The light in Klugetown’s underground market was hazy, as if every shady dealing at every stall that surrounded Gallus was a mirage, or some sort of ghostly image of the past. The hazy quality of the light was present in the sound of the conversations, too. Everycreature spoke in muffled, low voices, and though a thousand creatures were all talking at once, it all melded together into a formless, unspecific noise that was unnerving at best and completely panic-inducing at worst.
Gallus liked Klugetown well enough, but he could never relax within its borders. There was something in the air that kept him anxious, always moving, always looking around him. He only ever came here when he really, really needed something.
Today’s something was a Giant Turtle whistle for Sandbar’s birthday, the only surviving whistle in a set that called upon various mythical-class creatures.
“Gally,” Ocellus called. Her light, airy voice pierced through the haze of the market like an arrow. Gallus followed it to a nearby stall, where she was hunched over a table of wares and had her eyes locked with a bipedal bird—an Ornithian raven. He wore only a simple dark orange robe and a burgundy cord wrapped thrice around his neck, as well as the same glint in his eye as every other grifter Gallus had seen that day.
Like most of the salescreatures in the market, the raven’s stall was a menagerie of rare or useless things spread out on multiple tables and spinning racks. Gallus didn’t care for any of them save for the whistle he spotted sitting prettily on a shelf behind the raven.
“Ah,” he said, sidling up to his friend and laying his claws on the table, batting his eyes at the raven. “I see my friend found what we're looking for.”
“That she did,” the raven replied, voice low, dark like chocolate, “but it’s not for sale.”
“Why have it out, then?” Gallus asked. “Come on. What’s she offered you?”
“All your bits,” said the raven, eyes narrowing at him. “And I’m not taking them.”
“And why is that?”
“Because it’s not for sale.”
“A trade, then?”
“No.”
“Come on,” Gallus sighed, looking a little past him, to the whistle. He swished his tail, making sure it caught the raven’s attention. Then he batted his eyes. “Name your price,” he purred. “Promise I’ll one-up you.”
Beside him, Ocellus gagged audibly.
The raven smiled wide. Gallus matched him, albeit just a teensy bit worried. He clearly wasn’t interested in Gallus’s swishy tail or his delightfully long eyelashes. He seemed hungry for something else.
“Do you know any card games?” asked the raven.
Gambling. The only thing better than friendship. Gallus beamed. “I know them all.”
Gallus, laid back in his hammock, let out a sigh. A firm yet comfortable breeze brushed over him constantly as the ship sailed towards Klugetown. It had been a while since he’d been on an airship for anything but guard duty. He had forgotten that they could actually be relaxing.
“You always liked airship decks,” said Silverstream. She was leaning against a post near Gallus’s head, where the top of the hammock was tied.
“Did I?” Gallus asked.
“No closed spaces, no sea constantly shaking you…”
“Huh,” he said. “Yeah. I guess.”
“You guess?” Silverstream repeated. “I was quoting you! You told me about how much you loved airships like…twelve years ago.”
“That’s a long time, Silly,” Gallus said.
There was a small quiet. Gallus knew that Silverstream was smiling at the mention of her old nickname. He tried not to think about it, lest he start blushing, or worse, acknowledge it out loud.
“We were on our way to Canterlot,” she continued. “I remember you running over to a railing and leaning over it so deep that I was worried you were gonna fall off. At first I thought you were puking. That’s when you looked up and smiled at me and said, ‘I love airships.’”
Gallus searched his mind, but came up with nothing. He repressed a sigh. “Yeah, I’m not remembering any of that.”
Silverstream wrapped her talons on the group. “Well, it’s been a long time, like you said.”
“A long time,” Gallus said. “It’s too bad I don’t have a better memory. Not like I was doing anything important in the last ten years.”
“Don’t say that, Gally,” Silverstream said. “You’ve done more than enough!”
“How would you know?”
“I kept track of you. Gabby wrote me a letter every month letting me know how you were doing.”
“She—” Gallus turned to look at her. “What?”
“How you were feeling, what you were doing, what new thing was making you yell your lungs out the second you got home. If you were happy…” Silverstream said. Quiet nostalgia shimmered in her eyes. “I just wanted to know.”
