The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart

by Stephanie Burgis

  My eyes narrowed and I stopped trying to pull free. ‘Are you trying to steal it for yourself?’ I demanded.

  ‘Me? At my age?’ She let out a choke of startled-sounding laughter. ‘I don’t think so. I’m a bit older than twelve, you know. And besides, I hear this chocolatier mistreats her apprentices. I hear a lot of other things, too … and you might find I’m a sympathetic listener.’

  She cocked her head, her pink smile stretching wider. ‘Apprentices don’t make much money, and this is an expensive city. Perhaps life could become a little easier for you if I offered to pay you for your time? And, of course, for any little titbits you care to let drop that I might find particularly interesting … any nasty, embarrassing little secrets that your tyrant of an employer might be trying to hide … ?’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘The lord mayor himself would owe you his deepest appreciation.’

  Oh. Now I did understand.

  Jasper’s human philosophers might not have cared about chocolate, but they’d talked on and on about scheming and corruption.

  Just to make absolutely certain, though, I looked her straight in the eyes and said, ‘So you’ll pay me to tell you something bad about Marina? Something the lord mayor can use to get her into trouble?’

  ‘I’d need to give you some compensation for your help, wouldn’t I?’ Her voice poured through the air, as sweet as cream mixed with sugar. ‘And if you were willing to swear to that information in front of the town council, well … who knows what opportunities might be available for a child who proved so helpful and loyal to her city?’

  ‘I understand.’ I nodded.

  ‘Oh, good! I was certain you’d be clever enough to help me.’ Her fingers dropped away as she stepped back, gesturing down the street. ‘Let’s just go this way and find a cosy little cafe where you can tell me everything, eh?’

  ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘I’d rather tell you now.’ I smiled at her with all my teeth bared, which should have warned her.

  Then I lashed out with one foot and kicked her hard.

  ‘Aaargh!’ Shrieking, she dropped down to clutch her leg.

  It was pathetic. I didn’t even have claws on my human feet, so she was barely damaged. My mother would have been ashamed of me for such a weak attack.

  Still, I had my head start. I turned and ran.

  I could hear her cursing as she started after me a moment later, but I was too fast for her to catch. As I passed the front window of the Chocolate Heart, I saw Horst hurrying towards the door, wide-eyed and open-mouthed with what looked like horror. But I didn’t run back to him and to safety … and not just because I’d been ordered to spend the next few hours out.

  Scales or not, I was still a dragon. There was no chance in the world that I was going to sit back and let anyone threaten my hoard.

  So it was a good thing that I had an afternoon off after all. I knew exactly how to use it.

  CHAPTER 11

  The grey sky was full of clouds, and mud sucked wetly at my feet as I walked along the riverbank, but the market where Silke’s brother worked was still heaving with customers. I had to wait until he had finished serving a large, bickering family before I could finally leave my message with him.

  ‘Let Silke know I’m looking for her,’ I said. ‘And tell her we can help each other this time.’

  ‘Oh, good,’ he said wearily. His dark brown face was shadowed by the cloth that hung over his stall to protect the clothing on his table, and he didn’t bother to look up at me as he sorted out the money from his last customers, peering down at their coins through a pair of spectacles that looked ready to fall off his nose at any moment. ‘May I also tell her who is looking for her?’ he asked. ‘Or how to find you – if she even wants to?’

  ‘Just tell her,’ I told him, ‘that I gave her my very last coin, but it was worth it after all. Oh, and I decided to keep my name.’

  I knew my prey. Easy answers weren’t what she was looking for. She’d solve the puzzle in a heartbeat – and she would want the story of what had happened next, after I’d disappeared into the Chocolate Heart a week ago. Silke’s curiosity was like dragonfire inside her.

  But her brother looked far less satisfied than I felt.

  ‘Oh, of course. Because that isn’t at all mysterious!’ He picked up a rumpled garment that one of his shoppers had discarded, and he shook it out with a snap that cracked through the air. ‘My little sister and her secrets! If she ever stayed in one place like a normal person …’

  ‘Will you tell her?’ I asked.

