‘Aventurine!’ It was Grandfather’s warning, the one I’d heard so many times. How could I have forgotten it even for a moment? ‘Never trust a human. They lie and cheat!’
I jerked awake, my heart thudding against my chest. My breathing felt fast and tight, as if I’d been running for hours.
And I was surrounded by humans, everywhere.
Tall, rectangular buildings reached towards the sky to my right and to my left and marched on in rows and rows ahead of me, as far as my eyes could follow. Humans carrying baskets and bags bustled in crowds along the pavement on each side of the stony street and yammered noisily to each other in the horse-drawn carts that rattled past in a non-stop procession. I was so hemmed in I could hardly breathe.
How could all the humans stand it?
The hills that we’d been travelling through when I first fell asleep rose high in the distance now, beyond a tall stone tower with a massive clock face that overlooked the busy human city, ticking away all the hours that I’d lost. It couldn’t have been later than nine in the morning when I’d first closed my eyes. Now it looked more like mid-afternoon.
And I didn’t like the look of where those hours had carried me.
Our cart had rolled to a stop in front of a tall red-brick building, with scattered squares of clear glass dotted around its front and pots of pink flowers clustered before them. From the flowers to the sickly-sweet figurines set in front of the house’s entryway, it looked exactly like the sort of place where Greta would live … but I didn’t spot a single piece of chocolate anywhere.
I didn’t smell any chocolate either.
As my senses prickled with danger, I heard Greta whisper to Friedrich over my head, ‘Now, stop being so stubborn and just carry her inside! I know what she said, but by the time she wakes up, it’ll all be sorted, and –’
‘I’m awake!’ I snarled, and sat bolt upright. I would have spread out my wings and arched my neck if I could, to make myself as big and dangerous-looking as possible. Instead I narrowed my eyes into a glower as I looked from one of my treacherous companions to the other. ‘This isn’t a chocolate house, is it?’
Friedrich winced and slid off the seat of the cart, turning his gaze away as if he couldn’t bear to watch. But Greta smiled and wrapped her fingers around my shoulder, squeezing so tightly that I couldn’t escape.
As I looked into her eyes I realised something that I’d almost forgotten on our long journey: even without any claws or scales, humans had always been predators, too.
‘Now, dear …’ Her fingers tightened even more, pinching into my skin, as she leaned towards me. ‘I know you think you want to work in a chocolate house, but trust me, you wouldn’t last a day in one of those fine places. Why, you didn’t even know what shoes were until I told you! Really, no one but us would even want to hire you. And without us, you would have starved all alone in the wild!
‘So now that we’ve brought you all the way here, and even shared our own food and drink out of the pure generosity of our hearts –’ she nudged me gently towards where Friedrich stood on the other side of the cart, his face tilted away from us and his shoulders sagging – ‘it’s time for you to be a good, obedient girl and pay us back. You just hop down next to Friedrich and we’ll all go inside where it’s safe, through that door right there –’ she pointed – ‘and you won’t ever have to worry about taking care of yourself again. Do you understand, dear?’
I looked into Greta’s smiling face, as her hard fingers gripped my frail human shoulder through the thick green covering she’d lent me, and I smiled back at her.
It was a smile that showed all my teeth, and my family would have recognised it in an instant.
‘I understand,’ I said sweetly.
‘Good girl.’ Her fingers finally loosened …
… And I leaped straight off the cart, leaving her dull green covering behind me.
I landed hard on the city street, a full foot away from where Friedrich waited. Sighing, he shifted towards me.
He was too late.
Tucking my head down, I spun around and ran as fast as my legs would take me, weaving past carts and horses and humans alike.
I’d left one safe, smothering cavern behind already.
I was never going to let myself be trapped again.
Muck and horse dung covered the round, bumpy stones of the city streets, forming a stinky, sticky mess and turning my cloth-covered feet gooey within seconds. Only twenty minutes after my great escape, I had to stop running so that I could scrape off my foot-coverings for the fifth time.
To keep my balance I hung on to a thick, cream-coloured artificial tree trunk that had been set into the pavement, with one of the humans’ fancy glass lamps balanced at the top of it. It was a funny thing to put in the middle of a city, but it wasn’t the strangest thing I saw as I looked around me.
Tall yellow-and-white buildings rose on both sides of the street, embellished like jewellery with fluttery, swirly ornamentation and dotted with rows and rows of thin glass rectangles. Crowds of humans flooded in and out of the open doorways, chatting and laughing and filling their arms with more and more bags and decorated boxes.
Greta’s home had been halfway up a street of red-brick houses, with every door shut tight against the world. The scene around me now was so different that if I hadn’t seen the same massive, forested green foothills rising in the distance, and the same giant clock tower sticking up in between, I might have imagined that I’d run all the way to a different city.
Horses clattered up and down the street, dragging behind them elaborate golden-and-black conveyances that looked nothing like Greta’s simple cart. Even the humans here looked different from the ones in Greta’s neighbourhood.