Gallus swallowed. “Why?”
“Because we’re BFFs, Gallus,” Silverstream said. “And I take the ‘forever’ part of that acronym very seriously.”
Gallus rolled onto his back and looked up at the sky. “I was happy.”
“You’ll be happy again,” said Silverstream.
Gallus didn’t want to say it out loud, but he hoped so. A familiar pang of guilt hit him, twisting around his stomach like a python. “You know, I never really looked for you. Not in newspapers or anything. Things would just…slip by the cracks sometimes. ‘Oh, Silverstream’s in the Navy now.’ ‘Oh, Yona defeated an entire horde of skeletons by herself.’ ‘Did you hear that the changeling hive might host the next Friendship Games?’ And I would ignore all of it. Closest I came to reacting to something was when Sandbar was promoted to the Crystal Empire’s Royal Advisor. But I never sent that letter. I didn’t give any of you a second thought.”
“You didn’t have to,” Silverstream said quietly.
“I know,” said Gallus. “I just feel bad that you did.”
“I enjoyed it,” she said. “It was like reading Daring Do after you met her. You went from my friend to a character that was a real griffon that I used to know. And when I heard that Griffonia had finally let go of Griffonstone, I was happy for you. For all of you.”
“That happened, didn’t it,” said Gallus.
“It did. Thanks to you.”
Gallus spotted an eye-shaped cloud in the sky. “I left all of the politics stuff to the council. The papers just like to mention me because ponies vaguely know who I am.”
“Were you ever lonely?” Silverstream asked.
Gallus answered in a heartbeat. “No. I had Gabby and Gilda.”
When Silverstream didn’t respond, he glanced over to see her staring down at her talons. “Were you?” he asked.
“I wasn’t alone,” said Silverstream. “Terramar and Brine are my friends, and I love my crew. But they weren’t…”
She looked like she was fading, then. Something about the angle of the sunlight made her feathers look washed out, unreal, like Gallus was looking at the first glimpse of a mirage in the distance.
But then she turned, and she fixed her eyes on him, and the pink shade of her feathers was vivid again. Her beak quivered. “They weren’t you,” she said, “and they could never be any of you.”
Dinner at Silverstream’s beach house came to Gallus’s mind. The entire gang plus Terramar. A full banquet on the table. Good cider and fine wine.
Any nausea remaining in Gallus froze over. He sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” said Silverstream.
Gallus could see all of them smiling, could hear them laughing. He frowned.
“Gally?” Silverstream said.
“Yeah.”
“We’re friends again, right?”
“Sure.”
“Do you think maybe…”
Silverstream trailed off, but Gallus knew the rest.
If you could forgive me, could you forgive the others?
“Don’t get carried away,” he said.
He stepped off the hammock and walked across the deck. Below him was the rocky orange terrain of the desert outside Klugetown. He stared down at it and rehearsed what he would say to Silverstream if she followed, but she didn’t.
He heard the door to the captain’s deck open, and close, and he knew he was alone.
Smolder downed her Horse Island Iced Tea in one gulp, pulling away from the glass with an overly ecstatic sigh. Ocellus could see little sparks of flame rising in the air around Smolder’s maw, a reaction between her firebreath and the alcoholic vapors in the air.
“Smolder,” Ocellus said. “That was your fourth drink.”
“The fourth in a series of many,” Smolder said. “Hotel Inferni is mine, which means free drinks.”
Ocellus looked out from the mini bar where they were sitting. The casino floor was washed in saturated lights—mostly a stale yellow, but there was a spattering of pink here, an icy blue over there, bloody red coming in from under the doors of the VIP suites. Slot machines, roulette wheels, craps…all accompanied by every manner of creature that she could name. There were Abyssinians and diamond dogs and Ornithians. There were ponies and changelings, darting between the crowds of two legged creatures, so small in comparison but just as hungry for a lucky win as the rest. There were even Atlanteans, an elusive species of amphibious creatures—some crab-like, some octopus-like, and not one looking the same as any other—that Equestrian academia had only dubbed ‘Atlanteans’ because nopony could pin down a definition due to their wildly varying biology, and the fact that they only ever referred to themselves by their close families and tribes.
