Page 70 of Connor and the Dragons

“Okay,” he said. “Watching.”

“Every fourth beat there’s a hitch.”

“There is?”

“He’s carrying a troll, a cat, a basket and a very heavy mirror. So it could be that.”

“Right.”

“He’s got about two hundred pounds on Kessrin’s load. At least. That mirror is a beast. So maybe that’s it.”

“Or maybe…?” Sky prompted.

“A wizard shot him under that wing,” I said. “About four hours ago. I’m worried he’s injured.”

Sky frowned. “Is he bleeding?”

“I can’t tell. It was light, not an arrow. There’s no hole in him. And he didn’t let me check when we stopped to pick you up.”

“So what does light do?”

“I don’t know.”

“What did he say about it?”

“He’s a dragon,” I said. “He can’t say anything, and he can’t turn into a man up here because a man can’t fly. So he gets to be fine until he lands, and then we find out.”

“We’re at least a day’s sail from Liminia now. Do you want to stop for a rest? Are there islands, or is it just open ocean?”

“There’s a rock about halfway across. It’s got a small beach.”

“You’ve been there?”

“Yes, when Oallian dropped me.”

“And you put my husband in his basket.”

I shrugged. “The transformation was related to my forearms, or so he said. Don’t worry, Kess caught us, and everyone was fine.”

“Your forearms.”

“He can’t be a dragon if he gets horny. It’s a whole thing.”

Sky put both hands over his face and laughed into them, and it went on long enough that the sound came apart in the wind and came back, and I stopped looking left for a minute and let him laugh.

“What happened, anyway? At the house.”

“It was just supposed to be recon. Somebody set Oallian off while I wasn’t even in the room, and he punched straight up through the ceiling. I still don’t know what did it. So I’m in a cellar throwing a dead woman’s silver onto a pile so it reads as a hoard, and my dragons are going out through the roof.”

Sky turned around in the basket.

“Connor Liang in love,” Sky said. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

“What?”

“You know what you said. My dragons.”

“They’re an asset,” I said. “It’s a possessive.”