The cloth rippled over my hands in a flood of silver and crimson, my beautiful scales overlapping and interlacing with each other in perfect harmony. The sight of them pierced my chest. I had to clench my hands around the cloth to stop myself from pressing it against my face in front of the others, or letting out any tears of sheer relief.
They noticed anyway, of course. It was useless to try to hide what I was feeling from either of those two.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Marina, without looking up from her hand-cleaning, ‘I didn’t disturb it while you were gone. Nice to have one piece of bright colour left in here, even now that you’ve started dressing like a tree … just like almost everyone else in this city.’ She snorted as she gave a sidelong glance at Silke’s own dark green outfit.
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Silke. ‘This is my spying outfit. I needed to blend in so that I could sneak Aventurine out.’
She wandered over and ran one long brown finger over my scale-cloth. It was a sign of how much I’d come to trust her that I didn’t even snarl as she did it.
‘I remember you wearing this when we first met. Funny thing.’ Her eyebrows lowered as she studied it. ‘I didn’t pay too much attention to the pattern back then. But these almost look like –’
‘No more chattering!’ Marina barked, crossing her arms. ‘Aventurine, I hope you’re ready to work. And as for you …’ She glowered at Silke. ‘If you expect to be allowed to drink what we make, then you’d better get busy yourself. If you don’t have any more fancy handbills to write, then you can get started dealing with all those dirty dishes.’ She nodded to the sink, which was full of crockery, pots and kettles. Apparently, the lack of customers hadn’t stopped Marina from cooking up a storm.
‘Will do,’ Silke said cheerfully, taking off her jacket. ‘But I warn you, I’ll expect something seriously special as a reward.’
‘You’re in my kitchen, aren’t you?’
‘Good enough.’ Silke started to whistle as she pumped up water for the sink.
I closed my eyes, breathed in the scent of roasting cocoa beans and knew without a doubt that I was home.
The sensation of sweet relief only lasted for a minute, though. Marina started rearranging the counter, setting it up for hot chocolate, while I tucked my scale-cloth back into the cupboard and cleaned my own hands. I was smiling as I began, but the sound of dishes clattering loudly against the countertop made the smile drop away from my face and the muscles in my back turn rock hard. I knew exactly what that noise meant when it came from Marina, who was more than capable of working in near silence.
For all her confident statements to Horst and to me, Marina wasn’t nearly as calm as she was pretending.
Before any sly tendrils of guilt could start creeping in on me again, I quashed them hard. This wasn’t my fault, no matter what I’d spent the last three days thinking … and real dragons didn’t give up on their hoards even when protecting them seemed impossible.
We’d come so close to salvation with Silke’s first attempt. If only the king and his daughters had actually had a chance to drink the hot chocolate themselves … if only the timing had been just a fraction better …
‘All right, girl,’ Marina said, interrupting my thoughts. ‘I want you to stand right here and make me a hot chocolate, exactly the same way you did it last time. No changes! I’m not going to say a word until you’re done … this time. I’m just going to watch. Then we’ll try again, and then you’ll need to learn about adapting your technique for different flavours and tastes.’
‘I’ll be happy to drink that first batch for you,’ Silke called out, over the clanging sound of the pump and the gurgle of water rushing up into the sink. ‘I’m telling you, Aventurine, by the time I finished my first cup of your last hot chocolate, I was committed to saving this place, no matter what!’
Marina rolled her eyes. ‘And now that the expert on chocolate has spoken …’
‘I mean it.’ Silke shrugged. ‘Before I drank it, I was more than ready to move on as soon as I’d got my payment. I would’ve helped Aventurine find a new place to work, of course, but that was as far as it ever would’ve gone. By the time I’d finished that first cup of chocolate, though …’ She flashed us a grin over her shoulder.