“I thought we came to look for your missing friend,” Ocellus said. “If you wanted me to watch you get wasted you could have invited me to the Feast of Fire.”
Smolder snorted. “You wouldn’t come to the Feast, anyway.”
“Smolder,” Ocellus warned.
“Celly. Relax. I’m just getting fired up for our meeting with the faction leaders.”
“We could be out on the streets asking people if they’ve seen her.”
“Or we could be in here, having fun, and waiting for those fellas across the room to come over here and tell me.”
Smolder gestured to a spot behind her with her lips. Ocellus turned and looked closely past the crowd, spotting a group of Atlanteans—these ones like giant bipedal fish—whispering to each other as they stared.
Ocellus felt suddenly conspicuous, like she should be in disguise. “How did you…” She cleared her throat. “You don’t know what they’re going to say.”
“Don’t I?” Smolder asked. She turned to the bartender. “Two more Horse Island Iced Tea.”
“Don’t you think four drinks is enough?” Ocellus asked.
“I think five is the sweet spot,” said Smolder.
“And the other one?”
“Is for you.”
Ocellus glared. “I’m sober.”
“Sob—” Smolder blinked. “What?”
“I had a problem a few years back,” said Ocellus.
“First I’m hearing of it,” Smolder said.
“Oh, Celestia, I know that tone of voice.”
“The pissed off one that’s rightfully angry because you didn’t even think about telling your—”
“My what.”
Smolder opened her mouth. Then she closed it. A moment passed.
“You’re such a dick,” she muttered.
“You should talk to the ponies I meet with every week,” Ocellus said. “They can add you to the support group.”
“Was that supposed to be clever?” Smolder asked. Her eyes drifted to the side. “Shit. Alright, incoming.”
Ocellus stole a glance at the Atlanteans. They were slowly getting up, stretching, and gathering their things as if to leave. There were six of them.
“What do we do?” Ocellus asked.
“I don’t know. Hope that they weren’t the ones who kidnapped Strata?”
“Wouldn’t that be ideal?”
“They’re like three feet taller than us.”
Ocellus raised an eyebrow. “So?”
“So I’d have to use my fire, Celly, and I don’t want to accidentally burn down my casino.”
“I could lure them outside,” said Ocellus.
“Underdone carrot cake with a drizzle of truffle oil,” said Smolder. “If things go south.”
Memories flashed through Ocellus’s head. Professor Pinkie’s Military Tactics and Strategic Baking, 101. Spring semester. Incidentally the last semester that class was taught.
Underdone carrot cake with a drizzle of truffle oil. Feign weakness, lure the enemy somewhere advantageous for you and overwhelm with a large burst of power at the very last second. If things went south, which they probably would, Ocellus would take up the brunt of the fighting, throw the Atlanteans out of the hotel and let Smolder unleash Tartarus.
“Sounds good to me,” said Ocellus. “I can’t believe you remember the Code.”
“If it weren’t for you and G—” Smolder stopped. “You. You drilled it into my head.”
She’s still sore… Ocellus thought. But she hadn’t expected that to change.
The six Atlanteans began to walk. Sure enough, they headed toward Smolder and Ocellus. The opposite direction of the exit.
“I don’t know how these conversations work around here,” said Ocellus. It was a lie. She knew a decent amount. But she didn’t want to be in charge right now.
If Smolder caught on to her bullshit, she didn’t care to show it. “I’ll do the talking.”
As the Atlanteans pretended to be interested in everything in the casino except for the two of them at the bar, Ocellus repaid the favor, scanning the creatures around them. The Atlanteans’ movement seemed to put the guests on edge. From the looks on their faces, these guys had to be regulars, and they were, at the very least, to be treated with some form of respect.
Three of them sat on the chairs next to Smolder. Two stood further away. One—the shortest one, who looked a little bit like a shark—stepped forward to speak.
“Orange dragon,” they said. Their voice was rough, salt-crusted. A little bit like Smolder’s. “Are you Lady Smolder?”
“Who’s asking?” Smolder replied. Her wings were visibly tense.
“I’m no one,” said the Atlantean. “But you can call me Aline.”
“Aline,” Smolder said. “You’re right. I don’t recognize you.”
