by Sable Sylvan
“Let me put it this way. She’s known my family for a long time,” said Sage. “She knew my grandfather’s grandfather.”
“Wait a second,” said Addison. “How frikkin’ old is Maggy?”
“Y’know, it’s just as rude to ask a shifter as it is to ask a human,” said Sage. “Does Sabine need to sign you up for etiquette lessons?”
“Frankly, yes,” said Addison. “But that’s neither here nor there.”
“You don’t know a dang thing about dragon shifters, do you?” asked Sage.
“Nope,” said Addison. “I didn’t even know they were real until a few moments ago. I thought it was another made up myth like Santa Claus.”
“Wait, you think Santa…never mind,” said Sage. “Okay. So. Dragons live for a long time. A real frikkin’ long time. Humans have slain a few dozen but I frankly have no clue if dragons are immortal, or just live a long time or any of that. You know how all shifters tend to…keep to themselves unless they’re looking for mates?”
“Yeah,” said Addison. “Like a certain Norwegian polar bear clan…”
“Ha-ha,” said Sage. “Well, dragons are notoriously…private. So, while Maggy is a family friend, I don’t know much about her.”
“Sage, be a dear and come back here,” said Maggy, coming back to the counter. She undid a latch and the counter, which was a half-door with a counter added to it, came open. “You two have quite a lot of mail.”
Sage walked into the back of the mail room and came back out armed with some colorful totes. Each one was in a Bonimolean house color with the house sigil on the bag. They were the same kind of totes that had been used to deliver their books and other packages, and could be returned in their laundry bags.
“Thanks so much, Maggy,” said Sage.
“Of course, anything for a Scoville,” said Maggy. “And you will be attending your grandfather’s ball, yes?”
“But of course,” said Sage. “I’ll be seeing you later, Maggy.”
“And you, Sage,” said Maggy before going back to work.
Sage was carrying all the large totes. Addy reached for one, but Sage pulled away.
“Nuh-uh,” said Sage. “There’s no reason for you to carry all these.”
“They are my packages,” said Addy, reaching out again, but again, Sage turned.
“And you are a hungry human who has more classes today, who has been walking around campus for over half an hour,” said Sage. “Let’s open these over lunch. We just have one thing left to pick up before lunch…and I might need you to watch the packages when I pick that up.”
“What are we picking up?” asked Addy.
“Uh…you’ll see,” said Sage sheepishly. “Come on.”
Sage led Addy out of the administrative building and walked her across the quad to the big library. There were many steps up to the library. One had to go up a set of stone steps to a large patio type of area, and then one could enter the multi-floor library. Sage carried the packages up the steps. Addy waited outside the library with the packages and Sage went in. She had a good view of the entire building and could even see the stained glass that dotted the third floor’s walls.
Addy still had no idea what Sage was doing. Was he dropping off overdue library books, or checking out new sheet music from the music archive of rare sheet music? Did he have a print job he needed to pick up that day?
In a few minutes, Addy had her answer. She heard signs of a struggle and peered, but couldn’t see what was going on…until she looked up. On the second floor of the building, along the glass window, there was a bay of computers overlooking the quad, with special glass used for the big pane glass window to reduce glare. Inside, Sage was walking with something over his arm…
Or rather, someone.
No frikkin’ way. Did Sage really have Clove over his shoulder and Clove’s backpack in hand? Sage walked out of view, presumably downstairs, and then walked out the front doors to the library again.
“Put me down!” shouted Clove. “Sage, you ruffian, you have no manners whatsoever!”
“And you have no idea of what constitutes a healthy work-life balance,” said Sage. “How the heck can you get any work done if you don’t get sleep or food?”
“I need to finish up that page!” said Clove.
“That’s what you said last night when I texted you asking why you weren’t back in your room,” said Sage, putting Clove down gently.