  He sighed heavily. ‘Of course I will. But I can’t make any promises about when I’ll see her next. She drops in and out all day, as she likes.’

  ‘That’s fine.’ I had been working since dawn. ‘I’m getting hungry anyway.’

  Silke found me half an hour later and four streets away, as I stood outside a colourful flower shop, munching on a hot salted pretzel from an open street-oven while melted butter trickled down my fingers.

  I heard her voice before I saw her. ‘You’ll need a second dress soon, you know. You can’t wear the same thing every day without people noticing.’

  I shrugged my shoulders without turning around. ‘My employer doesn’t seem to mind.’ Marina would care if I started to stink, of course – cleanliness around the kitchen was one of her most important rules – but I changed into my scale-cloth every few nights so that I could wash my dress, and it all seemed to be working out so far. In fact, Marina probably wouldn’t notice if I wore the scale-cloth all day long, as long as I kept on following her orders. On the other hand …

  ‘I’ll think about buying another dress,’ I told Silke. ‘And I’ll even do it from your family’s stall to help you out … if you can help out my business, too.’

  ‘Your business, eh?’ Silke was smiling as she finally moved into view, wearing a long black jacket that swished around her as she walked. ‘All right, you’ve caught my interest.’ She reached out and tore off one corner of my pretzel with quick, long brown fingers. ‘So, tell me, Aventurine, how in the world you managed to get yourself invited into the back room of that chocolate house last week, and exactly what position they’ve given you. Scullery maid? Errand girl?’

  ‘Neither,’ I said smugly, and pulled the rest of the pretzel safely out of Silke’s reach. ‘I’m Marina’s new apprentice.’

  ‘What?’ Silke’s fingers went still in mid-air, with her stolen pretzel piece hovering just outside her mouth. ‘You’re an apprentice chocolatier?’ She stared at me. ‘Do you have any idea how hard it is to get an ordinary apprenticeship in this city – even for girls with family connections and fine manners? To be taken on as an apprentice chocolatier of all things – ! Even if your mistress is a nightmare – !’ She shook her head in visible amazement. ‘How did you manage it?’

  ‘Because I’m not ordinary,’ I snapped. ‘And Marina is not a nightmare!’ If I’d been in my proper shape, tendrils of smoke would have flown out of my nostrils in warning at that insult.

  But Silke didn’t even seem to realise she was in danger. ‘Oh, I’m just repeating what everyone in the city says,’ she told me cheerfully, as she finally started nibbling on her stolen morsel. ‘I asked around about her last week, you know, after you disappeared in there. I got curious.’

  What a surprise. I chomped ferociously down on the rest of my pretzel, wishing I had sharper teeth. Then I’d look really menacing!

  Silke didn’t look in the slightest bit intimidated, though, as she licked melted butter off her fingers. ‘Apparently,’ she told me, in between licks, ‘when the richest banker in town came to the Chocolate Heart with his wife, your mistress actually refused to come out and speak to them afterwards, when they wanted to compliment her chocolate. Can you believe it? The banker’s wife said she’d never been so offended in her life. She told everyone she knew never to go back there!’

  ‘Then she was a fool.’ I snorted as I wiped my hands off on my dress. ‘Marina can’t leave the kitchen to have a ch
at when she’s in the middle of making chocolate. It’s a delicate procedure.’

  ‘Oh, and that’s another thing!’ Silke shook her head disapprovingly. ‘She won’t allow anyone else into her kitchen, will she? People absolutely hate that.’

  ‘You think she should let outsiders into her kitchen?’ I stared at her in disbelief. ‘Who would be stupid enough to do that?’

  ‘Everyone does that.’ Silke rolled her eyes. ‘Everyone with any business sense, I mean. It makes the customers happy, but apparently your mistress doesn’t care about that. Because – and this is the worst of all – when the lord mayor himself asked her to make a special chocolate drink for his inauguration, she refused him. She said the ingredients he’d suggested would be inedible! Can you imagine?’