‘I see,’ Marina said. ‘So now we’re stuck with you.’ She tucked away a smile almost before I could catch it, and reached out to point me towards the charcoal brazier. ‘Better get started. That one –’ she tilted her head towards Silke – ‘has already eaten me out of hearth and home these last few days, when she wasn’t bombarding me with a dozen mad marketing ideas every half hour. It’s time for you to supply her stomach, too … if you can remember how to do it.’
That part, at least, wasn’t a problem. I might have been gone for three days, but every inch of the kitchen of the Chocolate Heart was home. Working in it felt just as natural as stretching my wings once had.
As I started gathering my ingredients, though, something twitched in my memory, like a half-glimpsed moving shadow in the distance, just close enough to signal possible danger. Something that Silke had said … and what Horst had said to Marina about the tarts …
‘Come on,’ Marina said, as my fingers stilled above the mountain of crushed sugar. ‘Don’t freeze up on me now, girl. If you can make hot chocolate for the king himself without any real training, you can make it for me, too. Just put yourself back into that moment when you thought it all out the first time.’
I frowned.
I hadn’t thought it out the first time actually. I’d used what I’d learned from memorising Marina’s every action, and then I’d flown the rest of the way on sheer instinct. No: on desperation. I’d been so desperate to convince the royal family that this chocolate house should be saved, I would have done anything to convince them with my chocolate. Just like …
Something shivered in the back of my mind. Something like a piece of knowledge that I did not want to have.
Or a memory I didn’t want to remember.
Someone else shivering with fear as he made my hot chocolate … murmuring over it as I watched … weaving his own desperation into my bones, until I lost all control, lost everything that mattered, even …
No. I forced down the remembered panic, steeling my spine into rigidity with the reminder: there were no food mages with me in this kitchen. I’d never have to deal with one again. They were so rare that just the hint of one had been enough to fill our front room with customers. Even the king himself had never met one.
I never wanted to meet another one in my life.
‘Easy,’ Marina murmured. ‘Don’t think so much. Just decide what you want to do, and do it.’
Do it.
My hands started moving.
I had to erase that memory of helplessness and fear. I had to make something new to replace it before it could rise up and break my spirit again, the way I’d felt broken and hollow over the past few days. I had to fill myself with the unshakeable certainty of something true. Something undeniable. Something powerful.
Me.
So I yanked my heart and my mind wide open at last and I let all the other memories sweep in upon me in a blaze of fire, all those memories that I’d been trying so hard to hold back for the past two weeks. Memories of scales and claws and the effortless certainty of power; essential parts of myself that had hurt so much to lose, I’d locked them away where they could only haunt my dreams. They were memories of the dragon I had been before … no! The dragon I still was, underneath it all.
I’m the fiercest thing in this city.
I am.
Greta had been wrong about me after all, so wrong. But I’d been wrong to let myself believe her, too – wrong to lower my head and let myself be chained by soft, cruel, laughing words and a poisonous pity that had tasted more bitter than any ingredient in Marina’s kitchen ever could.
I wasn’t that helpless creature that Greta had made of me over the past few days. But she had managed it only becau
se secretly, in my heart, I’d feared that might be who I had become, ever since my first moment of transformation. I’d looked at my puny human body and felt despair. I’d believed, in my secret heart, that I was every bit as much a failure as my own family had expected me to be.
No more.
I was an apprentice chocolatier at the best chocolate house in Drachenburg.
I was a dragon and I was a human girl, at one and the same time.
I was better than I’d ever been before.
I was me.
I stirred in the last of the ingredients and let all of that certainty flood into my firm, steady strokes. I can be whatever I want to be, forever.
And with that certainty came peace.
When the kettle was ready, I took my time with the wooden molinet, frothing the chocolate into creamy perfection. I poured it into a porcelain cup under Marina’s watchful eye.
Then I started to hand it to Silke, who’d finished washing dishes and was waiting – but to my surprise she shook her head and stepped back.
‘I’ll have the second cup,’ she said. ‘You never managed to drink any of your own chocolate last time. It’s only fair to let you drink first, this time round.’
