Who Told You She Was a Rabbit?

I shook off Lucien's hand and breathed out.

The wind stopped.

The Gullet froze with the girl hanging beneath his open mouth. I crossed the playground before her next sob. My paws opened, no longer small, and I caught her between two curved claws before lifting her out of his grip.

"Close your eyes," I told her.

She did.

I turned toward the nearest teacher.

"Take her inside. Count everybody."

The woman reached for the child with shaking arms.

Only then did I stop holding my shape together.

The paving stones separated beneath my feet.

My shoulders rose above the climbing frame. My long ears folded back against a head that was no longer round, and the little rabbit's mouth became a muzzle lined with teeth broad enough to close around a dragon's throat.

Two pale horns curved through the white fur above my eyes.

The Gullet saw them and made a noise I hadn't heard from him in four hundred years.

A whimper.

He tried to kneel before his legs had finished shaking. His chin struck the ground. Somewhere behind me, the suppression cannon rattled against its mount as its operator let go.

I planted my claws carefully, away from the school doors. Four lines split the concrete.

Lucien stared at the hand that had held my ear.

Then he stumbled backward.

Above us, thunder rolled through a cloudless sky.

A dragon's head emerged from a bank of white cloud.

"Who," Aldric asked, his voice carrying down the street, "told you she was a rabbit?"

Nobody answered.

That improved matters considerably.

I lowered my head and checked the doorway. The teacher had the girl tucked against her chest. Another teacher was counting the children, touching each head as she spoke.

Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three.

"That's everyone," she said.

The little girl peeked over her shoulder.

"Bunny?"

"Yes," I said. "Go with your teacher."

She sniffed and disappeared inside.

I turned back to the Gullet.

He was flat on the playground.

His limbs had folded underneath him. Every eye he possessed was squeezed shut.

"Pip," he whispered.

I looked at the bite marks in the girl's coat, still caught on one claw.

"Four hundred years," I said. "I thought you had learned something."

"I didn't hurt her."

"You picked her up."

"I was moving her out of the way."

"With your teeth?"

His mouth closed.

Good. It had never been his most attractive feature.

Lucien made a sound behind me.

I looked over my shoulder.

He stood beneath the playground awning, white-faced, one hand still raised as though he couldn't believe what it had been holding.

"You could have warned me," he said.

I looked at the doorway where the girl had disappeared.

"I did."

"I meant about yourself."

"You were busy telling me about my place."

Seth made an exhausted noise.

"Lucien. Please stop talking."

Aldric remained mostly hidden in the clouds. Two horns and one golden eye were visible.

I looked up.

"Why are you hiding?"

The cloud shifted.

"I'm not."

"You moved behind the water tower."

"The wind did that."

There was no wind.

I decided not to embarrass him further. He had come out of his retreat early, and one side of his face still had loose scales.

The Gullet attempted to crawl backward.

I put a claw beside his foreleg.

He stopped.

"You have two choices," I told him. "You can go back to your cell, or I can make sure nobody ever has to write another incident report about you."

"My cell," he said immediately.

"Good."

"I was going there anyway."

"Before or after the child?"

His wool trembled.

I hooked the tip of one claw behind his ear and lifted his head.

"Look at me."

He did, reluctantly.

"If you touch another child, I won't ask questions first. Are we clear?"

"Completely."

I pushed his forehead into the ground.

Not hard. Enough to leave a crater and settle the matter.

The officers behind the response truck collectively took one step back.

I pointed toward the street.

"Go."

The Gullet rose too quickly, lost his footing, recovered, and hurried toward the Bureau.

He made it as far as the broken wall before stopping.

He looked at the bricks.

Then at me.

Then at the teachers watching from the window.

"I can pay for that," he said.

"You will."

He reached into the thick wool along his flank and produced a bar of gold.

It was old enough that a dead king's face had worn almost smooth.

He placed it delicately beside the response truck.

"For the wall. And the playground."

"And the girl's coat," I said.

"Of course."

Seth looked at the gold, then at the creature, then at his suppression cannon.

"We've been trying to restrain you for forty minutes."

"A very professional effort," the Gullet said faintly.

He turned toward the other officers.

"Would somebody please show me the way back? I don't want to take a wrong turn."

No one moved.

"Please," he added.

Rowan, who had arrived carrying an emergency register, pointed toward the gate.

"That way."

"Thank you."

The Gullet followed him at a respectful distance.

I waited until they were past the tape before making myself small again.

The shrinking was easier than finding somewhere to put all the extra fur. A cloud of it drifted across the playground.

Martha was going to complain if any reached the kitchen.

Seth approached slowly.

He crouched before me.

For once, he didn't reach for my head.

I looked at his burnt fringe.

"You can still scratch my ears."

He let out a breath that seemed to have been sitting in his chest for days.

"Right."

His hand shook when he touched me.

"Are you hurt?" I asked.

"No."

"Then stop looking like that."

He laughed once, unsteadily, and rubbed between my ears.

Behind him, Lucien straightened his jacket.

"Director Voss. I wasn't informed that our entrance staff included a creature of this classification."

Aldric descended far enough that the sunlight caught his scales.

"You were informed that she was to be looked after."

"That is hardly an operational briefing."

"Did you look after her?"

Lucien glanced at me.

"There were performance concerns."

Aldric's eye narrowed.

Seth's hand stopped.

I nudged it. He resumed scratching.

I had already handled one unpleasant creature. Somebody else could handle the meeting.

The school's head teacher came outside with a blanket wrapped around the girl.

"She wants to say thank you," she told me.

The girl crouched several feet away.

Her knees were dirty. One sock had slipped beneath her heel.

"Thank you, bunny."

"You're welcome."

"Are you always that big?"

"Only when necessary."

She considered this seriously.

"Our playground isn't very big."

"I noticed."

"Will you come back when it's fixed?"

I glanced at the damaged paving stones.

"Perhaps."

She offered me a small hand. I touched it with my paw.

The teacher took her inside again.

Lucien watched the exchange. Something changed in his expression.

He turned toward Aldric with the bright, premature confidence of a man who had solved a puzzle incorrectly.

"Now I understand," he said. "She's connected to your family."

Above us, the dragon went very still.