Page 75 of Connor and the Dragons

“And Oallian?”

“Yes.”

“Stop if it starts to hurt, okay? Another rock, whatever. Rest if you need it.”

“I will,” I said, and I closed my eyes and did the thing that was becoming easier and easier. I transformed.

CHAPTER 24: KESSRIN

I woke to Connor and Oallian curled around me, which made no sense. Shouldn’t they be angry with me? Why were they snuggling me? I’d called Oallian a monster, and Connor, well. There was that thing he’d said to Sky. I carefully crawled out from between them and went to the bathroom, running a hot bath as my mind swirled with worries.

I sank into the hot water, groaning softly as the soothing warmth wrapped around my aching muscles. I’d flown the rest of the way home, without a break, just to get there ahead of them. I wanted space to think, some time, but instead I’d gotten a wedding.

Another damn resident of Feravael was madly in love with a human who’d leapt through the portal from San Jose. This human was a tall, dark-haired guy named Leo who’d stepped through the mirror after seeing Connor disappear through it, intent on rescuing him.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, Oallian had already snatched Connor up before Leo had appeared on the Qoksmere side. Which was how Leo had met Thyren, his new husband, Aeldryc’s second-in-command in the Grey Guard.

I was sure the wedding had been lovely, but after the ocean crossing I’d been dead on my feet and I could barely remember any of it, except the part where Connor had appeared and announced to the entire world that he’d found a way home.

Which made sense, because my apartments were not his home. So I’d slipped out early not long after Connor and Oallian had arrived, with exactly zero of my problems figured out. I’d fallen asleep wondering if Connor and Oallian would choose to return to my apartments at all, and woken up wrapped up in their warmth like it was just what we did.

Voices on the other side of the door told me Connor and Oallian were awake. And cheerful. I sank deeper into the water for a minute, hoping to shut them out, but too soon, Oallian popped his head in. He was in my second-best robe.

“There you are! The Queen’s staff sent up breakfast. Come eat!”

Why wasn’t he angry with Connor?

I sighed and carefully toweled off, then wrapped myself in a plush robe and walked out into the living room. Connor was telling a story, his hands waving about. “Can you believe the look on Leo’s face when I told him we’d found the mirror?”

“He looked disappointed,” Oallian said. “Like the idea of going home was the worst thing he could think of.”

“Uh, yeah. Because that was his wedding! To that seven foot tall hunk of fae, Thyren. Why is everyone married? Sky has his trolgar bond or whatever that he says is pretty much like marriage, Pip is married, Leo is married.”

“It’s the resonant bond,” Oallian said. “It’s this deep, lasting connection, where your magic just fuses together. It’s incredible to experience.”

“You’ve experienced it?”

Oallian blinked. “I mean, not exactly, but I want to. It deepens over time, until you can sense your partner from another room.”

I cleared my throat.

Connor looked up. “Oh, hey, Kess. You doing okay? I told Oallian not to disturb your bath, but he wanted to see you naked.”

Oallian giggled, then said, “I wanted to make sure he didn’t miss the food! The palace chef is amazing. Does he do this every morning?”

“He is Queen Delsynarea’s cook. One would assume he cooks for his Queen every morning,” I said, sitting next to him and pouring myself a cup of tea. “And of course her hospitality extends to her court, and to temporary guests.”

Connor hit me with a hard stare which a lesser person might have assumed was in response to that ‘temporary’ but I knew was just his usual facial expression. After all, he was not in love with me at all. He’d said so himself.

“We should get breakfast every morning,” Oallian said.

Connor had not touched his breakfast. He had a page flat in front of him and another under his elbow, and he was working down a column of symbols with a pencil, stopping now and then to write something in the margin and underline it twice.

“Why are you playing with codes? We have what we needed. The mirror is downstairs. There is nothing left in those pages that the crown requires.”

He kept going for a moment. Then he slid the whole stack six inches to his left, under the edge of a plate, and picked up his fork.

“No reason,” he said. “Just…it’s a thing I do when I need to work out another sort of puzzle.”