“See? That wasn’t too hard to find,” Tafel said and hopped off of Vur’s head. She landed on a path made of golden bricks leading up to a palace that shone in the sun. It was easily ten times the size of Tafel’s castle back on the central continent, and Vur had to tilt his head up to see the top of the building. “Practical experience is much greater than theory.”

Alice snorted and slid off of Vur’s face, using his cheek like a slide. “You found the biggest building to have ever existed, congratulations.”

Tafel rolled her eyes in response. “Yeah, well, you couldn’t find it even though you read all those books,” she said. “Speaking of books, we looted a lot from that dungeon, didn’t we?”

“Right, I look forward to reading them all,” Alice said.

“You sound really expectant.” Tafel tilted her head. “If I were you, I wouldn’t get my expectations up over some books we found in what seemed to be a living room, and those books in the kitchen were definitely cookbooks.”

Alice placed her hands on her hips. “I love reading all kinds of books, cookbooks included.”

“But you can’t cook,” Mr. Skelly said.

Alice whirled around to glare at the suit of armor that had slid off of Vur. “And you can’t eat. There’s no issue,” Alice said and snorted. “For the record, Vur and Tafel invited me to their party because Vur loved the way my food tasted.”

“Right, right,” Tafel said as she tugged on Alice’s sleeve. “Let’s move over a bit to the side, and Vur, please, turn back into a human.” Behind the group, there was what used to be a line of wagons. After a dragon landed on the road, the horses had scattered in all directions. A few people were screaming while others were crawling out of overturned carriages.

Vur’s scales lost their luster as his body shrank. “Ah,” he said, his voice garbled by his transformation. “We forgot Alora.”

Tafel stared at Vur, his wings shrinking into his back as his claws retracted and turned into nails. “How could you forget your cousin?”

Vur shrugged. “I remembered now.”

Tafel sighed. “I’ll record this location’s coordinates and teleport back to bring her along. You’re coming with me since I’m not sure I’ll have the mana to transport a dragon. And I don’t think she trusts me enough to let me teleport her.”

“Wait,” Alice said. “What do you mean you don’t think you have the mana to transport a dragon? You could teleport Vur and us without issues.”

“That’s because Vur cooperates with me,” Tafel said. “Whenever I need to teleport him, his mana works with me instead of against me. There’s something about his mana that makes it easy to use; it probably has something to do with the fact that he’s a blue mage.”

Alice frowned as Tafel grabbed Vur’s arm. With a flash of light coming out of the demon’s horns, the duo disappeared. Mr. Skelly tapped on Alice’s shoulder and pointed past her head. She turned around and came face to face with shining metal. A group of knights were flanking her in a semicircular formation, their swords drawn and raised. “She couldn’t have warned me before she left?” Alice muttered to herself as she raised her hands up. “Hey, I guess….”

The knights didn’t react.

“None of you are going to say anything?” Alice asked and raised an eyebrow.

Without warning, the seven or so knights fell forwards, collapsing into a giant heap of shining metal. A lone figure dressed in black stood over them while dusting off his gloves. “My apologies,” the man in black said as he lowered his head, bending his torso to bow ninety degrees. “Might you be Lady Tafel’s companion?”

“Lady Tafel?” Alice asked. Her brow furrowed for a moment before relaxing. “I’m Tafel’s companion, yes. Did Mary send you?”

“That’s right,” the man said. He straightened his torso and used his finger to pull down the mask covering his mouth before smiling. “Please, forgive these knights for being aggressive. They saw a dragon and became excited. Her Imperial Majesty has been looking forward to seeing Lady Tafel again. Do you know where she might have gone?”

“Yeah,” Alice said. “She went to pick up a dragon. She should be back at any moment.”

A wry smile appeared on the man’s face, and he readjusted his mask to cover his mouth and nose. “Picking up a dragon. Of course. As expected of Her Imperial Majesty’s good friend.”

***

A deep frown was etched into Mary’s face. She was polishing her sword, using a cloth to rub oil into the hilt. Just looking at the metal reminded her of Lindyss’ slender fingers wrapping around it. The frown on her face stretched even harder as Mary applied more force, wiping out the long-gone fingerprints that she was sure was still there.

“My liege, your good friend Lady Tafel has arrived.”

Mary’s hand froze mid-wipe. She raised her head, the frown on her face flipped upside down into a brilliant smile instead. “She’s here?” she asked the kneeling Shadows member. “Nothing stupid happened like knights charging at her for disrupting the peace, right?”

Beads of sweat formed on the Shadows member forehead before being instantly absorbed by the black cloth covering his face. “N-no such thing happened, my liege,” the man said. “The Shadows are treating Lady Tafel with the utmost care. There were a few incidents with the traffic around the palace being disrupted by the sudden appearances of dragons, but everything has already settled down.”

Mary’s expression darkened. “I thought I told her not to bring Vur,” she said and pouted. She sighed as she stood up and slid her sword, sheathe included, into the slot reserved for it on her belt. “And I can’t even make him feel unwelcome because he’s a dragon. I … can just pretend he doesn’t exist. Okay.” Mary nodded to herself and walked past the kneeling man, exiting the room. The Shadows member exhaled out a shaky breath before standing up and disappearing.