The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart

by Stephanie Burgis

  Thank goodness I would be able to retreat to our kitchen as soon as this maddening ‘afternoon off’ was finally over. But right here and now, stuck in these too-close crowds with no chocolate to save me …

  I tilted my head back to look longingly past the city’s clustered rooftops to the great green foothills in the grey drizzly distance, past the massive clock tower. The clouds were so low and heavy today, I could only spot the beginning of my family’s mountain range as a speck of darkness far away, hidden behind the grey mist. If I hadn’t known what I was looking at, I would have thought …

  I blinked. Then I rubbed my eyes, my breath stopping in my throat.

  Had that speck just moved? Yes! It was coming closer! It –

  No.

  The clouds shifted, and I let out my breath in a rush that felt like a punch to my chest.

  The mountain range rose, steady and impenetrable in the distance. It had only been a trick of the light that made me think I saw anything else.

  Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I dug my nails into my palm like claws.

  My family might have been spotted flying out in the provinces, but they would never show themselves so close to a real human city. And this was the capital city at that, the home of the king and his whole court and army. Grandfather would never allow such foolishness … and of course I would never expect him to.

  So there was no reason in the world for my puny human chest to suddenly ache or for water to well up in my weak human eyes.

  Was I actually crying, here, in public? I clenched my jaw tight and forced back the tears.

  It hurt more than swallowing fire. But I was a dragon. I was mighty.

  I blinked hard and forced myself forward through the crush of humans, letting their chatter and their smells and their overwhelming closeness wash over me.

  I was still the fiercest creature in this city.

  But I didn’t let myself look towards the mountain again.

  CHAPTER 12

  By the time I finally returned to the Chocolate Heart, the grey skies were shifting into a dark, murky charcoal, the air had turned thick and cold, and the chocolate house was closed for the day. I had to hammer on the locked door for Marina to come and let me in through the darkened front room.

  Luckily, she hadn’t yet gone upstairs to her apartment for the night. The candles were still lit in the warm kitchen, where Horst sat drinking chocolate at a table that had been pulled in from the front room, along with two chairs and a sheet of paper with what looked like a recipe scrawled in fresh ink. As I followed Marina inside, he looked up at me with his half-full porcelain cup cradled in both hands.

  ‘Please,’ he said to me, ‘for the sake of my heart, tell me that wasn’t you I saw having an actual, physical altercation with one of the lord mayor’s assistants outside our shop earlier?’

  ‘“Altercation?”’ I blinked at him, trying to figure out the unfamiliar word. My brain felt as chilled-through as my body and filled with grey fog.

  ‘A fight,’ Marina said drily, sitting back down across from him. She lifted her own cup from the table as she asked me, ‘Did you get in any good punches at least?’

  ‘No,’ I said regretfully. ‘I only kicked her.’

  ‘Oh God!’ Horst’s head landed beside the sheet of paper with a thud. ‘Marina …’ he moaned.

  ‘Shh.’ She looked at me, her eyes narrowing. I don’t know what she saw in my face, but she pushed her cup of chocolate towards me. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘You look as if you need it.’

  ‘She needs it?’ Horst mumbled against the table. ‘When the lord mayor’s constables arrive tomorrow to arrest our apprentice for her unprovoked attack, and claim that we ordered her to do it …’

  ‘They’re not going to arrest her,’ Marina said briskly. ‘I’ll bet you anything I’d find a bruise on at least one of Aventurine’s arms, underneath those ugly sleeves. People kick when they’re trying to get away, not to attack. Isn’t that right, apprentice?’

  I scowled as I sat down on the floor to drink, my purple-and-gold skirts billowing around me. ‘My sleeves aren’t ugly,’ I muttered.

  ‘You just keep on telling yourself that,’ said Marina. She stood up and started pulling out pots and pans from the cupboards, letting them clatter against each other. ‘So, where exactly was our beloved lord mayor’s assistant trying to take you, before you kicked your way to freedom?’

  I shrugged and took a long sip of Marina’s hot chocolate. It had extra chilli in it today, and I swallowed down the flames with gratitude, letting them warm me from the inside out. ‘Some cafe, I think,’ I told Marina.

