‘There’s no point wanting what you can’t have, little girl … and chocolate isn’t for the likes of you.’
Then she walked back into the chocolate house where she reigned and didn’t even bother to close the door behind her.
Seething, I lay in the street and absorbed my new information, as horses trotted around me and human curses floated over my head.
What was the point of being human if I couldn’t be around chocolate? I’d finally found the thing I wanted to work with for the rest of my life, but no one here would even let me near it. If only I had my wings and claws! Then I could go ahead and just take it, like a proper dragon, whether they liked it or not.
If I ever saw that dastardly food mage again, I would bite him! I didn’t care if my human teeth were too blunt and puny to do real damage.
I would make him take back his spell, no matter what it took. And then …
I pushed myself up on to my hands and knees and stepped on to the pavement, gritting my teeth in determination.
Dragons never gave up! And there was still one more chocolate house in Drachenburg, even if that snooty countess had called it a hole in the wall not worth talking about.
I’d grown up in a cavern. I liked holes in the wall.
And even if, by human standards, I didn’t look ‘respectable’ enough to work with chocolate … well, why on earth should I let that stop me? I’d been through one transformation already in the last two days.
Now, apparently, it was time for a second.
How hard could it be?
CHAPTER 7
I’d had no idea that human beings cared so much about money.
None of Jasper’s philosophers respected it, as I knew from bitter experience. A year ago, when I had beaten him in a competition to see how many human crowns and necklaces we could each fit around our claws, my brother had sulked for an hour and a half and then bored me senseless with quotes from a loooooong human book about how meaningless gold and jewels really were.
The shopkeepers in Drachenburg wouldn’t have taken any more notice of that high-minded philosophy than I had myself, when I’d waved my triumphantly glittering claws in Jasper’s face. They probably would have thrown the author of that book out of their shops if he’d ever tried to quote himself at them.
Humans, it turned out, didn’t give anything away for free.
It wasn’t until I’d been tramping around Drachenburg for hours, with my stomach growling and my feet hurting worse than ever, that I finally found something I could sell in return.
‘Hey!’ a human girl called out behind me, as I stomped away from yet another useless dress shop. ‘Wait up!’ She grabbed my arm and pulled me around to face her with a cocky grin, like a predator who was sure of her prey. She looked about the same age as me, but she was at least a hand’s height taller, and she carried herself with so much swagger and confidence she seemed decades older.
But that didn’t mean she was going to get the better of me. I yanked myself free, growling, ‘What do you want? I left your stupid shop, didn’t I?’
‘Oh, I don’t work for them,’ she said. ‘Do I look like a fashionable dressmaker’s apprentice?’ She waved one hand impatiently at her dark green, masculine trousers and coat, which hung off her tall, skinny body as if they’d been made for someone else, and waved her other hand at her black head-fur, which stood out around her dark brown face in tight, wiry curls, shorter than any other female head-fur I’d seen all day. ‘I’ve been watching you for the past half hour, going in and out of all the dressmakers’ shops. You need new clothes now that you’re in the big city, don’t you? But you don’t have enough money to buy any.’
I didn’t trust helpful-seeming humans at all. I gave this one a haughty look, raising the face-fur over my eyes just as I’d seen other humans do. ‘So?’
‘So, I know somewhere else you can go.’ Her own face-fur furrowed as she frowned down at me, pursing her lips. If I looked twelve, she couldn’t have been more than thirteen at the absolute oldest – and she was definitely human – but the expression on her face just then made her look disconcertingly like my mother. ‘It all depends on how much you care about your hair.’
‘My what?’ I blinked at her.
‘You know. Hair? This stuff?’ She reached out and yanked my long, straight head-fur. ‘Are you attached to it?’
My head swam as I stared at her, trying to make sense of her words. As I had already learned, humans and logic didn’t seem to exist in the same universe.
‘How could I not be attached to my hair?’ I asked. ‘It wouldn’t stay on otherwise!’