“No one important would,” said Aline. “But I certainly know you. Strata liked to talk about you.”
Smolder reached for her drink, took a sip. “You knew Strata?”
“Know,” corrected Aline.
“So you know that she’s missing, yet you think she’s alive.”
Aline blinked, clearly taken aback. “You’re accusing me of taking her.”
“Never said that,” said Smolder.
“You didn’t have to.”
“Look,” Smolder raised an open claw. “Sorry. I’m just kind of—”
“Drunk,” Ocellus said.
“—On edge right now. So why don’t you say what you came here to say?”
“I thought you’d be in a dress,” said Aline shortly.
“I—” Smolder looked down at herself. “I didn’t have time to get changed.”
“You care about her, then.”
“She’s one of mine, of course I do!” Smolder snapped. “Now what do you want?”
Aline shrugged, raised his fins in a peacekeeping gesture. “We all like Strata.” Some of his fellows nodded. “But we haven’t been able to find her. We wanted to share what we know. Tell you where she was last seen.”
“How did you know her?” Smolder asked.
“Everyone knew her,” said Aline. “That girl was made for Klugetown. It was like she’d been born here, even though no one is born here. She knew how we did things from the very first day. She was smart, and she made all of us feel like we lived somewhere worthwhile. There was no one who didn’t like Strata. She kicked ass, and she was our friend. She always told people she’d buy you a pint of dragonfire ale next she saw you. As thanks.”
Smolder’s tensed wings went lax. Ocellus watched her grimace, only for a second, before her eyes hardened.
“Alright. Where was she seen last?”
“A few of us saw her walk into the ramen bar at the edge of town. We were drinking on a roof nearby, saw her walk in. We were talking about her, actually. Saying she was doing good things for Klugetown. It always surprised us how our incomes never went down, even if a few of us went straight and started selling legal wares. She went to the ramen bar, her favorite place to go in the evenings. Came out with someone on her arm.”
“Who?” Smolder asked.
“Abyssinian. Maroon coat.”
“What, like Capper’s?”
“Capper Dapperpaws, from the town square statue? No. Darker than that old cat’s coat. Brown, almost. Like old wine. Like old blood.”
“Fur markings?” Ocellus asked.
“Calico.”
“And where’d they go?” said Smolder.
“Away,” said Aline. “Not towards Strata’s place, but away from it, towards the northeast edges of Klugetown. ‘S’where all the diamond dogs and the jewelers and the miners live. Don’t know what they were doing going over there. Maybe Strata’s date wanted to buy her some dessert. But that’s the last anyone’s seen of her. We’ve all been through that part of town, asking after her, but no one’s seen her. It was like they walked out of our sight and stopped existing.”
Smolder sighed. She looked to Ocellus. “What do you think?”
“I…” Ocellus began to speak, but her train of thought was interrupted.
Something was nearby. She wasn’t sure what it was. If it was. She didn’t know how to describe it. Her body was on the verge of shivering, but not quite, like she was bracing for the impact of being thrown into the ocean. She still couldn’t sense emotions, but she knew that if she could, she would feel sick to her stomach. She felt sick to her stomach anyway.
Ocellus hopped off her chair, peering around the casino. The crowd remained the same. Bright, loud, dazzling.
Smolder, seeing something in her eyes, stood up as well. “Celly. What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” said Ocellus. “I don’t know.”
Think, Ocellus. There was something, something visceral that she couldn’t put her hoof on. She didn’t know how to put it into words. She could be paranoid at times, but she hadn’t felt this kind of dread in years. Was she delusional? Had she been drugged or…
No, there was a spell on her. Either she wasn’t the intended target, or she was only lucid because whoever was casting the spell was inexperienced with cursing changelings. But why?
This was Klugetown, for one. She was a known political figure, and no doubt someone out here wanted her dead, but how would someone have known that she would be here, on this day, at this moment? Or maybe they were stupid, and they saw who she was and decided on a whim that her dead body would earn them at least a little bit of profit.
But they were in a casino, Ocellus remembered. “Smolder, are there anti-magic wards placed around here?”
“You’re freaking me out, Celly.”
“Yes or no.”