“That’s why I need to keep working,” said Clove, taking his bag from Sage. “If I haven’t even gotten a single page written…”
“Then you need to get sleep and eat something, and try again later,” said Sage. “You don’t have classes today. Come on. We’re going back to House Scoville, getting you food, and putting you to bed. Now, am I gonna have to carry you, or are you gonna walk?”
“I’ll walk,” said Clove. “Fine. I’ll go eat something and take a short nap.”
“That’s the spirit,” said Sage, passing Clove his backpack and one of the totes. “I also did you the favor of picking up your mail.”
“The book I ordered got here?” asked Clove.
“There’s one way to find out,” said Sage. “We’ll open packages over lunch.” Sage picked up the other totes full of packages and his backpack.
Addy walked down the stairs with the two polars.
“I had no idea we got Clove’s mail,” said Addy.
“That’s because I knew if I told you my plan, you wouldn’t go along with it,” said Sage. “Sorry, sweet cheeks, but I want to have my cake and eat it, too.”
Sage, Addy, and Clove got to House Scoville and got a table in the dining hall quite quickly. Sage and Addy both brought extra plates of food from the buffet so that Clove could eat two plates of food. He hadn’t eaten last night’s dinner or that day’s breakfast or lunch yet, and as a polar shifter, he needed the energy. The only thing Sage didn’t allow Clove was a cup of tea or coffee. The last thing the overworked senior needed was something to keep him up.
The menu that day was Italian inspired, so there was a good mix of salts, fats, proteins, and carbs to keep everyone’s engines running. At Bonimolean, they often had chefs from abroad come to make special meals, and this meal was quite special indeed. There was lasagna made with artisanal feta and heirloom tomatoes. There was pizza margherita, made with freshly kneaded pizza dough, basil grown on the Bonimolean University property in the kitchens’ greenhouses, buffalo mozzarella, and of course, tasty sweet, salty, and savory tomato sauce.
For dessert, there was gelato in traditional Italian flavors, but the twist was each flavor was based on an Italian dessert or beverage. There was a tiramisu gelato with chocolate powder, pieces of lady fingers, and real rum with a hint of coffee that Sage allowed Clove to try, thinking the rum and coffee would balance each other out as a depressant “downer” and a stimulant “upper.” There was limoncello, made of course with real limoncello from the Naples region, containing real Sorrento lemon zest with a sugar cane based simple syrup. There was one based on the traditional beverage carcadè, an herbal tea consisting of a hibiscus tea base with lemon and sugar added. There were rose hips and rose petals added to give the herbal tea a more layered floral and fruity taste. There was even a panettone inspired gelato, somewhat like cookie dough ice cream, based on the panettone fruitcake, which has less fruit than the English fruitcake, suspended in a vanilla flavored cake. This gelato tasted like a mix between cookie dough ice cream and birthday cake ice cream because it had a cake flavored base, but there were bits of panettone mixed in the gelato, along with amaretto.
Ordinarily, the amount of rum and amaretto in gelato would not be enough to get anyone drunk. However, the chef had not used artificial flavorings and had been quite…generous with the amount of alcohol used in the gelato, using high quality (and high alcohol content) spirits because cost was not an issue (after all, this was Bonimolean). Sage kept bringing Clove dishes of the tiramisu and panettone gelato and soon enough, Clove was a lot
more relaxed and shut up about his thesis.
The dining hall was filling up, so the trio took the lift upstairs to their living room and finally opened their packages.
Each of them had received a care package from Alice and Herb. Inside the care package was the brand-new sauce that Alice and Herb had been working on. It was their new ‘No Bullshizz’ sauce, made with adobo chipotles! Extras had been included so they could share with friends. Sage intended to give one of his extras to Maggy to thank her for the earlier favor. After all, she wasn’t exactly supposed to give Sage the packages intended for Clove, but…she was a family friend, and she did know best, even if administration fought her on it all too often. Addy put one of hers aside to give to Minnie as a thank you gift for studying French with her and tolerating her awful conjugations.
Abigail had sent Clove a special care package, so Clove took that to his room, along with the book he ordered, and after opening his packages and sending Abigail a quick text to let her know he got the package, he hit the hay, without even getting changed into his pajamas!