  ‘Oh, well, that was certainly worth kicking a public servant over,’ Horst muttered. ‘Thank goodness you escaped that horror. Who knows what might have happened there? She might even have forced you to eat cake!’

  ‘It would have been dry and tasteless,’ Marina told him. ‘The closest cafe is Florian’s, remember? They never put enough syrup in their batter.’

  ‘Oh, for – !’

  I spoke over Horst’s bellow. ‘She wanted me to betray you.’

  As Horst broke off and turned to stare at me, I gripped my hot cup in both hands and breathed in its steam. I needed it to wash away the grim grey chill that had filled me ever since that terrible sight of wings-that-weren’t.

  I soaked in the bright warmth of Marina’s white kitchen, the scent of the roasting cocoa beans, and Marina bustling by one of the stoves, measuring out cream with a generous hand, as if the whole vista could wash away the grey from my heart in a brilliant swathe of colour.

  This was where I belonged now. This was who I was. And I wouldn’t let anyone take it from me. ‘She offered me money,’ I told Marina and Horst, ‘and told me that I’d have the lord mayor’s gratitude if I made up any nasty secrets about your kitchen and then testified about them in front of the town council.’

  The clattering at the stove abruptly stopped. Marina’s hand had stilled in mid-air. ‘Well, now,’ she said, ‘that is a surprise. I would have expected that little termite Erik to make up all the stories they could want, without anyone needing to turn to you.’

  ‘Stories from Erik wouldn’t count,’ Horst told her. ‘Not after the whole street watched you toss him out on his ear.’ He looked down at his hot chocolate with a wry smile on his face. ‘Perhaps it’s just as well you weren’t polite or quiet about getting rid of him, after all. At least this way every shop owner in the district knows he bears a grudge against you. The council would never trust any testimony from him against you now.’

  ‘Ha,’ said Marina. She pulled over the bowl of crushed sugar. ‘I’m going to remind you of that next time you natter on at me about my manners.’

  Horst sighed. ‘Then I’m sure you’ll have plenty of opportunities. Still, as long as you remember to stay away from the customers …’

  ‘And why would I ever want to go near them?’ Rolling her eyes, Marina picked up a long wooden spoon. ‘Come along,’ she told me. ‘Finish up that cup, and quickly now. I’m going to teach you a new recipe.’

  ‘My recipe?’ Horst said hopefully. He lifted the piece of paper from the table in front of him. ‘Because I really think –’

  ‘I’ll let you play in my kitchen,’ said Marina, ‘the day you send me out front to take care of the public.’

  ‘Ouch!’ Horst gave a dramatic shudder. ‘Now you’re simply being cruel.’

  ‘Hmmph.’ Marina shook her head at him. But as she turned away I saw a grin twitching at the corners of her mouth.

  Horst was grinning, too, looking more relaxed than I’d ever seen him … but when I obediently stood up from the table, holding my half-drunk cup of hot chocolate, his face suddenly tightened into a frown. ‘Wait. Marina, do you even realise what time it is? Most apprentices –’

  ‘Of course I know the time,’ said Marina. ‘It’s evening. That means her afternoon off is finished, doesn’t it? So she can stop lazing around and get back to work.’

  ‘O
h yes,’ I said with sincere gratitude. I drank the last of my hot chocolate in one fiery gulp. ‘It is definitely time to work.’

  Nothing could distract me from my feelings better than the scent of chocolate. Over the next few days I buried myself in it until I could barely even recognise anything else.

  So I was startled, four days later, when Horst stepped through the swinging doors and looked at me with a frown on his face. ‘Someone,’ he said, ‘is here to see you.’

  ‘Me?’ I was stirring a pot of chocolate cream, and I couldn’t stop even for a moment, but I frowned back at him and shook my head. ‘There must be a mistake.’

  ‘Thanks very much,’ said Silke, stepping in behind him. ‘Have you forgotten all our plans already?’ Today she was wearing a flamboyant red jacket over plain black trousers, and her hands rested casually in her pockets, but her eyes looked wider than usual, and her face younger, as she gazed around the kitchen. ‘I have to say, Aventurine, I’m impressed.’