At least I’d learned some useful words during Greta’s lecture that morning. The pale blue or yellow floor-length things worn by all of the female humans – no, women – were called ‘dresses’, and they looked enormously impractical, billowing out in massive circles around their owners’ legs. The men wore ‘trousers’, which looked much more sensible, but Greta had been horrified that I was wearing them, as a girl. Still, at least mine were scale-coloured. Human trousers were so boring!
In dragon culture, bright colours were a source of pride, but human males seemed to be positively afraid of them. They might have been born with different-coloured skin, head-fur and eyes from each other, but they’d all chosen exactly the same type of plain, dark clothing, as if they were trying to blur together like herd animals. I hadn’t glimpsed a single bright flash of crimson or gold since I’d arrived. Worse yet, for some reason the men around here seemed to be determined to half-strangle themselves with the elaborate white knots that they all had tied around their necks.
But none of the peculiarities that I saw before me mattered nearly as much as what I smelt.
There were food sellers on almost every street corner here, crying out the names of their wares over big, black, open ovens that stood smack in the centre of the pavement. Fresh, hot ‘waffles’ smelt sweet and sugary, and made me lick my lips. ‘Jacket potatoes’ sent up savoury scents, and ‘roasted chestnuts’ smelt strangely enticing. More scents drifted towards me from the open doorways up and down the street.
I was so hungry I would have whimpered if I’d had less dignity. It had been a very long time since my cheese and milk that morning … and apparently even tiny human stomachs needed more sustenance than that.
But there was something far more important than my hunger driving me now. It had been over a day since I’d tasted any chocolate!
Now that I’d finally found my passion, I wasn’t going to stop until I had it in my claws forever.
Unfortunately, not a single one of the yellow-and-white buildings around me looked as if it could be made of chocolate. And with my weak new human nose, hunting out the smell of the city’s famous chocolate houses underneath all those other scents that bombarded me – from the mouth-watering smells of the cooking food to the reek
of human sweat, the strange artificial scents that the humans all seemed to slather on top of it and the steaming piles of droppings that the horses had left on the street …
Well, it was going to be a challenge, even for a secret dragon.
But I was more than ready to try. I let go of the lamp-tree and set off to follow my nose, my cloth-covered feet squishing against the ground with every step.
CHAPTER 6
Chocolate houses were nothing like I’d expected.
When the scent of chocolate, growing stronger and stronger, led me to the open doorway of yet another yellow-and-white building, I stopped just outside it in disbelief.
Two humans nearly bumped into me from behind.
‘Well, excuse me!’ The woman, who was closer, yanked the edges of her big dress away from me, even though I hadn’t touched it. Her bright red head-fur was piled on top of her head in bunches, and she had to tilt her pointy chin high to look down her wrinkled nose at me.
The man beside her cleared his throat, his dark skin flushing over his fancy neck-knot. ‘If we might pass …’
I gave them both a narrow-eyed, accusing glance. ‘This building isn’t made of chocolate!’
‘Er …’ The man glanced at the woman beside him, the thin blocks of fur over his eyes shooting upward. ‘No?’ he said. But he didn’t say it as if he was certain.
‘Definitely not,’ I assured him, and crossed my arms. ‘So where can I find a real chocolate house in this city?’
At that, the woman’s eyes rolled almost as alarmingly as Friedrich’s had earlier that day. ‘This is a real chocolate house, child,’ she said. ‘The most famous chocolate house in Drachenburg. I thought even country folk knew that!’
‘We-e-ell …’ The man’s shoulders moved up and down. ‘I don’t know if I’d say the best, Countess. The Chocolate Cup is the oldest and most established of the three chocolate houses, but Meckelhof’s has become increasingly popular since the crown princess gave it her patronage, and I’ve even heard –’
‘Nonsense! No one of any real importance favours Meckelhof’s,’ said the woman, ‘and we needn’t even talk about that little hole in the wall that calls itself a third chocolate house.’ She sniffed. ‘But regardless …’ Her brown gaze moved up and down, inspecting me from the top of my long black head-fur, which hung loose around my shoulders, to the mucky cloth coverings around my feet. ‘The Chocolate Cup only caters to the very best society. So if you’re looking for handouts, little girl, you’d be wise to look elsewhere.’
Handouts? I didn’t know what that word meant, but I knew exactly how to read her look.
It was the same look my sister Citrine had given me during her last visit, when I’d told her that I didn’t see the point in learning to write poetry in iambic pentameter. That look said, without the need for words: You will never be impressive enough to be worthy of my attention.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have any fireballs to belch into this woman’s face in answer. The look on Citrine’s face when I had done that had been priceless.
Even without smoke or flame, though, I could roll my own eyes back at that countess, so I did, spinning them just as dizzily as any natural-born human might. Then I marched into the shop in front of her and firmly shut the door in her face.
Her outraged gasp reached me through the glass, but by then I hardly cared. The moment the shop door closed, I was knocked to my knees by the strength of the scent that rose to meet me.
Ohhh, chocolate!
It was even better than I’d remembered. Even better than the chocolate that the food mage had carried with him.
So rich. So intense. So pure.
So close!
I let out a little moan of yearning.
