wearing magnifying goggles and using specially made tongs to shape thin, light dragon scales into a mobile, creating birds that lifted and swam in the slightest breeze, running with colours that defied categorising. It was tricky, working with dragon scales. Only dragon fire was hot enough to make it malleable, which meant they went through an awful lot of tongs and hammers. Even dwarf-made tools could only take so much. Now she was distracted and the bird she was shaping was taking on a dangerously lopsided look.
“All that aside,” Mortimer said, trying not feel aggrieved by being described as old. He was hardly old. He was only a hundred and fourteen! Just because these two hadn’t even reached their century yet.
Gilbert frowned at Amelia. “I know that. I’m just saying—”
“Fire, Gilbert,” Mortimer said. “These are toys for human children.”
“Yes, but—”
“Their coordination isn’t always quite what it could be. If they don’t set themselves on fire, they’ll put half the town alight.”
Gilbert opened his mouth to protest, then closed it again. “Okay. Yes. I see what you’re saying.” He thought for a moment. “How about if we made them for grown-ups only?”
Mortimer resisted the urge to shout that this workshop should be for grown-ups only, and Gilbert clearly wasn’t there yet, and Amelia threw the lopsided bird at her brother, her eyes rather alarmingly huge behind the goggles.
“Gil! That’ll only make the kids want it more! And you’ve seen enough humans – you really think the adults will be that much better?”
Gilbert ducked the bird easily and stared at the glider in his paws. His talons were painted in alternating shades of lime green and gold, which was rather fetching against his orange scales, although Mortimer still didn’t quite understand it. But then, he didn’t understand Gilbert’s tail piercings, either, which made him wonder if one hundred and twenty-one did actually count as old.
“Alright,” the young dragon said. “I get it. No fire.”
“No fire,” Mortimer and Amelia agreed.
“But it was so cool. Want to see?”
He looked at them so hopefully that even Amelia couldn’t protest, and they followed him dutifully out of the workshop, with its baskets of unworked scales waiting near the entrance, chimineas in the corners and great prisms collecting light from outside and reflecting it onto the low stone workbenches. The three dragons padded single file down the passageway to the rocky face outside, and sat on the ledge in the early morning sun. The lake below the mount was gently ruffled with the fingerprints of the wind, shattering light on every ripple, and the trees in the woods beyond were heavy with summer growth in every shade of green. Distantly, they could see the roofs of Toot Hansell, and beyond that the bright fields of farms rolling toward distant fells.
“Watch,” Gilbert said, and flung the glider into the wind. It spiralled away from them, sleek as a flying fish, its wings broadening and unfurling, angling to catch an updraft. It executed a flawless loop-de-loop, barrel-rolled to its left, then came sweeping back again, wings trembling.
“Where’s the fire?” Amelia asked, sounding unimpressed. “You said it breathed fire.”
“Any minute now,” Gilbert said, as the little glider continued with its acrobatics, glimmering with pink and rose. “Aaaany minute.”
Mortimer took a moment to appreciate the fact that Gilbert really was an extraordinary craftsdragon. The glider was perfectly balanced, following every small shift in the breeze with its own minute adjustments, rolling through a recital of moves with effortless accuracy. He wasn’t so sure about the skulls painted on the fuselage, though.
Just then, the glider gave a shudder and stalled. “What? No!” Gilbert shouted. “Pull up, pull up!” The glider plummeted toward the rocks below, rolling over and over, turning from pink to purple as it went.
“Oh dear,” Mortimer said.
“It’s stopping! Just a glitch!”
The glider was stopping. It had darkened to a deep royal purple and seemed to be expanding, tail lengthening as it began to rise again. Soon it was roaring up the cliff face, and Mortimer could see the hammered scale stretched taut and translucent against a raging fire within.
“Take cover!” he bellowed, and they piled back into the passageway as the glider screamed toward them. It hit the ledge just above theirs, eliciting an enraged shriek from Lydia, an older dragon who’d been sunning herself at the mouth of her cavern. Billows of purple flame spilled across the cliff face, falling over the workshop entrance like a particularly brilliant waterfall. The three dragons stayed where they were for a moment longer, waiting, then there was a scraping noise and a sad thud as the wreckage slid back down and landed on the ledge outside.
“I can see where this wasn’t really ready for market,” Gilbert said after a moment.
Amelia snorted. “Go apologise to Lydia.”
“Aw. She’ll tweak my tail!”
“Serves you right.” Amelia went back into the workshop, and Mortimer patted Gilbert awkwardly on the shoulder.
“Never mind,” he said. “It was a good effort. Great aeronautics.”