“Obviously!” Smolder said. She gestured to the ceiling. “There’s a whole grid I commissioned from Headmare Starlight grafted into the ceiling!”
Starlight Glimmer’s magic was the kind that both dragons and changelings had secret contingencies for, buried deep in their war rooms. If there was something here that could escape its notice…
Ocellus realized that she wasn’t the only one in danger. If whoever this was wanted to deal with her directly, and did not care about the public, then everyone here was in trouble..
“Smolder,” Ocellus said. “I have a bad feeling. Stay here. Remember the plan.” She brushed past an alert-looking Aline and began to walk towards the casino doors.
“What plan?” Smolder called.
“Underdone carrot cake with a drizzle of truffle oil!”
Ocellus took to the air and flew to the doors. Klugetown greeted her on the other side, with its zig-zagging towers, and its alleys—so many alleys all leading to a thousand different places. A cartographer would need years, at least, to map down the ins and outs of the city, and by then, the map would be completely outdated. There were so many places for Ocellus to hide. But the same went for her pursuer.
Ocellus stayed close to the side streets as she flew. She hadn’t been here in years, and she didn’t know where she was going, but she flew hard, zipping over all manners of creatures, seeing several species that she didn’t recognize. It reminded her of parades back at the Hive, where all the changelings would shapeshift into different forms. But everyone here was real, and much less happy.
She found an alley that looked abandoned. She treaded lightly, keeping her eyes on the roofs until she hit a dead end, and then she turned around and waited.
She didn’t have to wait long. A griffon entered at the mouth of the alley. Something glowed in its talons.
Gallus took a swig of coffee and leaned over the edge of the railing, and when he saw Klugetown on the horizon, something about the bitter flavor overwhelmed him.
He spat the coffee out into the breeze. It turned into a spray, coating the side of the airship. He watched as it clung to the enchanted wood and steel, spreading itself into a thin layer that caught the light in a way that made his eyes hurt.
“That’s gonna get sticky and catch flies.” Silverstream leaned over beside him. He hadn’t noticed her come back outside.
Her beak twisted into a sort of half-smile. “How are you?”
“Better,” he said. He gave her a glance.
Sorry, he thought.
I know, said her eyes.
“When was the last time you were in Klugetown?” she asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. Had to have been…a long time ago,” he finished lamely. The last time he’d been here was with Ocellus. It was a better time, then. He cleared his throat, asked, “What about you?”
“I came last year. Shopped around a bit.”
“How’d that go?”
“I got scammed out of my necklace by an Abyssinian.”
Gallus raised a brow.
“Oh…” Silverstream waved a claw. “I didn’t need that old thing, anyway. Traded it for an old School of Friendship textbook that he was claiming taught ‘dark magic’. This was back when everyone outside of Equestria was rediscovering all of their different magic systems and finding ancient artifacts and stuff.”
“The Quest for Magic,” said Gallus. “Those were the times. Changelings trying to draw weird stuff with their blood in Canterlot alleys, yaks realizing that they could understand what snow was saying. Do you remember that time that hippogriffs accidentally summoned three rainstorms over Appleoosa in a row?”
Silverstream wheezed. “Of course! Terramar conjured the third one.”
“What? That was the worst one!” Gallus said. “I thought you guys were declaring war for a second!”
“My little brother is very talented,” Silverstream said, holding a fist to her chest and standing straight as she grinned proudly.
“Sure he is,” said Gallus, smiling back at her. “What did the book say?”
“Book?”
“The textbook. The haunted one.”
She scoffed. “It was hardly haunted. The actual textbook was Honesty 205.”
Gallus stared at her.
“Making amends,” said Silverstream. “You really don’t remember? The one about apologizing. The “dark magic” the abyssinian was about turning someone you hate into an ally against a mutual enemy.”
“Huh,” he said. “Imagine that.”
Gallus stared at Klugetown, its buildings resolving now as they drew closer. It seemed to rumble and flash brightly in greeting, and a sudden breeze fell over the two of them. No, not a breeze. A wall of air. It took Gallus a moment to realize what had just happened.
“Is it just me, or did Klugetown just explode?” asked Silverstream.