Finally, there were two invitation envelopes, one for Addy and one for Sage. They had been mailed inside of sturdy plastic-lined mailers. Inside the mailers were the actual invites. They were black with silver gilded edges, with their names written in silver ink by a calligrapher by hand on the front of the envelopes.
“Is this what I think it is?” asked Addy.
“There’s only one way to find out,” said Sage.
The pair opened their envelopes. Inside were the invites to the Scoville Ball, with instructions as to time and place. There were also instructions for the pair regarding the private flight that would take them from London to Oslo.
“Holy heck,” said Addy. “I can’t believe the ball is in a few weeks.”
“I can,” said Sage. “It always is. It’s on my grandfather’s birthday.”
“His birthday?” asked Addy. “Do we need to bring a gift?”
“My grandfather is the kind of man that is notoriously difficult to buy a present for,” said Sage. “Don’t sweat it. I’ll ask Sabine to pick some stuff out.”
“No, whatever we give, it should be heartfelt,” said Addy. “Let me think about it, okay? There’s no rush.”
“Didn’t you just freak out about it being in a few weeks?” asked Sage, raising an eyebrow.
“It doesn’t take more than a few hours to figure out a good gift,” said Addy. “Trust me. I don’t know if you noticed but while us Quincy Sisters weren’t exactly poor before, we weren’t rolling in the dough, and we still had awesome birthday parties with great gifts. I can figure out something to give your grandpa. It’s no sweat. But…”
“But?” asked Sage.
“But I have never been to a ball,” said Addy. “I’ve never frikkin’ been to a dance before! If you haven’t noticed, I don’t exactly have a dancer’s figure.”
“Are you kidding?” asked Sage. “Nonsense. First off, I’m not gonna even start to unpack that last statement of yours. All I’ll say is, while you’re in Europe, we’ll have to see a certain ballet in Moscow, which happens to have a star dancer that you could share clothes with, if you catch my drift. There are curves to be found at the opera in Rome, and of course, the cabaret in Paris, where the gals are anything but tiny. Secondly, the ball is no big deal. You have clothes from Sabine, yes?”
“Yeah, but a ball means dancing. Does Sabine have some magical pair of shoes that will dance for me?” asked Addy. “Wait. Scratch that. We’re talking about Sabine. Of course she frikkin’ does.”
“All right, how about this,” said Sage. “If you haven’t noticed, music’s my thing.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean dance is,” said Addy.
“You know how I’m taking our English class because literature and music are kissing cousins?” asked Sage. “Well, all good dancers know about music…and vice versa. I’ll bet my bottom dollar that Mozart could waltz a mean Viennese.”
“A what now?” asked Addy.
“You have no frikkin’ idea what a Viennese waltz is?” asked Sage. “Maybe you are completely hopeless.”
Addy threw one of the throw pillows at Sage, who then tossed it back to her.
“Okay, I have a crazy idea,” said Sage. “You trust me?”
“I have to, don’t I?” asked Addy.
“You. Me. Dance practice,” said Sage. “My mother had me taking dance at an early age. I don’t do it regularly anymore, only a few times a semester.”
“Wow, a few times a semester,” said Addy. “Okay. Fine. I guess I trust you enough to let you be my dance teacher and my dance partner. So, where and when do we start?”
“My room, and now,” said Sage, getting up from the floor where he’d been opening his packages and taking Addy, who was sitting on the window seat, by the hand.
Chapter Five
The roughness of the palm of his hand still shocked her. Sage was so warm and comforting now. He wasn’t the cold, cocky bastard she thought he’d be, even though he still dressed like one. She could barely recognize him…or herself. In a few short days, she’d felt more comfortable than she’d ever been before, in her own skin, in her environment, in her classes. She’d been worried about being bullied for being some no-nothing American human, but people had liked her, well, except for Georgina, but that was nothing.
Addy walked with Sage into his room.
“Sit,” said Sage. “And…give me a second.”