  ‘Unggh.’ Horst sounded pained. ‘Marina …’

  ‘Here.’ Marina handed him a tray of hot chocolates. ‘Go and suck up to rich people and be happy. Shoo!’ Then she turned to scowl at me as the doors swung shut behind Horst, leaving her alone with me and Silke in the kitchen. ‘Tell me, apprentice,’ she said, her tone deceptively gentle, ‘did I hire you to hold tea parties in my kitchen?’

  ‘Oh, this isn’t a social visit.’ Silke pulled her hands out of her pockets and gave Marina a jaunty bow. ‘It’s more in the way of a business update. I take it Aventurine’s told you all about my commission?’

  Marina didn’t answer. But she turned towards me with her eyebrows raised, and I could feel a dangerous storm cloud brewing in the air.

  Oh, stones and bones. ‘I forgot,’ I said, and gritted my teeth as Silke raised her own eyebrows at me, too, joining in the sisterhood of disapproval. ‘I’ve been busy!’

  ‘Busier than usual.’ Marina’s eyes narrowed. She swung around to face Silke. ‘Do you have anything to do with that, girl?’

  ‘We-e-elll …’ Silke grinned as she whipped out a piece of paper from an inside pocket of her jacket. ‘I thought I’d stop by and let you all have an eyeful of this. You’d be surprised just how many copies people have been passing all around the city, ever since they first appeared yesterday morning.’

  ‘Oh?’ Marina took Silke’s paper before I could even reach for it. ‘Hmm.’ Frowning, she glanced up and down … then, frowning harder, turned her gaze back to the top and read it through again.

  I waited, still stirring the pot of chocolate cream and feeling a first, small itch of curiosity ripple through me, breaking through the self-imposed numbness of my last few days. The satisfied smile on Silke’s face told its own story as she stood with her hands clasped behind her back, bouncing gently on her toes.

  There had been a lot more orders coming into the kitchen than usual, come to think of it.

  I hadn’t thought about it, personally, because I’d been shutting my mind to absolutely everything but chocolate. It was the only safe thing I could let myself think about, after waking every morning from frantic dreams of searching through endless tunnels in my home mountain while my family called out to me, too far away to reach.

  I hated those dreams. It was almost as if they wanted to make me miserable, which was utterly ridiculous and completely unfair. There was a good reason I didn’t let myself think about those things when I was awake. It was bad enough that I’d lost my family, without having to have all these feelings about it!

  It was enough to make me give up on my brain forever.

  But Horst had just carried out nine hot chocolates at once to the front room, and we’d made another load to order just beforehand. There were customers waiting now for eight glasses of sweet chocolate cream.

  So in the last twenty-four hours, while I hadn’t been paying attention to the world around me, something had definitely changed.

  ‘What does it say?’ I demanded, when I finally lost my patience.

  ‘You’d better see for yourself.’ Marina pursed her lips as she passed it over. ‘Especially if you’re responsible for it.’

  ‘Ahem.’ Silke cleared her throat. ‘Actually, Aventurine is only partially responsible for it. You see, she commissioned me to take care of your problem, but when it came to the actual solution, along with the writing and production …’

  I let her voice fade into the background as I looked down at the paper in my hands. It was a printed handbill, the kind that seemed to float all over the city, lying discarded on pavements and plastered on lamp posts, and it read, in elegant, curling type:

  Let it hereby be recorded that, despite every rumour to the contrary, the chocolatier at the Chocolate Heart has never admitted to being a food mage herself. Nor has she ever publicly or privately agreed with those who claim that a food mage must have been involved in the creation of her exceptional chocolate. She wishes the public to know that she is both shocked and outraged by the incredible claims that have been made about her famously fiery hot chocolates and other rich and extraordinary delicacies offered exclusively at: The Chocolate Heart, No. 13 Koenigstrasse, in the Third District.

  Of course, as her kitchen is kept notoriously private, with no visitors ever allowed inside, no absolute evidence can be provided of her chocolate’s non-magical origins. However, we are certain that all right-minded citizens will be more than happy to accept the famously reclusive and mysterious chocolatier’s assertions that no magic was involved in the creation of such mouth-watering bliss, no matter how unlikely that claim may seem …

  I turned the page, but the writing didn’t continue. It just left off with those dangling ellipses, implying … something. I didn’t like it. Just the thought of food mages made it hard for me to breathe. My back itched like fire where my wings ought to have been rooted in my skin. I had to shift my shoulders irritably to make sure that they were still gone. ‘What is this?’