‘Ha!’ She snorted, her dark eyes gleaming. ‘Come on.’ She took a firm hold of my arm, and this time, reluctantly, I let her, as she told me, ‘I’m Silke, and I’ll show you exactly where to go.’
Of all the things that humans bought and sold, their own hair had to be the strangest. But for some reason long head-fur like mine held real value to them. So I sat very still, without growling or biting, on a tall seat in a tiny shop in a neighbourhood where the skinny, crumbling grey buildings were pressed tightly together and the dull colours on the shop walls were visibly peeling away. Silke stood to one side of my chair, watching with her arms crossed and her gaze intent while the owner of the shop chopped off my hair in thick hanks until the remaining bits barely reached my ears.
‘There!’ Silke said. ‘That’s thirty marks’ worth at least.’
The hair-chopper, a grim old man without a neck-knot, harrumphed. ‘Twenty, maybe, if –’
‘Twenty-five,’ said Silke, and held out her hand, wiggling her fingers impatiently.
Sighing, he reached into his pocket and dropped a small pile of coins on to her palm.
I watched, narrow-eyed, as they clinked together. ‘Shouldn’t I be the one who gets those?’
‘Of course,’ said my helper, and flashed me a smile. ‘All but my commission.’
Her ‘commission’, apparently, was one large silver coin, which she slipped out of my pile and into a pouch that had been cleverly hidden inside her loose coat. I glared after it as I closed my fingers around the other silver and copper coins she’d handed me. ‘How many marks do I have left?’
‘That’s twenty,’ Silke said, and pushed open the front door of the shop. ‘Luckily, I know exactly where you can find a perfect dress, already made up, for that price. And it’s nearly new, too!’
Grandfather always said there were times when you had to ride the wind currents and see where they took you, when food was scarce and you didn’t know where the prey was hiding. So I followed her out of the shop without complaint.
My brain hadn’t stopped working, though. As she led me through the crowds, weaving her way with easy confidence, I memorised every street turning and landmark. I would be able to find my way back even in the dark. And I might be small in human form, but I was still the fiercest creature in this city.
All the same, my stomach sank when I saw the dress that Silke had picked out for me. ‘You’re not serious?’
We were in something that Silke called a ‘market’ by then, nearly half an hour’s walk from where we’d left most of my hair. Unlike the snooty yellow-and-white shops of central Drachenburg, with their identically painted walls and glass doors, the market was an outdoor scrabble of cloth dens and rickety wooden tables, all huddled along the muddy bank of a long brown river. Goods were spread out for sale on those tables … And the dress that Silke held up so proudly was nearly as muddy-looking as the river itself.
‘What’s wrong with it?’ Silke demanded. She traced one finger lovingly over its dark brown folds. ‘No stains, no rips and it’s only last year’s fashion. It –’
‘I need to look respectable!’ I said. ‘That one’s just … boring.’
Silke rolled her eyes. ‘Respectable is boring,’ she said. ‘Haven’t you learned that yet?’
By that time, human eye-rolling didn’t even startle me. I crossed my arms and jutted my chin out at h
er, making myself bigger in the human way. ‘I can’t wear that,’ I told her firmly. ‘I need to cover myself in colour.’ No dragon in the world would take me seriously if I wore plain, unornamented brown. I wanted to roar my declaration of power to everyone who saw me, not hide like a frightened herd animal trying to blend in with her surroundings.
‘Oh, fine.’ Silke sighed heavily. ‘But I think you’re making a big mistake.’
‘Do you?’ I looked pointedly between her and the older brown-skinned male human – not yet a man – who ran the little cloth den where Silke had found the dress. I was getting better and better at spotting the differences between humans … and their similarities, too. ‘Do you know what I think? I think that this place belongs to your family and you’re trying to trick me into giving all my money to you.’
Silke’s eyes widened as she flashed a sidelong glance at the male human, who was serving another customer in a series of movements just as quick and graceful as Silke’s own. Then she began to laugh, giving me a surprisingly different-looking smile than I’d seen from her all afternoon. ‘You’re not as simple as you seem, are you, country girl?’