  ‘Yes!’ I snarled. ‘Yes, I can.’ My eyes had turned to narrow slits and I was longing for the power of flame. ‘I’m sure they would have been disgusting. For anyone who doesn’t know about chocolate to try to design a new drink –’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course it would have been terrible.’ Sticking her hands in her pockets, Silke rocked back on the heels of her boots. ‘But she didn’t have to tell him that, did she? She could have made something of her own and just given him the credit, like any sensible businesswoman would have. Instead she insulted him – him, the most important man in the city, apart from the king! – and now none of the other merchants will ever hire her either. I heard that the lord mayor said afterwards, if it wasn’t for the fact that his own nephew was her apprentice, he’d – oh. Wait. Wait!’ Her eyebrows shot upward. ‘Of course. So that’s why you need my help!’

  I hated being in a position of weakness. I crossed my arms and squared my shoulders, making myself as big as possible. ‘The lord mayor is trying to shut us down,’ I told her flatly. ‘We need to get people on our side.’

  I might have been busy in the kitchen, but I hadn’t failed to notice how few customers sat scattered around the warm, fire-coloured front room of the Chocolate Heart, compared to the aristocratic crowds who’d filled those snooty chocolate houses in the first district. Chocolate houses ran on money, just like the rest of human society, and customers – no matter how annoying they might be – brought in silver coins and support.

  With the lord mayor scheming against us now, we needed all the support we could get.

  ‘Ohhhh.’ Silke leaned back against the wall of the flower shop, between buckets full of blue and pink and purple blooms, and braced herself on her outstretched legs. Her eyes turned dreamy and unfocused. ‘Oh yes, I see. In that case …’

  ‘Yes?’ I leaned forward.

  ‘You’ll need a whole flood of new customers as quickly as possible,’ she said. ‘Influential ones, too. And better yet, they should all start talking as loudly as they can about how wonderful you are, until you’re far too famous for him to quietly shut down.’

  ‘And?’ I stared at her, desperately trying to read her expression. This was what I’d come for. This was why I’d come to the one human I knew who was the best at manipulation. ‘Can you do it?’

  Silke’s sharp gaze snapped on to mine. Her lips curved into an even sharper grin. ‘Oh, this is going to be a challenge,’ she told me. ‘And I’ll warn you right now: I’m going to need a lot more than one little dress purchase from you as payment.’

  Silke really did know this entire city. As she asked me thousands of questions about the Chocolate Heart for ‘research’, figuring out how to make other people love it as much as I did, she led me from one colourful neighbourhood to another, moving with easy confidence through the crowds. Tradesman after tradeswoman greeted her by name on all the different streets, and I could see her taking in every detail around her, even as she bombarded me with surprisingly intelligent questions about the chocolate house … and slipped in more than a few sidelong questions about my own past, too.

  Of course, I didn’t tell her anything about that. I might be starting to trust one or two select humans, but the secret of my true nature was mine alone. Still, I found myself enjoying the battle, as she tried different sneaky tactics to get me to reveal the truth about myself, and I sidestepped her questions every time. It felt like play-fighting with words instead of claws – and she was the first worthy opponent I’d had since I’d changed shape.

  After her final attempt, she grinned and shook her head, and I surprised myself by grinning back at her.

  ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘You’re determined to stay a mystery, but I’ll figure you out one day, just like I’ve figured out your chocolate house. And in the meantime, you can leave your problem with me.’ She glanced up at the mid-afternoon sky and sighed. ‘I need to get back to the riverbank now, or Dieter will have a fit. But don’t worry, Aventurine … you’ll be hearing from me very soon.’

  I could almost hear her brain whirring with new schemes as she sauntered off, whistling to herself.

  Still smiling, I turned around.

  Dragons didn’t need human friends, obviously. But if I did …

  Well, she would be a good one to have.

