Page 25 of Sweets and Sycamores
Diet: Fruits, vegetables, seeds, leaves
Notes: Rejected by its kind. Cannot spit fire.
“How come you don’t have a name?” Allie asked, frowning at the paper. How did it—he—end up here? No way Dominic had just, what? Adopted him? Allie scoffed, and her eyes fell on the last line again.
Cannot spit fire.
“You and me both,” she whispered. A strong feeling of pity blossomed in her chest, but she reigned it in. Allie hated being pitied for her shortcomings. Why wouldn’t the dragon feel the same way?
She took the dragon back to her room after popping by the kitchen and slicing an apple and a banana. The creature wanted to fly around and inspect his surroundings, but Allie warned him that would only land him back in the box. He deflated but stayed quietly on her shoulder.
She put the plate of fruits on her desk, and the dragon flew over and sat next to it. He looked between Allie and the plate with large, hopeful eyes.
“You can eat everything on the plate,” she chuckled. “Just don’t ruin anything around the room, okay?” To her surprise, the dragon nodded. So hecouldunderstand her. Interesting. “I should give you a name. Everyone should have a name,” she muttered. The creature watched her expectantly, her wish to name him echoing in his beady, dark eyes. Echo… “How about Ekko?” The dragon’s eyes sparkled, and he flew up and around Allie, briefly brushing her cheek with his wings. “Ekko it is.” She laughed.
Allie went back to the bakery, hoping her new friend would not ruin anything while left alone. Ekko was too tiny to do much damage, but his claws were sharp enough.
She took the box full of flour bags to the storage room and spent the next two hours serving, packaging, and cleaning. Mercifully, no noise came from her room, and she could only hope Ekko was behaving. She didn’t know much about dragons, only that some of them were friendly, and some enjoyed human company.
But what about her boss? Allie doubted he would welcome the presence of a mystical creature under his roof. She hoped he would allow her to keep Ekko for a few days until she figured out what to do with him.
The door swung open as Dominic came inside. The bun she’d tied for him had loosened a bit, wild strands of hair framing his face. Allie suspected he wasn’t going to let her near him againanytime soon by the way he had stiffened like a board on that chair. But she could notnothelp him, or force him to accept her help, even with the risk of making him more testy than usual.
“How did the meeting go?” Allie jumped into the conversation, pointlessly prolonging when she’d tell her boss she was hiding a baby dragon in her room.
“We need more of everything,” he grumbled.
“And how is your shoulder?”
Dominic narrowed his emerald eyes at her. “Fine. What’s wrong?”
The man wasted no time.
“Everything is fine,” Allie said, clasping her hands behind her back. “Except…”
Dominic tensed, his back going ramrod straight. He stopped by the counter and raised his brows, bracing his hands on the edge. Allie chuckled awkwardly, considering how to go about the unusual news.
“Except?” Dominic demanded.
“We got two deliveries today.” He frowned, jerking his head back. “I put the flour box in the storage room,” Allie went on slowly, as if she was approaching a freezing lake and was about to jump into it headfirst. Naked.
“What was the other delivery?” he asked in that low, thick, alarmingly calm voice.
Allie gave him a big smile, wanting to say this casually, like it was just two boxes of flour instead of one.
Except it wasn’t.
“A baby dragon?” She shrugged.
“A baby dragon,” Dom parroted the words Alecsandra had uttered. “You let a fire-spitting creature inside the bakery?” The Witch winced, and the weight of his words hit him in his idiot head. “I didn’t mean?—”
“He can’t spit fire,” she interrupted him with unexpected force. “It says so on the document.” She glanced at something behind him: an empty box on the table by the door.
Dominic crossed the distance in long strides and grabbed the open box, putting the lid together. He read the address and?—
“This says 73MableStreet.” Alecsandra was right behind him, reading the label with a lot of interest for someone who was supposed to know what it said. Dom didn’t feel like he needed to voice that the bakery was on 73MapleStreet. “It’s also addressed to the Mystical Creatures Institute.” A puff of air that could have been a sigh or a chuckle tickled his ear.
“I didn’t exactly read the label,” she declared. Dom set the box on the table and turned to fully face her.