‘My name,’ I told her, ‘is Aventurine.’
‘Definitely not from around here.’ Silke’s smile widened. ‘Well, I wouldn’t worry too much about that. People here come from all over the world. Even our late queen came all the way from across the sea when she married our king, years ago. Once your family’s been here for a generation, you’ll turn into a local just like me, and like our crown princess, too.’
She gave me a firm nod. ‘So, Aventurine, here’s the truth. This is a good-quality dress, and I can even make it two marks cheaper, as a personal favour. But I can’t help you out at any of the other stalls around here, because none of them belongs to my family.’
‘Hmm,’ I said sceptically. I turned to look at the other dens and tables that surrounded us on the riverbank. ‘I think I’d better find out first how much the other dresses cost, before I trust that yours is any cheaper.’
‘You’re learning fast.’ Silke sighed, but I didn’t miss the reluctant admiration in her voice. When she’d thought I was easy prey, she hadn’t liked me. Now that I was finally showing my teeth, she did.
The truth was, I liked her, too. I liked the way she broke the human rules of behaviour by wearing male clothing, and I liked her strength and determination, even if she had tried to use them to trick me. She might be a human, but there was definitely a touch of dragon to her. Dragons fought fiercely for their families, too. It would have been fun to play-fight with her if we’d been properly armed with teeth and claws.
As it was, I gave her a smile that bared my teeth – the closest I could come to flaring my wings and showing off all my scales. ‘I’ll see you later then,’ I told her. ‘If I don’t find a cheaper dress at another stall.’
‘Fine,’ Silke said. Her eyes narrowed. ‘But remember, you’re still awfully new here, and it isn’t easy to be a girl alone in this city. You could use a friend to help you get on.’
For a moment, as I looked at the cocky, dragon-ish tilt of her head, I was actually tempted.
Then I caught myself, just in time. Never trust a human! If I’d ever needed proof of Grandfather’s rule, Greta had given me plenty that afternoon. Where would I be right now if I’d been stupid enough to trust the first humans who’d brought me into town?
I remembered Greta’s sickly-sweet voice cooing into my ears as her fingers pinched into my shoulder … and I bit back a snarl as I turned and walked away, leaving Silke safely behind me.
Dragons didn’t need human friends.
And I’d been right: the other stalls were cheaper.
Twenty minutes later I was wearing a bright gold-and-purple dress that only belled out a few reasonable inches around my feet. I’d had to roll up the sleeves to keep them from falling over my fingers and getting in my way, but the dress had cost only ten marks, and for an extra five I had a new pair of bright red shoes to protect my feet, too. Better yet, I’d cleaned my hands and face with a nice damp cloth, and I still had one shiny silver coin left for later. I wrapped it up inside the long silver-and-crimson folds of my first outfit and tucked the whole thing under my arm.
The stall owner who’d sold me the dress and shoes gave me a thoughtful look as I turned to leave. ‘You know … if you’d like another couple of marks, I wouldn’t mind taking that funny red-and-silver thing off your hands, so you don’t have to carry it with you. No one would ever want to wear it, of course, but it’s a nice enough pattern that we could probably rip it up and use it for scrap fabric.’
Rip it up? My arm tightened around the thick wad. It was all that was left of my beautiful silver-and-crimson scales!
Each brightly coloured piece of the pattern on the cloth was marked by a careful curving line that showed exactly where each of my scales had been imprinted. Even my old spikes were there, forming a line of tiny silver hooks along the back that sealed the outfit when I wore it. As I looked down at it now, my raw, vulnerable human skin prickled in a wave of hot shivers that raced all the way from my toes to the nape of my neck. Sudden thunder drummed in my ears. It was the echo of every frantic roar that had been bottled up in my chest ever since my transformation.
Those were my scales on that cloth.
And this human wanted to destroy them?
‘Never!’ I snarled.
I spun around, holding the last pieces of my past against my chest, and marched off in search of my future.