  I had work of my own to do now, if I was going to talk Marina and Horst into providing the payment I’d promised Silke, but I couldn’t start yet. I was under orders to stay out of the Chocolate Heart all afternoon, and if there was one thing Marina expected from her apprentice, it was obedience. So, instead of starting back towards home, I wandered slowly through the streets of Drachenburg, taking in all the strange sights of the human city.

  I’d learned an awful lot of new words and concepts over the past week. But I still hadn’t stopped being surprised by what humans did with them.

  Almost everything I could imagine was on sale in the shops of Drachenburg, and even more things that I would never have imagined. As I wandered from one district to another, looking into every window I passed, I saw towering cakes and tiny glass bottles that reeked of so much artificial scent they made me sneeze just from the whiffs I caught through open shop doors. There were bright, light-coloured cafes full of chatting women and children, and dark-panelled restaurants full of men and smoke and newspapers, and there were shops crammed with so many full bookshelves my brother Jasper would have roared with greed.

  I even spotted, strangest of all, one shop window full of toys where a row of tiny wooden men marched back and forth again and again, carrying minuscule weapons by their sides. Orange-and-green wooden dragons waved their painted wings threateningly at the tiny men from the corners of the window, with red drops like blood trickling down their painted chins.

  I envied those dragons so much it hurt.

  I would have stopped longer to watch the odd toys – Grandfather had never brought home anything like that! – but I was shoved aside only a moment later by a crowd of chattering human children with an older, grey-haired woman who sighed and shrugged her shoulders at me as they all pushed past and wrestled each other for space in front of the glass.

  And it wasn’t only the shops that were crowded. Even the lamp posts here were covered with paper handbills that had been plastered or nailed on to advertise different shops and events. More bits of paper fluttered across the cobbled street, falling under the horses’ hoofs and being stepped on by the masses and masses of people who surged back and forth in endless waves of motion.

  Dragons would never choose to live crammed together with thousands and thousands of other creatures, with no space to spread their wings or roar out a claim on a real, open territory of their own.

  Didn’t anyone here want room to breathe?

  Even as I thought that, slowing to frown at the crowd around me, a noisy group of men shoved past me from behind, pushing so close that I had to leap aside at the last moment to save myself from being knocked over. I opened my mouth to snarl at them – but the sight of their telltale black robes made my mouth slam shut and my chest squeeze tight with sudden panic as I froze in place, like a helpless prey animal with nowhere to hide.

  Battle mages! I’d spent all my life being warned against
them. ‘Don’t ever let them spot you,’ Grandfather had told us. ‘Until your scales are at least a hundred years hardened, turn and fly away as fast as you can whenever you see those black coverings!’

  But these battle mages had no idea that they were passing a secret dragon. They didn’t even glance at me as they stalked past. They were far too busy with their debate.

  ‘No matter what the king thinks, we can’t pretend this isn’t happening. That’s five sightings over the outer provinces now! Something has set off those beasts for the first time in decades. If they’re getting ready for a serious attack –’

  ‘They haven’t attacked any humans in decades!’

  ‘But we have to be ready. If we attacked first and took them off guard –’

  ‘Maybe we could soften their scales with a dissolving poison –’

  ‘Or turn their fire inwards –’

  Eurgggh! Horror clenched my stomach, nearly doubling me over, as their voices faded out of earshot, their robes disappearing into the crowd.

  That was my family they’d been talking about!

  Whatever they try, it won’t work, I told myself. It won’t, it won’t, it can’t! The words ran over themselves in a panicked babble in my mind as I tried desperately to believe them. They can’t get through full-grown dragon scales. Stupid mages. My family would eat them if they ever tried!

  And I wouldn’t give them the benefit of my fear. No!

  I forced myself to straighten up – and nearly bumped into a group of women in billowing dresses on my left. I pulled back just in time, but they didn’t seem to notice our near collision. None of them even blinked as they swept past me, continuing their own conversations as if nothing had happened. I had to keep moving, too, or I would be bowled over by the crowd surging behind me.