  ‘It’s piffle,’ Marina snarled. ‘That’s what it is.’

  ‘It’s marketing,’ Silke said, ‘and it’s brilliant.’ She beamed at us. ‘So, about my payment … ?’

  ‘Marketing?’ Marina threw up her hands. ‘Smears and libels, more like! As if I couldn’t come up with my own chocolate without the help of some lazy food mage lounging around my kitchen –’

  ‘But it says you didn’t use a food mage,’ I told her, pointing at the page. ‘Look: it says that lots of times.’

  ‘You think so?’ She seized the paper from me, growling. ‘Well, look again, missy, and this time, use your head. These words may say one thing, but they mean the opposite.’

  ‘It’s perfect!’ Silke said. ‘No one, not even the lord mayor himself, could argue that you’ve made any false claims.’

  ‘But everyone who reads this piece of nonsense is going to think I’m hiding a food mage in my kitchen!’ Marina whirled around, waving the paper accusingly. ‘I don’t know how you came up with this idea at your age, girl, much less how you managed to get it printed, but of all the outrageous, uncalled-for, misguided and ridiculous – !’

  The swinging doors opened, and Horst stepped into the kitchen, looking so pale and shaken that even Marina cut off her tirade as the doors fell closed behind him.

  ‘Well?’ she snapped. ‘What now? What new disaster?’

  Horst didn’t speak. He lifted his hand. It shivered in mid-air, holding a familiar white handbill.

  ‘Oh, so that’s all,’ said Marina. ‘I know, it’s absurd, but –’

  ‘No,’ Horst croaked, his voice rusty, ‘that isn’t it.’ The handbill fluttered from his hand to the ground, and he blinked down at it as if he didn’t even know how it had got there. ‘I mean …’ He ran one trembling hand over his short, tight, black curls and took a deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice had settled back into its normal deep tones. ‘That handbill’s a brilliant piece of work, obviously, and we need to find whoever wrote it and thank them forever –’

&n
bsp; ‘A-ha!’ Silke smiled smugly. ‘As I was saying – !’

  ‘But …’ Horst didn’t even seem to hear her interruption as he looked back up at Marina, swallowing convulsively. ‘Right now, out there, we have new customers, brought in by that handbill,’ he told her, ‘and an urgent order for three of your finest hot chocolates. Immediately.’

  ‘Oh, they’re always in a hurry, aren’t they? Customers.’ Scowling, Marina shrugged her big shoulders and turned back to the stove. ‘Well, they can join the queue and they’ll get their drinks when I’m ready. I still need to finish off these chocolate creams, and then –’

  ‘These particular hot chocolates can’t wait,’ said Horst. For the first time since I’d known him, his lips twitched and stretched into a smile of pure wonder, until he looked ten years younger and ready to float off his feet with excitement. ‘You see, they’ve been ordered by the two princesses and the king himself.’

  CHAPTER 13

  ‘What?’ Silke let out a squeak of excitement so unguarded I could hardly believe it came from her. ‘The royal family read my handbill? Oh, I knew it was good, but I never really –’

  ‘Are they wearing their crowns?’ I asked, perking up. Now that would be something worth seeing … and maybe more. My fingers tingled with the memory of all the lovely gold crowns in my family’s hoard. They’d looped so neatly around my claws, clicking together with my every movement. Even the plain ones were delightful, but the ones encrusted with precious gems were my favourites.

  It would be so much easier to go to sleep at night with a crown or two tucked against my side, just like in the old days!

  But no. I gritted my teeth together and forced myself to think like a human, not a dragon. Trapped inside this puny body, without sharp teeth, claws or flame on my side, there was no possible way for me to seize the crowns from the royal family’s heads and keep them. Still, it was so hard to push down the roar of greed that wanted to billow up through my throat as I thought of all that lovely gold just waiting to be made my own and …