I looked at Marina. She nodded, her lips quirking.
‘How else do you plan to improve?’ she asked me. ‘You’ve got to taste all of your own attempts, you know, to find out exactly what you can do.’
I can do this.
And maybe – if I’d done it well enough – it would give me the courage to do something else, too: finally tell my new family the whole truth of who I was, beneath my skin.
I picked up the porcelain cup in my hands and felt its heat flood up my arms and through my small – but not puny – human body. Half closing my eyes, I lifted the cup towards my mouth.
The bell over the front door of the shop jingled loudly before I could take a single sip.
My eyes flew open as I lowered the cup. Customers? I could tell from Marina’s suddenly frozen expression that she was thinking the same thing.
Silke started for the peephole. Before she could even touch the plate that covered it, the kitchen doors flew open.
A tall, skinny boy with dark brown skin, glasses and wide, panicked eyes stood panting in the doorway. Horst hurried up behind him, mouth open as if to demand answers, but the boy spoke first.
‘Silke!’ He grabbed the doorway as if to hold himself up. ‘I can’t believe I’ve finally found you. I’ve been hunting everywhere!’
Aha. I recognised him now – Silke’s brother.
Silke frowned back at him. ‘Oh, honestly, Dieter. What’s the matter now? I told you I wouldn’t be back to help at the stall until –’
He gave an impatient swipe of his free hand. ‘That doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Not any more. I needed to tell you … warn all of you …’ His eyes, full of dread behind his narrow spectacles, turned to Marina and me as well, as if the panic inside him was too large to hold alone.
‘You can see them yourself by now, if you step outside.’ Dieter pointed one shaking finger back towards the big glass windows of the front room. ‘The rumours started coming in half an hour ago that they’d been spotted. I didn’t believe it at first. No one really did. But they’re moving so fast there’s no mistaking them … and no escaping.’ He swallowed visibly. ‘No one’s going to get away in time.’
‘From what?’ Horst grabbed Dieter’s shoulder and shook him. ‘What are you talking about, boy?’
But somehow I already knew.
‘Dragons,’ Dieter whispered. ‘A whole pack of them, from the mountains. They’re flying straight towards Drachenburg.’
CHAPTER 19
I barely caught my cup as it slipped through my hands, and my chest pierced with longing so bright that it hurt. They’d come for me!
But …
No, I told myself firmly, and wrapped my fingers securely around the porcelain cup, letting the heat of it anchor me. Don’t be stupid.
The last time I had tried to go home, I’d had a fireball flung at me to warn me well away. So they definitely hadn’t come for me, no matter what my stupid, treacherous heart might have hoped for one brief moment.
But even if I wasn’t a real part of my first family any more, I still knew their rules. They always avoided humans whenever possible, even when those humans were alone. If they were really on their way to a crowded human city now, after the kind of restless, reckless behaviour that the humans had been gossiping about for at least a week … then something had gone very wrong indeed.
And no matter what those stupid battle mages might think, everyone in this city was in danger.
Breathing hard, I set my cup down safely on the closest counter, next to the presentation pot with the rest of the hot chocolate I had cooked.
Around me, a jumble of voices filled the kitchen.
‘Dragons?’
‘But – !’
‘Why – ?’
‘We have to hide!’ Dieter yanked free of Horst’s grip. ‘We can’t stand around talking!’
Marina’s golden skin looked almost grey, but she stood her ground. ‘And where exactly do you think we should go, young man? If a pack of dragons is really intent on attacking this city, they’ll burn every building to the ground. There’s nowhere that we can hide.’
‘By the river,’ Dieter said urgently. ‘It’s the only safe way. I know we’ll be out in the open there, but at least if we’re near water we might have a chance to –’
‘But why are dragons attacking us?’ Silke interrupted him. ‘It makes no sense! I know there were always scare stories about travellers sighting dragons out by the mountains, but they’ve never come anywhere near a real city before. Why – ?’
