“Dude, how old are you? And you wanted to marry me? That is an age gap I’m not comfortable with.”
“I’m still virile,” he said as his minions tittered angrily behind him. “I can give you a demonstration if you’d like.”
“I will punch you in your tiny face,” Ryan growled.
“He is a king,” Justin hissed at him. “Maybe don’t try and piss him off?”
“Sam is going to summon the dragons,” Randall said above all the noise, and everyone fell silent.
I turned slowly to him. “I’m sorry. I’m going to what now?”
Randall didn’t look pleased. It didn’t make me feel any better. “You’re going to summon the dragons. It’s time we meet with them face-to-face.” The skin under his left eye twitched. “All of them together.”
“That’s why you’ve called for me,” Dimitri said, sounding accusatory. “You wish to parley with the Great White, and you want me to be the go-between.”
“Ooooh, girl,” Gary breathed. “Draaaama.”
“Now that we have Sam here,” Randall said, “the Great White and I will be able to have… words. And I expect there to be many of them. It is better if the fairies mediate any meeting, given our history.”
“I don’t see why I have to be here for this,” I told him. “I don’t want to see the oldest things I know fighting with each other.”
Randall’s eyebrows did a complicated dance. “You will be here,” he said through gritted teeth, “because the dragons belong to you as much as you belong to them.”
“You hear that?” Kevin whispered. “I own you.”
I ignored him in favor of staring at Randall. “Why now?”
“Because we’re running out of time. Myrin won’t allow the rescue of the King to go unpunished. I fear that the fall of Old Clearing is just the beginning.” He glanced at Dimitri before looking back at me. “And as you’ve said yourself, Zero will shortly need to sleep the next century away. We can no longer dally. The end is coming, Sam. One way or another.”
“Drama queen,” I muttered. “So, you want me to bring four other dragons here, one of whom is basically the size of a small mountain who also happens to hold a grudge because you chose your supervillain boo over him, so you can have a tiny naked man with wings play mediator and we can try to figure out how to save Verania from the clutches of evil?”
I could tell it cost him greatly to agree with me. But he said, “Yes, Sam.”
I shrugged. “Okay.”
He blinked. “What?”
“I said okay.”
“I really expected more pushback.”
“Nah. I want to see how awkward it’s going to be when you two meet again after all this time.”
“You’re such a bitch,” Gary said proudly. “I taught him that.”
“We need to warn the camp,” Justin said. “So the people don’t frea
k out when dragons suddenly descend upon us.”
“I do it,” Tiggy said.
“Don’t scare people,” Justin warned him. “We don’t need to cause panic.”
Tiggy looked offended. “I won’t.” Then he turned and began running toward the gates, hands flailing above his head as he bellowed, “DRAGONS COMING! DON’T BE SCARED! DRAGONS ARE COMING, BUT THEY NO EAT YOU!”
“He tries so hard,” I told Justin, who just sighed.
Ryan had pulled his sword out and was staring at his reflection in the blade, running a hand through his hair.