Addy sat down on the chaise. Sage pressed a button on his piano Addy hadn’t noticed before. It was black and blended in with the rest of the piano. The button opened a little compartment with buttons and a screen. Sage fiddled with them and then, started to play.
The song was not like the songs he’d played for her before. This was a song that was sweet, melodic, simple, but not saccharine and childlike. This song sounded familiar and made her feel unfamiliar things.
* * *
A white dress. She looked down and she was in a puffy white dress that made her look like a cupcake, with a toasted marshmallow topping, as the dress had gold sequins underneath a layer of white mesh and lace that was embroidered with flowers. On her feet was a pair of shoes that looked too fancy, tall but somehow easy to stand in, probably easy to walk in.
She looked up and couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
There was an arch. The arch was made of white roses, a path of yellow rose petals leading to the archway, where there was one figure, wearing a white suit. The figure had hair like spun gold with a streak of pure ebony, and his eyes were like two bright sapphire-blue topaz gemstones. He was reaching out to her.
Addy walked toward the figure slowly, but it felt like she was floating. She landed next to the blond man, who towered above her even in her heels, and he placed a hand on each side of her waist. She reached up to his shoulders, not just to see his face, but to hold her down and onto the ground because she felt as if she would just float away if he happened to blow on her neck a certain way.
The man leaned in and whispered, “It’s time for your dance lesson, my bride.”
“Bride?” asked Addy softly.
“But of course,” said the man. “Why else would you be wearing that dress?”
Addy was spinning, not like she was dizzy, but like she was dancing, moving and turning according to a rhythm that she could hear outside of her dream…
* * *
Sage got up, but the music kept playing.
“Wake up, sleeping beauty,” whispered Sage as he leaned in to take Addy by the waist.
“Wait, what?” asked Addy. “Huh?” Before she knew it, she was on her feet, and Sage was walking with her, in circles, back and forth.
She wasn’t walking at all! She was dancing!
It was a simple two-step. The song was still playing, even though Sage was dancing with her.
“How is the piano still playing?” Addy asked Sage.
“It’s a player piano,” said Sage. “If I play a s
ong, it can be set to play the song over and over. This song is Pachelbel’s Canon in D. It’s not a dancing song, but it’s got a simple rhythm, and it’s suited for a simple two step. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
Sage and Addy went back and forth, with Sage leading, turning Addy in a small circle as they danced.
“Hands here,” said Sage, gently taking one of Addy’s hands in his. Her hands had still been at her side. He kept her hand in his for a few steps, then put the hand on his shoulder, before repeating that with the other hand.
“So this is what it’s like, what dancing is like,” said Addy. “Doesn’t seem too hard.”
“This is a two-step,” said Sage. “But, of course, the steps are only half of the problem. Dancing in public is, as you Americans say, ‘a-whole-nother frikkin’ ball-game.’”
“I didn’t even think of that,” said Addy. “Way to psych me out.”
“We can keep practicing,” said Sage. “Or…”
“Or…?” asked Addy.
“You can go with me to the school dances,” said Sage. “There’s one every Friday, you know. The one this Friday will probably be a bit crowded, but usually, they’re not. They aren’t too popular, because of all the night clubs around here, but it’s a good way to get in some public dancing time. We can practice here or in a dance studio on campus after classes, too.”
“You’d do that for me?” asked Addy.
“But of course,” said Sage. “Herb said not to get you into any trouble…but my grandfather did say to show you a good time.”
“Of course,” said Addy. “So, this Friday, you’ll go to the dance you previously said you were too busy for?”
“Well, that was before I knew I’d have a date with you,” said Sage.
“A date?” asked Addy.
“A date,” said Sage. “Call it what you want, but what else do you call it when a drop dead gorgeous, curvy American girl and a polar bear shifter who can be more than a little bit grizzly go to a dance together? You’ve seen those teen romantic comedies. You know what this is…so you can either deny it, or accept it when you walk into that ballroom on my arm.”