‘Who cares?’ Dieter demanded. He reached out to grab her arm.
Silke danced back. ‘I’m still thinking!’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Look, if we already know about the dragons, the king must, too. And you know there’s been that whole movement among the merchants lately, pushing for him to send soldiers and battle mages into the mountains and clear out any dragon nests for good. I’ll bet you anything he’s already ordered the army out by now, not to mention every battle mage he’s got. Any dragons on their way will be slaughtered before they can blow a single flame near the city.’
‘No!’ I lurched forward, my voice a ravaged croak. ‘A battalion won’t be enough. Battle mages won’t be enough. And they cannot attack before they even know what the dragons want. If they do, it’ll be a disaster!’
Dieter looked sick. ‘Then –’
Silke cut him off, her sharp gaze fixed on me. ‘What do you know about dragons, Aventurine?’
I looked into her eyes, and I took a deep breath. ‘Do you remember all those questions you asked me about where I came from, and why I was keeping it such a secret? Well, I don’t have the time to explain it all now … but if we really are friends, then I need you to believe me. There will be a slaughter if the king sends out his army. But it won’t be the dragons who are killed.’ I looked at Marina. ‘You’re right. They’ll burn every street of the city down in retribution if the army attacks them.’
I could almost hear Grandfather’s voice in my head, planning strategy. If these humans aren’t punished in a way that sends fear into the hearts of everyone else who might ever think to plan such carnage …
I couldn’t let it happen. Not in the city that had become my territory.
The last time I’d tried to call out to Grandfather, he’d sent a fireball arcing towards me. But any dragon worth her scales would brave far worse to protect her hoard and the creatures who had become her family. And this room was full of those.
I wouldn’t let any of them be hurt.
‘We need to stop this,’ I told Silke.
Horst gave a disbelieving crack of laughter. ‘How exactly do you plan to do that? If you’d ever seen a real dragon …’
‘That’s not who I need to see first.’ My gaze was firmly fixed on Silke
. ‘You know every inch of this city. Can you find a way to take me to the king or the crown princess? I need to talk to one of them. Now.’
Silke stared at me. Then she began to laugh as she slowly shook her head back and forth. ‘Oh, Aventurine,’ she said, ‘I always knew you were a little different from the rest of us. But until now I never knew you were completely insane.’
‘Fine.’ I left my untouched hot chocolate on the counter behind me as I started across the room. ‘I’ll find a way myself then.’ Somehow. ‘But –’
‘Oh no you won’t.’ Silke tucked her hand in my arm as she fell into step beside me. ‘Trust me, I wouldn’t miss this for the world. And besides –’ she looked me pityingly up and down – ‘let’s face it: you may be a fantastic apprentice chocolatier, but you’re no more dressed for a royal visit now than you were when you first arrived in this city. And when it comes to talking your way past royal guards while you’re dressed like a housemaid … ? You could really use me on your side.’
Well, that was why I’d asked her in the first place. But I felt a ball of unfamiliar warmth form, like a quiet, steady flame in my chest, as I looked into her face and saw the smile lurking there.
And speaking of how I was dressed …
I pulled free and hurried to the cupboard where my scale-cloth was kept. It might not help me with the king, but if Silke ever managed to get me past all the battle-hungry humans who were involved in this mess, I’d be talking to my family soon. This time I’d have to find a way to make them listen.
I only had one good-luck talisman in my possession – and it was exactly what I needed to remind myself of who I really was, both human skin and scales included.
Marina was right. It was time to stop hiding and flash some colour.
I tucked the silver-and-crimson scale-cloth under my arm and strode back towards Silke, ready to risk dragonfire.
‘This is ridiculous!’ Dieter darted in front of us before we could even reach the swinging doors. ‘Silke, I know you’ve never had an ounce of common sense, but I’m telling you: you can’t just go trotting off across the city when there are dragons flying towards it!’
The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart Page 14
