‘Attention!’ the man bellowed. ‘By order of the lord mayor himself, all customers are hereby required to vacate this chocolate house immediately. We are here to inspect this establishment!’
I slammed my way through the swinging doors into the front room just as half the customers in the chocolate house jumped to their feet, blocking my way. Voices rose around the room, calling out in confusion and outrage, but they all fell silent as one man spoke:
‘My good man.’ It was the king; when I stood on tiptoes and peered between the two men in front of me, I could see him still sitting at his table, looking astonishingly calm. ‘May I ask why, exactly, these premises need so urgently to be inspected?’
‘They – ungh!’ The lord mayor’s man turned pale as his gaze fell on the king and the two princesses. He stumbled into a bow. ‘Your Maj–’
The crown princess cleared her throat meaningfully.
The king shook his head.
Silke said, ‘May I present Count von Reimann, a valued customer of this establishment?’
‘Sir!’ The lord mayor’s man straightened, looking panicked. ‘We didn’t expect to see – that is – the lord mayor wants – but –’
‘Perhaps,’ said Silke, ‘you could wait just a few more minutes to carry out your important inspection? After all, don’t you think the lord mayor would prefer Count von Reimann to be allowed to enjoy his drink first?’
‘Well …’ His eyes darted from side to side as the king watched him smilingly, one regal hand already resting on the royal chocolate cup. Next to the king, the younger princess reached for her own cup with a hopeful look, and the lord mayor’s man sighed. ‘Perhaps … oh … I’m sure he wouldn’t really mind …’
‘Ahem.’ His colleague elbowed him aside. Her gaze swept the room, her lips twitching as she met my eyes through the press of bodies. ‘The lord mayor,’ she announced, in a voice more than loud enough to reach every onlooker peering through the glass outside, ‘has received deeply, deeply disturbing reports of the serious lack of hygiene in this establishment, accounts so troubling they must be resolved without delay for the sake of every person in this building. After all, if there truly are rats running around the kitchen floors … cockroaches in the cupboard where the chocolate is kept … massive patches of creeping mould beside the ovens … and old hot chocolates left out for days, only to be reheated again and again for each new customer who comes – !’
Cries of horror erupted throughout the room, drowning out her voice as she continued her recitation.
But I didn’t need to hear the rest of her words. I was already shoving my way through the crowd, pushing grown customers aside and growling fiercely as all the fear I’d felt earlier drained out of me. If I’d had my claws, I would have ripped her into shreds before she could speak another poisonous word! I was more than ready to take on this territorial challenge.
‘Those are lies!’ I was panting with effort by the time I reached the royal table, where the king and both princesses were rising to their feet, leaving their hot chocolates completely untouched. The older royals were back to looking cool and expressionless, but the younger princess’s face was twisted up in disgust, and she’d shoved her hot-chocolate cup as far from her seat as possible. ‘She’s making all of this up!’ I told them. ‘The lord mayor hates us. He’s been trying to shut us down for ages. He –’
‘Well, I suppose we know now why no one’s ever allowed into the kitchens.’ The king sighed. ‘Pity. I should have liked to meet a real food mage, just once. They’re supposed to be rather quirky and entertaining chaps, not like all those grim battle mages who can’t stop groaning on and on about dragons. Never mind. Shall we … ?’
He tilted his head at the front door, where eight different people were all trying to squeeze their way out at once. One man was gibbering loudly about rats, while his female companion held her parasol like a weapon, just waiting to stab some imaginary vermin in self-defence.
‘No!’ I said. ‘Just listen to me. This is ridiculous. It’s a trick! It’s –’
‘Leaving now, before things get even messier, would certainly be sensible.’ The lord mayor’s woman gave the king a smile as sweet as sugar.
