Page 26 of Sugar & Dragon Act I: Temptation

And then he’d kissed her. And today…

I can do this, she told herself.

Today was going to be a difficult day, but she could handle it.

She had to.

For her country.

XV Dago

The blue castle floated a chariot above the rippled sea like an unruly piece of sky wanting to get a better look at its reflection. The sun was already high, but the refreshing breeze made its rays caress the skin with pleasant warmth. Apart from the thousand shades of azure, there was nothing around but silence…

“ARE YOU FINISHED YEEEEET?” yelled the green-eyed dolphin, emerging from the water suddenly but not unexpectedly. He’d already done this fifteen times in the last fifteen minutes.

“Sweet nightmare,” Dago muttered, wiping his fingers with a tissue. In a loud voice, he added, “Can’t you just start collecting them?”

“And how am I supposed to do that without hands?” the dolphin asked with astonishing logic.

“Just like dolphins do?”

“And how should I know how they do it? Do I look like a dolphin to you?”

Dago looked up at the column, which cast a shadow on the white table where he and Galenos were eating breakfast. He took a deep breath and stood.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t do it after all?” the woman said suddenly.

He looked at her. He liked her airy cornflower blue dress but not the seriousness on her face. He felt instinctively that the incoming discussion would be less fun than he would have liked, but he asked politely, “Whatexactlyshouldn’t we do?”

“Catch clams.”

Having realized what this was about, Dago took another deep breath. Right. Shellfish were animals and Hera Galenos was Hera Galenos. He should’ve expected that. Just…

“Why are you only telling me this now?”

She had enough decency to blush.

“I hoped that by the time we got here, I would find some information in your scrolls that would negate the need to collect koralion.”

He crossed his arms. “And? Have you found it?”

“No,” she admitted, but her eyes flared with defiance. “But I also haven’t found anything that would indicate we must have it.”

“Of course not. I remind you again that apart from transforming into a daimon, which is anabilityinherited from dreamy ancestors, no magus has ever managed to cast a transmutation spell. If you want to be certain, you should ask a morpheus who could logically explain how they use magic. If you know someone like that, I’ll forget about you treating my magical reserves like free fuel and gladly move the castle to a new location to talk to them.”

Hera blushed even more but didn’t avert her eyes. “If no magus has ever cast a transmutation spell, it would mean that Master Homer has nothing to do with this case and someone else is behind it. But, as we’ve already agreed, this is our only reasonable lead and we have no choice. We have to rely on human knowledge, according to which koralion may or maynothave magical properties.”

“So what, then? You won’t search for koralion until we try everything else? And what if everything fails?”

Until now, the maga had rested her hands freely on the table, but now she moved her left hand so that her fingers wrapped around the wrist of her right one. She always did this when she felt discomfort.

“Then… we ask for it?”

Dago stared at the woman, not believing his ears. Did she just suggest that he—the business magnate, future Archmagus,dragon—would ask theshellfishto kindly expel their congealed saliva?

Seeing his expression, Hera hastily added, “We will borrow or buy it from someone who has it already. Then the new shellfish wouldn’t have to open against their will.”

Dago frowned. He didn’t like her plan.Hisplan assumed finding as many koralion as he could and selling the excess. Did she really expect him to forgo an opportunity for profit after spending so much time preparing for this trip?

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