Page 45 of Earth-Bound

“I probably wouldn’t have.”

Nobody believed him.

“Besides,” said Matty, “we managed to identify most of it. Ant did all the identifying, to be honest. Dimpy and I were just there as back-up.” He sounded proud of his brother.

Anthony said, “When it comes to getting rid of it, though, you’ll be the one doing all the work. You’re the only one powerful enough to neutralise that kind of magic.”

I smiled to myself at the way the brothers bragged about each other.

Randall kept everyone on track. He asked, “So youdothink you can get rid of it all, then?”

Matty pursed his lips while he thought about it. “Yes, I think so. I might have to do it in stages, though. Ant wants me to be careful.”

Anthony nodded and Dum grumbled, “Iwant you to be careful. I have a vested interest in you staying alive.”

I decided that, if I wanted sensible answers, Randall was probably the one to talk to. I waited until he brought out more tea and then asked, “Are these the people who are going to clear your house?”

“Yes. They’re related to Marcia’s mate so they’re doing it as a favour.”

I eyed the dragons. “Did they all need to come?”

Dum muttered, “I’m here to make sure nobody puts our honey-cakes in danger.”

“Is honey-cakes a nickname?”

Randall snorted and Matty tutted. “Unfortunately not. He actually means honey cakes. Marcia makes the best ones, apparently, and they’re worried that having dark magic nearbywill hurt her or stop her from baking them. I’m not even sure which of those possibilities he’s most worried about.”

Dum sat up indignantly. “Hey, I’m worried about Marcia.”

Matty raised a sassy eyebrow. “Really? Because you told me last week that, if I died, you’d probably mate a honey cake in consolation and the worst part is I nearly believed you.”

Dee cut over Dum’s protests and announced, “We’re here to make sure nothing bad happens to Dimpy and Anthony. They’re our darlings.”

She shot them such a vicious grin that I actually flinched back but Anthony just smiled benevolently, as though she’d just done him a great honour. I supposed that, if I were a human like him, and I had a dragon of that kind of power determined to protect me, I might be happy about that. Maybe. Although I’d probably prefer if it wasn’t one ofthesetwo dragons.

Randall came back into the café, carrying another tray and he put it down and looked around with astonishment. For the first time, I noticed that all the food was gone. He looked at our plates. Our clean plates, and then turned on Broadmire.

“Did you just eat all of that food by yourself?”

Broadmire shrugged. “They weren’t paying attention. Missed their chance.”

“You can’t just eat other people’s food, you know.”

“I didn’t. I ateyourfood.”

For some reason, Randall didn’t keep shouting at his mate. His eyes went soft and he tried to grumble, but it wasn’t convincing. “Now I’m going to have to make some more.”

There was a loud chorus of voices, all in unison. “Yes please!”

Chapter 20: Joe

After work, I washed up and headed down to the café to get some dinner. And if I’d taken particular care to make sure I looked respectable and was wearing my best shirt, then who could blame me? I wanted to impress Terrund, and I hadn’t done much to do that yet. My ‘best shirt’ was actually just my newest plaid shirt but at least it was clean and didn’t have any holes in it yet.

My stomach fluttered as I pushed open the door to the café and my eyes honed in on Terrund, sitting at a table with four other people. As they all looked up at me, I got a prickling sensation along the back of my neck.

Terrund smiled at me. “Joe! Come and sit with us.”

I looked at his table. It was full.

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