“Really?” Gilbert had started to fade to an unhappy grey
colour, but now he perked up. “You thought it was good?”
Mortimer wrinkled his snout. “Just so we’re clear, not the fire bit.”
“But the rest?”
“The rest was wonderful.”
“Awesome! I’ll keep working on it.”
“Not the fire bit!” Mortimer shouted after him as the young dragon hurried out onto the ledge to collect the wreckage, yelling apologies to Lydia, who shouted something back about carelessness and tweaked tails. Mortimer hoped none of her blankets had caught fire. Since he’d set up the dragon scale trade with Miriam as his human partner, the Cloverly dragons had rather quickly moved on from buying gas barbecues for sleeping on (much more comfortable and reliable than fires), to requesting blankets, coloured sheepskins, hats, and, in the case of the younger dragons, talon paint and piercings. He was slightly bewildered by what he’d started, but mostly just happy that no one had to worry about finding enough fuel to stay warm through the winter anymore, or choosing between being warm and finding enough to eat. But dragons did tend to forget that not everything was fireproof.
He started to turn back into the workshop when the semicircle of blue sky at the entrance was blocked out by a rather bulkier body than Gilbert’s.
“Morning, lad,” Beaufort said cheerfully. “That was quite the display! New range?”
Mortimer winced. Beaufort’s voice was very loud in the confines of the passageway. “Not exactly,” he said.
“Did you like it?” Gilbert called from outside, and the High Lord shuffled in the entrance so he could see both younger dragons.
“It was most impressive,” Beaufort said.
“No,” Mortimer said, before Gilbert could say anything else. “It was dangerous. Not for use by humans.”
“Oh,” Beaufort said. “It wasn’t a firework or some such, then?”
“It was a fire-breathing glider,” Gilbert said.
“Which is not practical.” Mortimer tried to make himself sound authoritative. “And we will not be continuing work on them.”
Gilbert sighed, rather theatrically, and Beaufort looked at Mortimer with the corners of his old gold eyes crinkled in amusement.
“Quite right,” he said. “One must know what to pursue and what to leave alone, especially when in business.”
“Yes,” Mortimer said, a little uncertainly, then nodded. “Yes, exactly. Did you need something, sir?” He still found the habit of calling the High Lord “sir” hard to get rid of. After all, it was only in the last couple of years, ever since Mortimer had instigated the idea of redefining treasure to include such things as barbecues, that he and Beaufort had become … well, whatever they were. Friends still didn’t seem right. Beaufort was the High Lord of the Cloverly dragons, and Mortimer was, well, just Mortimer. He wasn’t even a lord, and no matter what Gilbert thought about his age, Beaufort was much, much older. He was so old he’d lost count of the centuries, and still bore Saint George a grudge for killing off his predecessor, High Lord Catherine, while she was sleeping peacefully in a bramble patch. And Mortimer could understand that grudge, considering that even in the glory days of the Cloverlies they’d never grown bigger than a small pony. It cast a rather different light on Saint George’s heroism.
“Fancy going for a little jaunt?” Beaufort said.
Mortimer frowned. Jaunt sounded a little suspicious. He wasn’t sure about jaunts where the High Lord was concerned. Beaufort tended to get very interested in things. A jaunt sounded like it could lead to those sorts of things. He looked down at his tail reflexively. The scales were just beginning to grow back from the manor house thing in spring. He wondered if a jaunt could induce stress-shedding. It sounded like it could. “Well, we do have quite a lot on,” he said aloud.
“Of course you do,” Beaufort said. “Summer fete this month, isn’t it?”
Mortimer nodded. Miriam sold the dragon scale trinkets on the Etsy, but much of their sales came from Toot Hansell’s fetes and markets. They could barely keep up with demand.
“Well, I can always go on my own. Just thought you might like to get out,” Beaufort said. “Don’t work too hard, lad.” He turned and padded back out onto the ledge, and Mortimer dithered for a moment. On the one paw, they did have a lot to do. On the other – Beaufort, out unsupervised. On a jaunt. He could almost feel his scales threatening to let go at the thought.
“Wait!” he shouted. “I’m coming!”
They kept low as they flew toward Toot Hansell, their shadows painted on the trees below them. With the clear skies, it was always possible that someone Sensitive might actually see them if they flew too high, but just above the trees they were safe enough. No one could see them through the leafy cover. Birds watched them go suspiciously and squirrels dived for cover, chattering angrily. Dragons – or certainly Cloverly dragons – preferred rabbits, but it was always best for small creatures to be careful.
