“Is it really okay to let them leave like that?” Alice asked, leaning against the skeleton standing beside her.

Mr. Skelly stared up at the moon and sighed. His bony fingers ran through Alice’s hair. “Yes. They were just exploring for fun after all.”

Alice pursed her lips. “Will I get to see them again?” she asked, turning her head to face the skeleton. “I don’t understand why they left so abruptly. We barely said goodbye.”

“Why wouldn’t you get to see them again?” Mr. Skelly asked with a small smile.

“Because they’re an ocean away?”

“And?”

“…Is that not enough?”

Mr. Skelly laughed, causing Alice to huff and punt his shin off. She glowered at him before asking, “What are you laughing at? I’m really upset about this, you know? Tafel forced me to join their party, and then she abandoned me a few weeks later. Do you understand what I’m feeling right now? It’s not like I can just walk down the street and talk to her; she’s a literal ocean away.”

Mr. Skelly fixed his shin before stroking Alice’s cheek. “Do you think Tafel and Vur are the type of people to abandon someone who joined their party?”

“Vur wouldn’t,” Alice said. “But Tafel already abandoned me once to get that phoenix imprint. And doesn’t Tafel have Vur by his bal—”

Mr. Skelly coughed. “Vur’s not whipped.”

Alice raised an eyebrow. “He isn’t?”

“Did he give you that impression?” Mr. Skelly asked and tilted his head. “If he wants to do something, even Tafel wouldn’t be able to stop him from doing it. It’s just that he doesn’t have many things he wants to do other than make his friends and family happy. He’s like a child that way.” He scratched his chin. “I feel like I’m forgetting something very important about the reason for Vur’s personality.”

“The fact that he was raised by dragons?”

“No, I remembered that,” Mr. Skelly said before shrugging. “Well, anyways, they’ll definitely come back for you. I think it’d take a month at most. We have a very capable and eccentric old man on our continent who can create permanent teleportation arrays.”

“But can it traverse an ocean?”

“Why not?” Mr. Skelly grinned. “We already have an array connecting us to the northern continent, though it’s a bit infected. It’d be easy to connect our continents. In fact, there’s literally no reason not to. Why wouldn’t a monarch want to connect his territories?”

“You have a point,” Alice said. A smile blossomed on her face. “That’s great. That’s really great.”

“As is most things Vur decides to do,” Mr. Skelly said with a laugh. He wrapped his arm around Alice’s shoulder. “And I have a promise to keep to you to. While we wait for Vur and Tafel to return, why don’t we head towards the frostlands to find your parents?”

“Heading to the frostlands isn’t my definition of a honeymoon, but yes, let’s,” Alice said, burying her face into Mr. Skelly’s collarbone.

“Err, doesn’t that feel uncomfortable?”

“I have thick skin; it’s okay,” Alice said, unmoving.

“I see,” Mr. Skelly said and placed his hand on Alice’s head. He looked up at the moon and smiled. “It only took eight hundred and twenty-seven years, but I finally found someone worth dying for.”

“Please, no skeleton puns.”

“Eh?” Mr. Skelly lowered his head. “But I live for puns! Aren’t they humerus?”

“I’m going to hit you.”

“Sorry.”

Alice pulled away and placed her hands on her hips. “You backed down too easily,” she said. “What happened to your spine?”

Mr. Skelly’s eyes widened. “Did you just…?”

“Yes.”

Mr. Skelly swept Alice off her feet, carrying her in his arms. He laughed as he stepped away from the balcony and towards the bed in the center of the room. “I’m in love all over again.”

***

“Vur,” Grimmy said, turning his head towards the ocean-blue dragon flying beside him. “I know your body is yours and all, but, uh, don’t you think you overdid it a little with the elementals?”

“Nope,” Vur said over the chatter of his three elementals squabbling with Stella inside his chest. “I want a water elemental too.”

Grimmy scratched his chin. “Huh,” he said. “You sure? There’s a lot of noise coming out of you right now. I don’t think you’d be able to sleep if you added another one.”

“Ignore him, Vur,” Lindyss said. She was lying on Grimmy’s head with her eyes closed. “He’s just upset since it’ll be harder for him to stuff souls into your body—which you shouldn’t let him do, by the way.” She frowned and opened her eyes. “Move to the side, would you? You’re blocking my sun.”

“Me?” E asked. He was crouching besides her, shivering and clinging onto Grimmy’s scales as if his life depended on it.

“Not you,” Lindyss said and swatted at the fairy flying over her face. “Her.” She glanced at E. “But why are you following me around again?”

“Please, make me your disciple! I don’t care how many people I have to slaughter to make skeletons. I don’t care how much of my soul I have to give up to become a necromancer. As long as it’s for helping me become lazier, I’ll do anything!”

“I think your priorities are a bit screwed,” Lindyss said, raising an eyebrow.

“Are dwarf necromancers a thing?” Tafel asked Vur. She was sitting on his head with hundreds of fairies huddled around her, clinging onto her. Two phoenixes were perched on her shoulders, Emile and Susan.

“E’s a magical midget,” Vur said. “He should be able to do it.”

“They’re dwarves, Vur,” Leila said from behind him. She was flying alongside her reluctant mother, who had promised to see Nova at Vur’s, read Grimmy’s, request. “Calling them midgets is politically incorrect.”

Vur snorted. “A midget is a midget. Who’s Politically and why does he define what’s correct or not? I’m the king.”

Leila smiled at her mother and shrugged. “I tried.”

Kondra shook her head, unwilling to speak. Her face was unusually pale, and droplets of sweat dripped down from her claws. A murmur escaped from her lips, “Why did I agree to this?”