Dragons Were on the Menu

"Connected how?" Aldric asked.

Lucien spread his hands.

"The old bloodlines are complicated. Dragons, drakes, horned serpents. Certain ancient branches share traits. The fur obscured the resemblance, naturally, but your concern for her makes sense now."

I sat beside Seth's boot.

That was an impressive amount of nonsense to produce while standing on a damaged playground.

"You think she's a dragon?" Aldric said.

"Or descended from one."

Lucien looked down at me with a new, oily courtesy.

"Which ancestral line, Pip?"

Aldric's voice cracked across the street.

"She's the thing that eats us."

A car alarm went off.

Seth's fingers tightened in my fur.

I closed my eyes.

There went the possibility of everyone forgetting about this before lunch.

"Exclusively?" Lucien asked, very quietly.

"Not exclusively," I said.

That did not comfort him.

Aldric lowered his head until his horns nearly touched the school roof.

"Do you know why I asked you to keep her fed? Do you know why I approved every annual review myself?"

"Aldric."

"Because she once ate seven dragons."

"Aldric."

"Seven. And she was already badly injured when she started."

I opened my eyes.

He pulled his head back.

"I was only explaining."

"You were explaining loudly."

He looked toward the school windows, where several teachers were staring.

"They probably heard the thunder more than the words."

I stared at him.

"Fine," he said. "They heard the words."

A news helicopter appeared above the next street.

Aldric moved a cloud in front of it.

I approved of that. He could still be useful.

Lucien had begun rubbing his wrist, the one belonging to the hand that had grabbed my ear.

"But if she's such a danger, why employ her at all?"

"I was standing right here," I said.

"I meant a potential danger."

"You were happier calling me useless."

Seth bent forward to hide a smile.

Lucien looked at Aldric for assistance.

The dragon didn't provide it.

"For eight hundred years," Aldric said, "nothing has escaped that building. Nothing has reached a civilian. Nothing has challenged the guards beyond what ordinary staff could manage."

"The wards—"

"Yes, Lucien. The wards work. The locks work. But the creatures had a reason not to test either."

Lucien looked toward the Bureau.

Even from here, its entrance was visible beyond the park.

My cushion lay in the sun.

"So the entire security arrangement depended on her presence?"

Aldric looked at Lucien for a long moment.

"When you inspected the lower wards, did you ask why the oldest prisoners never tried the emergency passages?"

"The seals were certified."

"Did you ask?"

Lucien said nothing.

"There are doors they could break," Aldric said. "There are guards they could kill. For eight hundred years, leaving either intact was their own preference."

He glanced at me.

"You changed what they preferred."

I checked Seth's bandaged wrist.

Those were the consequences I disliked. The people who had brought me heating pads were now spending their nights bleeding into them.

Lucien followed my gaze and tucked his tablet beneath his arm.

Seth rose.

"We should clear the street. The children need their parents."

Aldric nodded. Clouds folded around him, and he descended behind the response truck.

A moment later he emerged in human form wearing a dark coat, polished boots, and a strip of loose scale beside his left ear.

I pointed at it.

He tucked it away.

"My retreat wasn't finished."

"I can see that."

He looked at the playground, the cracked concrete, and the gold bar waiting beside the truck.

"I'll speak to the school."

"The Gullet is paying for the wall."

"Good."

"And the coat."

"Good."

"Don't let Bram keep the change."

Seth laughed properly this time.

Lucien remained standing apart from us.

His phone vibrated. He looked at it, then turned the screen facedown.

"The Bureau will require a full incident review," Aldric told him.

"Certainly."

"Including the decision to obstruct a rescue."

Lucien's mouth tightened.

"I acted on the records available to me."

"Four people warned you before today," Aldric said. "We'll hear from all four. Then we'll hear from the officers at this school."

"Director, surely we can discuss this privately."

"We are discussing it privately. Your explanation will be on the record."

Lucien looked toward the teachers watching through the windows.

He didn't answer.

The first parents arrived at the barrier.

One woman ran so fast she lost a shoe. The teachers met her at the door, and a little girl in a blanket flew into her arms.

I watched the mother press her face into the child's hair.

A small brown feather shook loose from her sleeve.

Something about her seemed familiar.

Before I could examine the feeling, Seth crouched again.

"Want a lift?"

"Where?"

"Home."

That reminded me of the soup.

"University district first."

"Pip."

"I told the owner to keep my lunch warm."

He stared, then sighed.

"Of course you did."

Aldric intercepted us at the barrier.

"You're coming back to the Bureau."

"No. I'm going for soup."

"We need to talk."

"You can talk while I eat."

"Martha has made braised pork."

I paused.

Seth looked at the director.

The director looked at me.

"With the skin left on," Aldric added.

That was underhanded.

"How much?" I asked.

"A full pot."

"Then we can talk at the Bureau."

Seth tucked me under one arm, carefully avoiding my ears.

We crossed the park while Aldric spoke to Rowan on the phone.

The Gullet was back in his cell. He had refused to enter until an officer checked that the door could be locked immediately behind him.

Ash had folded himself beneath his wing and asked not to receive visitors.

The seventh-floor residents were all accounted for.

"Tell them I'm not on duty," I said.

Aldric relayed that.

Whatever Rowan answered made him close his eyes.

"What?" Seth asked.

"Apparently that didn't reassure them."

At the Bureau entrance, Seth put me down.

For a moment, I expected to find the old arrangement: cushion, water bowl, sleepy afternoon.

Instead, Felicity sat in the middle of my bedding with a phone pointed at her face.

The ring light shone brighter than the sunlight.

"Hello, my lovely monsters," she said. "Today I'm giving you a behind-the-scenes tour."

She noticed me.

Then Lucien.

Her smile disappeared.

"Why is she back?"

I smelled braised pork drifting through the open door.

"Lunch," I said.