The griffon was tall in stature, almost Ocellus’s height. He had white feathers that were tinged with a faded yellow hue. He was graying, Ocellus noticed, and as he sauntered closer to her she saw that his face was weathered, age lines creased into his eyes and beak. He held a pair of golden scissors, its handles crusted with glowing purple jewels.
“You’re not what I was expecting,” said Ocellus.
“I’m not used to being noticed.” The griffon’s voice was low and humming, entirely unused to projecting itself. His accent was funny.
“You probably won’t tell me who you are, or who you work for,” Ocellus said.
“Correct on both counts.”
“Griffonia?” she asked.
He slowed his stride, stopped in the middle of the alley. “It’s where I’m from, yes, I’ll tell you that much.”
Someone working for the Empire would have pretended to be from Griffonstone. He was telling the truth, which was good because that would mean that Griffonia wasn’t trying to start a war or anything. Ocellus’s mind raced. Who was this griffon, then? He was a sea’s away from his home, confronting royalty with what was likely violent intent. She stood straighter, trying to make herself look more regal. “And are you the one behind Strata’s disappearance?”
“No.”
“But you know who is.”
“Yes.”
“Why follow me here?”
“You and the dragon are loose ends.”
Ocellus narrowed her gaze. That emotionless tone of voice… She couldn’t sense emotions anymore, but she could still hear it when someone’s heart wasn’t in what they were saying. You and the dragon are loose ends. He’d heard someone else say that, and was only repeating it.
Ocellus raised a hoof. “Hey—”
The fireball was a blur. It whistled as it soared through the air, and Ocellus could only catch an orange streak, a stray beam of light that blinked towards the griffon before it suddenly stopped, roiling and building in strength and growing to almost twice the griffon’s size. Ocellus’s eyes hurt looking at it, but she kept watching, for right in front of the fireball were the scissors the griffon was holding. He kept his composure, snapped the scissors shut. The fire turned to sparks in an instant.
Smolder landed at the entrance of the alley, smoke pluming from her nostrils. “So, you’re dangerous.”
“I am,” said the griffon.
Ocellus looked past him to glare at her. “How dare you?” she seethed. “He could have been someone giving me information!”
“I’m not,” said the griffon.
“I know that now!” Ocellus snapped. “Smolder, I don’t know how you do things in the Dragonlands, but—”
“You know exactly how we do things,” Smolder said. “And he just admitted that I was right.”
Ocellus rolled her eyes. “And what is this?” she asked, gesturing to Smolder’s get-up. She was wearing a hoodie, bright red like her brother’s scales, while around her waist swayed a pleated, hot pink skirt. “I might have been in danger, and you were playing dress-up?”
“Oh, come on, Celly, I just wanted to look nice. And I know you can handle yourself.”
“And if I couldn’t?” Ocellus asked.
Smolder raised a brow. “Are we starting this now?”
“Starting what now?” asked the griffon. He’d backed up against the wall as Ocellus and Smolder approached each other. The talons holding the scissors tensed. Slowly, shakily, they opened.
“Now,” said Smolder, turning his attention to him, “We pummel you senseless, make your acquaintance, and then maybe we become friends in the end.” Smolder lowered herself, crouching into an athletic position.
“I don’t need any more friends,” said the griffon.
“One step at a time, then,” said Smolder.
Ocellus leapt into the air, towards the alley wall, changing into a leopard. She twisted and landed on the wall with all four feet, and made two strides before the griffon was within biting distance. In this form she could crush his skull, but that was never an option. She saw the glint of his magic scissors begin to make their way towards her, so she opted to jump again, this time changing into an eagle so his scissors met empty air. She flapped her wings once to get some air, and descended on him, talons aiming for his eyes, but the griffon was spry, and he rolled under her and ran a few feet towards the alley’s dead end.
Ocellus shifted out of her hawk form, into her original form.
Smolder came to her side not a moment after, arms spread, wings flared. “How lenient do you think Klugetown is on property damage?”
Ocellus opted not to respond. She stared at the griffon on the other side of the alley. His eyes darted from wall, to wall, to sky, to over their shoulders. He wasn’t sure about what was going to happen next. Good.
“Griffon,” said Ocellus. “I’ll assume you’re not a noble from Griffonia, because none of them would ever step foot in a place like this.”