I burned for the ability to shoot flame. ‘You can look at the kitchens right now,’ I said desperately. ‘All of you! Come with me, and you’ll see for yourself. There’s no mould! There aren’t any rats or cockroaches! There’s –’
‘Would you like a tour?’ Silke asked, gesturing towards the kitchen doors. ‘We’d be more than happy and honoured to show you –’
‘A tour?’ The lord mayor’s woman laughed. ‘How exactly are we meant to have any tour without the presence or authority of the infamous head chocolatier? She’s not coming out even for this, is she?’ She turned to the king. ‘Are you really going to ignore the decision of the lord mayor on the say-so of two children you don’t even know? A waitress wearing scandalous boys’ clothing, and a disreputable apprentice already known to be violent?’
Her voice half dropped, as if she was sharing secrets, as she looked straight at me. ‘I know all about this girl, you see. She was thrown bodily from the doors of every respectable chocolate house in town, because she came from the streets. So trust me, sir: you can’t take her word on anything.’
That was it. I’d had enough of human diplomacy. This was war!
I flew at her, snarling, with my hands outstretched.
Silke’s arms clamped around my waist just before my fingernails could rake the woman’s face like claws. ‘No!’ she hissed. ‘Aventurine, think!’
‘You see?’ The lord mayor’s woman was breathing quickly as she pointed at me. ‘This girl is positively feral! Do you want an animal like that making your chocolate?’
I writhed in Silke’s grip, glaring at the lord mayor’s woman. If she wanted to see what an animal would do, I was more than ready to oblige her. ‘You – !’
‘Young lady …’ The crown princess startled me into silence by stepping forward and putting her cool hands lightly around mine. ‘I do admire your loyalty,’ she told me, ‘and I appreciate your offer to see this mysterious kitchen for ourselves. However –’ she gave me a steady look – ‘the cafes and restaurants of Drachenburg follow the laws of the lord mayor and his town council, and neither of them has requested our assistance here. After all –’ she gave me a rueful half-smile – ‘we are only a count and his daughters, at least for today. You see?’
‘No!’ I said. ‘I don’t!’
She squeezed my hands gently and then let go, shaking her head, as her father and sister started for the front door. ‘I do wish you all the best of luck in the future.’
‘I don’t need help later.’ I was almost choking with frustration. ‘I need it now. You have to listen to me! Wait!’
But the crown princess was already turning her warm, sympathetic smile to the lord mayor’s two assistants. ‘And I wish you both good fortune in the performance of your civic duties.’
‘We thank you, my lady.’ The lord mayor’s woman ducked her head as she lowered herself into an elaborate curtsy. Still, I could see her grin, not even half hidden, and it made my stomach roil.
As the crown princess followed her father out of the chocolate shop, ignoring all of my last, desperately shouted protests, the bell over the door sounded a maliciously bright jingle … and bile ran down my throat, as bitter and scorching as my lost flame.
This can’t be happening!
But it was.
I had set out to prove myself when I left my family’s mountain.
But – just as my own mother had predicted – I had failed.
My roar of despair echoed through the abandoned room.
CHAPTER 15
Less than ten minutes after I had made my first hot chocolate, the once-busy, bustling Chocolate Heart was empty. Not a single onlooker had lingered outside after the royal family departed with the rest of the customers. Even the lord mayor’s woman spent scarcely two minutes l
onger in the chocolate house, while her colleague popped his head into the kitchen but didn’t bother to step all the way inside.
‘Looks fine to me,’ he called back.
‘Well, what a marvellous relief.’ The lord mayor’s woman gave us a vicious smile as she wrote out the certificate of inspection. She laid it on the closest table with a flourish. ‘What a triumph for you all to have had those terrible rumours disproved. I’ll be certain to pass on your deepest thanks to the lord mayor.’
Silke’s hand tightened on my shoulder, but it didn’t need to. I only bared my teeth at the woman’s taunts. I didn’t even have it in me to snarl.
I would have buried myself underneath the furthest mountain in the world if I could, and never shown my face in the outside air again. But at that moment I couldn’t have lifted myself up out of my chair for the promise of a whole cavern-ful of gold.
I had lost the battle to defend my own territory. There was no greater humiliation for a dragon.
When the front door finally closed behind them with a clink, Silke let out a gusting breath. ‘Phew!’ She collapsed on to the chair across from me at the royal table, then leaned forward as something caught her eye. She lifted the closest cup, sniffed it and took a tiny sip. Her eyes widened. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it may not be hot any more, but it really is good chocolate.’