CHAPTER 8
My stomach growled ferociously as I strode through the narrow, crowded streets of outer Drachenburg. I ignored its complaints, just as I ignored the stabbing pains in my scraped and blistered feet and the aches in my puny human leg muscles. The smell of freshly cooking sausages rose from the open oven of a street vendor and twined around me in savoury temptation as I passed, but I braced myself against it and breathed through my mouth, doing my best to shut off all the sensations from my nose. Another stall owner with an outdoor oven, a street further on, was selling a strange twisted form of bread he called ‘pretzels’, that I could have devoured in a heartbeat, but I forced myself past with barely a hitch in my stride. When I passed a waffle oven two minutes later, I didn’t even let out the snarl of desperation that wanted to rip itself from my throat.
If all I had was five marks, I would not waste them. I was a fierce, powerful dragon despite my current body problems, and I could control myself, no matter what Mother or Jasper thought.
I just wished that all the horses I passed didn’t look so delicious.
By the time I reached the broader, brighter streets around the first two chocolate houses, I was breathing hard from the effort of holding myself back. My teeth were gritted – the better to keep myself from lunging into the street and biting – and strange beads of moisture kept popping up on my forehead and neck. When three humans in a row veered out of my way, though, looking visibly worried, I forced myself to stop and take a deep breath.
Respectable. I was supposed to look respectable, not frightening. Even the most open-minded chocolatier wouldn’t hire an apprentice who looked ready to eat everyone around them – even if that was the literal truth.
I can do this. I threw back my shoulders and plastered a wide, human smile on my face.
There was only one problem, as I realised a few minutes later: the third chocolate house was nowhere to be found. Beyond all the yellow-and-white shops that I’d walked past before, I found streets of ornamented grand houses with high, spiked gates like dragon’s teeth, and I caught sight of an even grander palace in the distance … but I couldn’t have cared less about any of that nonsense.
I finally gave up and asked for directions.
‘You’re looking for a chocolate house?’ The man I’d stopped looked harried and distracted, his eyes already moving past me towards some final destination. ‘The Chocolate Cup is –’
‘No!’ I said. I couldn’t hide the impatience in m
y tone, but I stretched my lips even further into my most impressive smile to make up for it. ‘Not the Chocolate Cup or Meckelhof’s. I want the third chocolate shop. The hole in the wall.’
‘The – oh. Oh!’ His gaze finally moved to my face, and he blinked, taking a quick step backwards and tugging nervously on his neck-knot.
Oops. Maybe I was showing a few too many teeth in my smile. I relaxed my face muscles, and saw his shoulders sag in response.
‘I know which one you mean,’ he said, ‘although I haven’t been there myself, obviously.’
Obviously? I stood in silence, holding him in my unblinking gaze as I waited for him to say something useful.
The face-fur over his eyes lowered, making him look oddly nervous again. His words sped up as his eyes fixed on mine. ‘It’s not in the first district, you see. It’s about fifteen minutes’ walk from here, in the third district, where the jumped-up merchants and the bankers live. No one I know would ever go there.’
I didn’t move or even blink. I was still waiting for the information that I’d asked for.
He swallowed visibly. ‘Your eyes … you know, their colour, um, it’s very unusual. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it in a human be– I mean …’ He tugged even harder on his neck-knot, his face turning pinker and pinker.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Silke suddenly slipped into place beside me, appearing seemingly out of nowhere and heaving a dramatic sigh. ‘I give up. This is too painful to witness!’ She waved one dismissive hand at my informant. ‘Don’t worry, sir, I’ll take her where she wants to go. You’re free!’
‘What?’ I swung around to stare at her. ‘What are you doing here?’ I demanded. ‘I don’t need your help, remember?’
‘Oh, I didn’t come to help you,’ Silke said, as the other human backed warily away from us both. ‘I followed because I was curious, obviously. I wasn’t planning to even let you see me! But if you don’t leave this poor man alone soon, he’s going to faint from sheer panic, so I’m taking over out of pity.’ She grasped my arm. ‘Trust me, no one knows this city like I do. You’re looking for the third district, right?’
The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart Page 5
