Page 71 of Connor and the Dragons

“It sure is.”

“Sky.”

“You fed one of them off your fingers at a lunch table.”

“He was on the floor. It was faster.”

“You kissed the other one on the head at breakfast in front of me and my husband.”

“He was drinking tea and he kept frosting it, sometimes he needs to be warmed up.”

“You picked out their clothes.”

“Somebody had to. They were going to a wizard’s house dressed for a shipwreck.”

“You call him Kess.”

I opened my mouth and had nothing to put in it.

“Wow,” Sky said. “And he lets you call him that.”

I pulled the blanket up over my knees. “We found the mirror,” I said. “We’re going home. It doesn’t matter.”

Sky shook his head.

“You can stay too, you know. With your dragons.”

“That’s insane,” I whispered. “I have a whole life in San Jose. I can’t stay in some magical land just because I met a couple of very attractive dragons.”

“I am. I mean, even more attractive troll, but same same.”

I snorted. “Moerrven is not more attractive than Kess and Oallian. Come on.”

Sky’s lips twitched.

“I mean that in a completely not-in-love-with-them way.”

Sky did not look like he believed me. He tilted his head up and frowned. “Is he cold? There’s frost coming down over the basket handle.”

CHAPTER 23: OALLIAN

We set the baskets down on the same tiny clump of rocks we’d performed an emergency landing on a few weeks ago. Or at least I was pretty sure it was the same one. Clumps of rocks sticking up out of the ocean all look the same.

Kessrin didn’t transform. He tucked his tail around him and stared pointedly out at the sea looking for all the world like a painting of a dragon by one of the great masters. I wondered if I should do that, look beautiful and stoic and properly dragon-like.

Connor and Sky popped out of Kessrin’s basket, stretching like they’d been the ones doing all the work. Moerrven had been riding in my basket with one very heavy mirror and one very light cat, and he fell to the ground and kissed it.

That part was a bit rude. I huffed at him, making a little cloud of smoke just for show.

“Is Moerrven all right?” Connor asked, tilting his head and not mentioning the rudeness at all. I stretched my wings to emphasize my magnificence and flight skills.

“He’s fine.” Sky crouched next to him and put a hand between his shoulders.

“I am not afraid of heights,” Moerrven said, to the sand he was kissing.

“He’s not afraid of heights. He’s afraid of the ground being a long way off.”

“It is a completely different thing.”