Laughter and rage bubbled up inside me until I could barely tell them apart.
I wanted to burn up the city with flames shooting straight from my no-longer-armoured throat. I wanted to rip the world apart with the claws I didn’t have.
As Silke took another, longer sip, the kitchen doors swung open behind me. Horst’s voice came out as an anguished gasp. ‘What in heaven’s name has happened here?’
My heart sank. With a massive, grinding effort, I turned my head.
Marina stood behind Horst, her arms crossed and her face perfectly blank. Her gaze moved slowly across the empty tables … and, finally, landed on me, sitting at the royal table with the three best chocolate cups and pots all laid out in front of me.
Suddenly, I could barely breathe.
I’d seen that disappointment in my mother’s eyes before. But I’d never, ever seen it from Marina.
Silke gave a laugh that grated against my ears. ‘Good news,’ she said wryly, and held up the certificate. ‘You’ve passed the lord mayor’s inspection for cleanliness!’
‘His … what?’ Horst shook his head, his face looking almost gaunt with panic. ‘We were gone for less than twenty minutes,’ he said. ‘What could possibly have gone so badly wrong in that short time?’
Silke snorted, lifting the chocolate cup to her lips and settling back against her chair. ‘Oh, do you want the full story? Or just the highlights? Which do you think would be better, Aventurine?’
‘Yes, Aventurine.’ For the first time Marina spoke, her voice flat and hard. ‘Why don’t you tell us the story, please?’
Her words made every inch of my back clench.
I knew that tone of voice. How could I not? I’d heard it from my mother a hundred times before, as she prepared to find out exactly what I’d done wrong … again.
Mother had warned me that I wasn’t as strong as I thought I was. She would have been horrified at the idea of leaving me to fight such an important battle for the chocolate house alone. She would never have trusted me to do it.
Marina’s head jerked around. ‘Wait a minute. What’s that burning smell?’ Without waiting for an answer, she lunged back through the swinging doors into the kitchen.
The kitchen …
Oh no. The chocolate tarts! I’d left them in the oven when I went charging out to confront the lord mayor’s woman.
How could I have forgotten them?
Horror rooted me to my seat as Horst hurried after her, the doors swinging shut behind him. Marina’s bellow sounded a moment later. ‘Just look at this mess! They’re ruined!’
‘Uh-oh,’ Silke said, and hopped up out of her seat. ‘Better go and take a look …’
But I couldn’t look at the mess I’d created. I couldn’t do anything but sit, frozen in my seat, as Silke hurried after the others and voices rose beyond the swinging doors.
What was the first thing Marina had ever said about me to Horst? ‘No one important will be offended when I toss her out on her ear for being useless.’
I’d failed to defend the Chocolate Heart from attack … and now I’d failed as a chocolatier, too. How much more useless could any apprentice be? The sound that escaped my lips, as I realised that, wasn’t a word in any language. It wasn’t even a moan. It was a sound of pain that came straight from my gut, and it made my decision for me even before I saw the kitchen doors begin to swing open.
‘Aventurine!’ Marina bellowed.
I’d thought that I couldn’t move, but I’d been wrong. I ran out of the Chocolate Heart as if the worst predators on earth were closing in behind me … and I had become the most cowardly of prey.
Dragons never ran away. I knew that. Dragons always stood and fought, no matter how bad the odds might be. But my family had been right about me after all.
I wasn’t strong, fierce or patient enough to be trusted in the world outside.
From the lessons that I’d ignored in my family’s cavern, to the moment when I’d fallen for that scoundrelly food mage’s trick, I had failed in everything important that I’d tried. Now I’d failed in my own passion, too: the one thing I was supposed to be best at. The only thing that I’d had left. And as soon as I stopped running, I would have to face what that meant …
So I didn’t stop running. I couldn’t make myself stop, even when my chest started burning and my side felt as if a claw had slid inside it and was turning back and forth, skewering me with every movement.
I didn’t stop even after the tears on my face had all been blown away by the cold wind that slapped against my cheeks.
