Chapter 17: The Betrayal
“THIS STUPIDEST thing we’ve ever done.”
I rolled my eyes. “So you’ve said, Tiggy. Repeatedly. For the last three hours. In those exact words. Over and over again.”
“Making sure you heard.”
“I heard you.”
“Still doing it?”
“Yes, Tiggy.”
“You’re stupid.”
“Hey!”
“He’s not wrong,” Gary said as we marched down the road, the flags atop Castle Lockes visibly flapping in the distance. “I mean, I’ve followed you through some pretty stupid stuff before.”
“You act like all we do is stupid stuff.”
“Do you remember that time you made wings out of parchment and sticks you found on the ground and were ready to jump off the back parapet before your mom found us and told you that if you moved another inch, you would be grounded for the rest of your natural life?”
“You were the one who told me to do it! And also, do you know how many times I’ve been grounded for the rest of my natural life? Seven times. No, wait. Eight times, because she did it again when I came back from my Dark Woods Dragon Adventure.”
“Or what about the time you chained yourself up in the middle of a field because you wanted me to come caress you with my mouth?” Kevin said. “We didn’t even know each other. That was pretty stupid. And also sexy.”
I scowled at him. “That was the truth-corn cult. I had nothing to do with that.”
“Or what about the time you took a visiting dignitary to one of the hole-in-the-wall bars in the slums so he could get the real City of Lockes experience?” Ryan asked.
“He had fun! Well, for the first few hours. The next seventeen days were hostage negotiations, but they were damn good negotiations. Those bandits ended up walking away with confused expressions and three hundred pounds of sea salt they never knew they wanted. And then they were arrested. Everything turned out fine!”
“This is stupidest thing we’ve done.”
“Tiggy!” I gasped. “Have you so little faith in me?”
Tiggy patted me on the head. “I believe in you.”
“Aww.”
“But you’re stupid.”
“Everything is going to be fine. As long as you all follow the extremely detailed points I laid out to the letter without any deviations, we shouldn’t die a horrible death after being tortured for weeks where our fingernails are pulled out one by one.”
“I don’t have fingernails,” Gary said. “So I should be just fine. I can handle a little torture.”
“You once screamed bloody murder when you got a splinter in your leg.”
“It hurt.”
“It turned out not to be a splinter at all but a piece of lint stuck in your hair.”
“I had to make sure you knew I needed help.”
“Whatever. Dimitri, you have faith in me, don’t you?”
The six-inch naked man with wings fluttered near my shoulders. “You broke up with me by running away.”