“Are we going to see Miriam?” Mortimer asked. She’d been the first human to not only see a dragon, but to befriend one, in centuries, and she made him much less nervous than Alice did. Plus she made very nice banana cake, and always had extra bread on hand to make cheese toasties for hungry dragons. Mortimer considered these fine attributes in a friend.
“I rather think so, yes,” Beaufort said.
“Has something happened?”
Beaufort gave a thoughtful rumble that Mortimer didn’t much like. “Perhaps, lad,” he said. “Although perhaps it’s just human business.”
Human business should have sounded more encouraging, but Mortimer was quite aware that the High Lord wasn’t very good at staying out of human business. He always managed to find some angle that meant he could get involved.
As they drew closer to town and the trees thinned out, they dropped to the ground, folding their wings against their backs and ambling through the underbrush with the earth cool and dew-damp beneath their paws. Miriam’s garden backed up onto the stream that looped around the village, encircling it like a natural moat, and they paused before they stepped onto the little path that ran on the woods side of the waterway, checking for dog-walkers. No one seemed to be about, so they hurried across the path and over the little stone ford that served Miriam as a bridge, then let themselves through the gate and into her cheerfully overgrown garden. Flowering plants and vegetables fought for supremacy among overflowing herb pots and clambering vines, and an apple tree drooped heavy under an abundance of green fruit. Bees massed around the wildflowers that grew on the borders among the long grass, and birds squabbled over the seeds in the feeder. There was an almost embarrassing excess of life going on.
There was no one in the garden, so Beaufort led the way to the kitchen door and knocked briskly before Mortimer could even protest. The younger dragon ducked behind a broken pot overflowing with tomatoes and said, “Beaufort! Anyone could be in there!”
“I don’t think so,” the High Lord replied, peering in the kitchen window. “I don’t see anyone at all.”
“Maybe she’s out.”
“Quite.” Beaufort considered for a moment, then said, “Let’s see if Alice is home.”
Mortimer supposed that was safe enough. Alice’s house backed onto the woods on the eastern side of the village, and they could go all the way there under the cover of the trees without crossing a road or doing anything else dangerous or silly. And Alice might not be one for cheese toasties, but she did make an excellent egg salad sandwich. He started to say exactly that when there was the sound of footsteps coming around the side of the house. He flung himself into the shadow of the tomatoes, trying desperately to convince his anxiously grey scales to take on the mottled green of the garden before some horribly perceptive person walked around the corner and found themselves face to face with a dragon, and then they were exposed in national newspapers – or international – and dissected or tased or put in zoos or—
“Detective Inspector Adams!” Beaufort boomed cheerily. He’d merely sunk in among the plant pots under Miriam’s window
, taking on the stone-grey of the flags beneath him, and now he stood up, regarding the inspector with a toothy smile as his scales flushed back to green. “And Detective Inspector Collins. How lovely to see you both!”
“Beaufort,” DI Adams said, not sounding quite as enthusiastic. She looked around until she spotted Mortimer, who was trying to look casual under the tomatoes. “Mortimer.”
“Hello,” Mortimer said weakly, and sat up. There was a tomato squashed under his belly, and he wiped it off distastefully. He still hadn’t decided which of the inspectors made him more nervous. DI Adams was terribly serious, but DI Collins was friendly. That was almost worse.
“Hello, lads,” DI Collins said. “Have you seen my Auntie Miriam?”
“We were looking for her ourselves,” Beaufort said. “In fact, we were about to go around and see if she was at Alice’s.”
DI Adams gave a rather weighty sigh. “We were too.”
“Oh, we’ll come with you, then,” Beaufort said. “You can give us a lift.”
DI Adams looked alarmed, and Mortimer began to stammer out a protest, but DI Collins clapped his hands together and grinned at the dragons. “Makes sense,” he said. “Everyone in!” He turned and led the way back around the house, Beaufort trotting after him with his nose high, and DI Adams and Mortimer exchanged horrified looks.
“Is that wise?” she said. “I mean, someone might see you.”
“I know,” Mortimer said, plucking at his tail. “But you try telling him. He likes cars,” he added, to underline the difficulty of the situation.
DI Adams looked at him for a moment, then gave him a clumsy pat on the shoulder and said, “Well, no helping it then. Come on. We’ll miss our ride.”
“Well, we don’t want that, do we,” Mortimer said, then immediately said, “Sorry. That was rude.”
“No, you’re fine. I’m glad to see not everyone around here thinks this sort of thing is normal.” She put her hands in her pockets and headed for the front of the house, and after a moment Mortimer followed. It could be worse, he reminded himself. Beaufort could be buying mulled wine in a dog costume at the Christmas market. Again.