Dimly, I was aware that little black tables were scattered through the room before me, and that groups of humans were gathered in chattering groups around those tables. Even more vaguely, I was aware that the whole room seemed to be falling silent now, as all of them turned to stare at me where I knelt in front of the doorway.
None of it mattered. None of it was of the slightest interest to me compared to that smell.
Chocolate was scattered across all of the tables in various forms. Chocolate in bowls. Chocolate in glasses. There were even more chocolatey delicacies sitting in vast glittering glass cases to my left. But I wanted the real thing: the source.
I rose to my feet and aimed myself at the open door at the back of the room as if I was being yanked by a wonderful, invisible chain.
‘I beg your pardon!’ A black-clad human with skin as pale as chalk lunged forward to stand in my path before I’d made it two full steps. ‘Do you have a reservation, miss?’
‘A what?’ I batted at him, but he didn’t move out of my way, and he was too solid for me to slip around him.
‘The Chocolate Cup is far too busy to welcome any customers without prior reservations.’ His thin lips curled as he gazed down at me. ‘So, if you don’t have a reservation, as I strongly assume from both your clothing and your manners … !’
A titter of laughter sounded from the nearby tables.
I shook my head impatiently. Why was he wasting my time with this nonsense?
‘I’m not a customer, whatever that is,’ I said. ‘I’m your new apprentice.’
He blinked three times, quickly, his lips uncurling. ‘Our apprentice?’
‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘I’ve come here to work.’ I might not know much about human society, but I’d figured out apprenticeships by now, from the hints that Greta had let drop on our journey: an apprentice was someone who learned how to work with things. And what else in the world would I ever want to work with?
Jasper had his philosophy, Citrine had her poetry and, at long last, I had chocolate. Now that that heavenly scent finally surrounded me, it was almost enough to make me stop aching for my wings and claws.
But then he ruined it.
‘You?’ he said. He looked me up and down and then burst into laughter. ‘You?’
I frowned at him, shaking my long, tangled black head-fur out of my face to meet his eyes directly. ‘Of course me,’ I said. ‘Who else would I be talking about?’
But he didn’t answer. He was laughing too hard. The whole shopful of humans was laughing with him, too.
And they kept on laughing as he picked me up by both arms and carried me out of the shop a moment later.
It didn’t matter how much I struggled, or how hard I kicked his legs along the way with my slippery, muck-and-cloth-covered feet. There was no way to make him drop me until we were three full feet away from the shop windows. Then, finally, he lifted his hands and let me go.
Ouch!
I landed hard on my backside in the middle of the dirty, bumpy stone street. Horses whinnied behind me and a human cursed me for getting in his way. Something terrible squished underneath my out-flung hands.
The chocolate-house guard wiped his own hands together and strode back into the building, ignoring the chaos in the street outside.
Well, he wouldn’t ignore me for long! I jumped up and lunged for the doorway …
Just as he closed the door in my face. A hard metallic click sounded on the other side. When I tried the handle, it wouldn’t move, no matter how furiously I yanked at it.
As I peered through the immovable glass door of the Chocolate Cup, I saw every human inside rise to their feet, smacking their hands together in applause for the chocolate guard.
He bent forward with an elaborate flourish, and the applause grew even louder. That countess I’d closed the door on earlier was clapping hardest of all.
I glared at those smug, puny humans through the glass and set my teeth together with a snap.
They thought they’d got rid of me, did they? Well, this wasn’t the only chocolate house in Drachenburg. According to the snooty countess’s friend, it might not even be the best.
There were two more chocolate houses in this city. All I had to do was find them.
Fin
ding the second chocolate house wasn’t a problem. It turned out to be only two streets away, in a yellow-and-white shop that could have been a twin to the Chocolate Cup.
Unfortunately, it had a guard, too. This one was a woman, but she was just as strong as the first guard. After tossing me out of her own chocolate house, she lingered outside to give me a lecture, ticking off her points on her dark brown fingers as I lay on the street before her.
‘Firstly, everyone wants to work with chocolate, ever since the first chocolatier from Villenne set up shop in Drachenburg five years ago. Here at Meckelhof’s, we’re honoured to have the crown princess’s own patronage, so we only take the very best of the best apprentices, and then only with a proper reference … which you –’ she swept me with a clear, calm gaze – ‘clearly don’t possess.
‘Secondly, you’re dressed like a beggar and you stink of the streets, so no reputable shop would ever take you seriously as an apprentice chocolatier, even if you did have a reference. Making chocolate is an art, not a craft, so chocolatiers can only come from the respectable classes.
‘Thirdly, you clearly have no manners, so you couldn’t be a waitress and serve our customers their chocolate even if we gave you new clothes for the job.
‘And fourthly –’ she shook her head as she looked down at me, her expression infuriatingly compassionate – ‘why don’t you visit the public baths? If you clean yourself up, then perhaps, if you’re really lucky, someone may take you on as a maid.’
Oh, I would have eaten her for that if I could. I would have devoured her in an instant. I would have sent her up in flames!
But only a pitiful, toothless snarl came out of my small, human mouth, and she didn’t even seem to hear it as she turned away, tossing her final advice over her shoulder.
The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart Page 4