Running away wasn’t brave, and it wasn’t fierce. But it had to be better than sitting and waiting to be tossed out. I couldn’t bear to have that happen again. Not this time. Not by Marina. Not from the only chocolate house in Drachenburg that had given me a chance … and from the only family that I’d had left, after I had lost my first one forever.
A gurgling sound of pain escaped me and I doubled over, gasping for breath and grabbing my legs through my dress.
There were people moving all around me, but I didn’t care. They could think what they liked of me. I’d already lost my teeth and claws and family, and now I’d lost my chocolate, too – and every human I’d learned to care about would pay for my failure.
It didn’t matter that the Chocolate Heart had passed its inspection. Right now, gossip would be racing all around the city, human after human excitedly passing on the news that the kitchen in the Chocolate Heart was so disgusting the lord mayor had been forced to shut it down. I wouldn’t be surprised if, by tomorrow, every potential customer in town had heard what the king had said about it, too: ‘I suppose we know now why no one’s ever allowed into the kitchens …’
None of them would ever hear what the actual results of the inspection had been … and none of them would ever care enough to find out.
And I hadn’t even –
‘Aventurine?’ A woman’s voice gasped my name. ‘Oh my goodness. It is you! I can hardly believe it!’
I turned my head. A forest-green skirt swished beside me. Dark green shoes peeked out from underneath.
I wouldn’t have bothered to look up to find out more, but the skirt suddenly rustled and its owner knelt down beside me, beaming and balancing a market basket on her knees. ‘It’s me, you silly girl! Greta!’
Oh. Greta. In all the excitement of the last week and a half, I’d nearly forgotten about her and her ridiculous abduction attempt. I certainly didn’t have time for her now.
Sighing, I looked back down. But I couldn’t recapture my train of thought, not with her chattering only inches from my ears, her pale round face turning pink with
excitement.
‘I am so glad to see you alive, you wouldn’t believe it. Oh, the nightmares I’ve had of you falling into the river! Or being set upon by thieves, or …’
Slowly, disbelievingly, I turned my head. ‘How could I have fallen into the river?’ I asked. ‘It’s surrounded by banks, and all the bridges have rails.’
‘Well, I don’t know. You might not have noticed it and just walked in.’
I stared at her.
‘Well, you’re not from around here, are you? You don’t know how big cities work, or what to do. And it was our responsibility to look after you, you know, since you would never have survived without us in the first place.’ Setting down her basket, which was full of fresh fruit and vegetables, Greta heaved a sigh that ruffled my hair. ‘Oh, if I’ve said it to Friedrich once, I’ve said it a hundred times … I’ve never seen any girl less capable of looking after herself than you.’
That did it. I let go of my legs and straightened to my full height. It wasn’t hard to breathe after all, or to summon up a good glare for the woman in front of me. ‘Goodbye,’ I said as icily as Marina ever could, and I turned to leave.
‘No, wait!’ She jumped up and grabbed my arm. ‘Just look at you! That dress is hideous –’
‘Stones and bones!’ After two weeks of grinding cocoa nibs, it was easy to yank my arm free from her grip. ‘Why doesn’t anyone ever like my dress?’
‘And you look like you’ve been crying,’ Greta added.
Humiliation froze me in place. I tightened my jaw and ground my words through my teeth: ‘That was just the wind against my face.’
‘Oh, really?’ She put her hands on her hips. ‘Then why, exactly, do you look so miserable?’
Me?
I tried to laugh a barking, contemptuous laugh at the idea.
The noise that came out of my mouth sounded horribly like a sob.
I slammed my lips shut, but it was too late.
‘I knew it!’ Greta said. ‘I just knew you couldn’t make it on your own in this city – a wild, careless, ignorant girl like you.’ She shook her head. ‘Well, how could you? You’re only a child, and you didn’t know a single soul here, except for us. You don’t know how to behave or even how to dress. Just look at your eyes – they’re like an animal’s! Now look at what a mess you’ve made of yourself. Your hair – your clothes – !’ She waved her hand at my glorious purple-and-gold dress. ‘No one wears colours like that together!’
The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart Page 11