“Correct,” said the griffon. “The Houses are cowards.”
“But you seem to be used to fighting.”
“Correct, again.”
“You seem like you think you can defeat me and Smolder.”
The griffon frowned. “I had to try.”
Ocellus tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
The griffon paused. “No. I must not give you information. I will kill you or I will die.”
“We don’t want either of those things, pal,” Smolder called.
“I don’t care what you want,” said the griffon. He raised his scissors. “Come.”
“The scissors,” Ocellus whispered to Smolder. “I think they negate magic.”
“I gathered that,” said Smolder.
“We need to disarm him.”
“Or…we can overload the scissors. Nothing can just cut magic forever. And look at him. He’s worried about something.”
“Or we can disarm him like the diplomats we are.”
“Or I can overload it and you can disarm him afterwards.”
“Smolder, wait—!” But Smolder was already walking forward, inhaling slowly, deeply, until she could inhale no more.
“Griffon,” Ocellus called, eyes wide. “Last chance.”
The griffon laughed. “Hit me.”
Smolder did. She roared, and out of her mouth came a pillar of fire, blazing and crackling like lightning, not fanning out like a normal fire breath but keeping itself in a tight column that shot through the air, towards the griffon.
The griffon reached into the pocket of his coat.
“Smolder!” Ocellus cried.
But it was too late. The griffon pulled out a metal disc, flicked it towards the oncoming fire.
The damage was bad. Two low-rise buildings—both full of shops—were completely destroyed. Smoke billowed out from the ruins. Gallus could see creatures running from the scene, but in the middle of it all, he could see that there was a fight going on. Or maybe it had just ended.
“Gally,” Silverstream called. “Give me an update!”
“There’s been a fight!” Gallus called back. “I thought that Klugetown was supposed to be getting better?”
“Anyone hurt?”
“I’d be surprised if no one was,” said Gallus.
“No time to ask for permission to moor to a tower then,” Silverstream said, flying over to him. “We need to get down there.”
Gallus nodded. “I’ll run over to you once Terramar drops me off somewhere.”
Silverstream looked away, then fixed him with an unsure stare.
“I’ll be alright,” said Gallus. “You go ahead.”
“I need you, Gallus.”
“Well…” He emphatically spread his wings. His very, very broken wings, just in case she forgot. “I don’t know how that’s going to be possible.”
Silverstream smiled, half-heartedly. She adjusted her long, red and black checkered coat, which Gallus still had no idea why she was wearing. Gallus turned around, ready to watch her fly overhead and sail off to the rescue. But the next thing he felt was her arms wrapping around his barrel.
“What are you—?”
Gallus felt himself lifted off the deck. Silverstream grunted as she flapped her wings hard, holding him close to her chest like he was a housecat.
Gallus’s wings stretched in the breeze, and shame flooded him. What else could he do but hang limply in the air?
They built up speed as they descended, but Gallus still had ample opportunity to observe the surroundings. Whatever had happened, there were now groups of creatures crowded a block or so away, watching the site of the explosion, surrounding a group of creatures. No, three creatures. And two of them were…
No.
Silverstream landed in the middle of the smoldering ruins.
There was simply no way.
She didn’t plan it like this, did she?
She couldn’t have.
He wriggled himself out of Silverstream’s grip once they were low enough. He landed hard, nearly falling flat on his face. But he kept his eyes on the two creatures. He felt a breeze coming from behind him as Silverstream landed. She said something, in a shocked voice, but Gallus couldn’t hear.
Ocellus. He hadn’t seen her recent pictures, but he knew she had gotten taller and sprouted antlers, and there was that same look in her eyes, like she could see right through you and what she saw excited her beyond belief.
In Ocellus’s legs, lying on her back and breathing hard, was a dragon in a red hoodie that had been half burnt, exposing her bare scales on her navel. A gauche, hot pink skirt hugged her waist. She’d gotten a lot sharper looking since the last time he’d seen her, screaming his voice out about how she was a piece of shit.
Smolder’s name echoed in his mind, and with it came a tender rage that clawed at his chest.
She met his eyes and groaned aloud. “You have to be fucking kidding me.”