Dragons of the Watch - Donita K. Paul [42]
Bealomondore put his arm around her shoulder and guided her toward the door. “You don’t think munching on daggarts will bend Yawn to your will?”
She giggled. “I think it would take plum pudding, birthday cake, daggarts, and iced parnot slush to even get his attention.”
“Sounds like a hard case. We’ll start with daggarts.”
“Thank you for rescuing me. What took so long?”
“You told Airon I couldn’t use my sword. I had to wait until the children cleared the building.”
“Thank you for that too.”
He smiled, stopped, and bowed to her. “Miss Ellicinderpart Clarenbessipawl, would you do me the honor of going to dinner with me?”
She smiled back and felt tears well up. She batted them away. “Yes, I will. Your kindness overwhelms me.”
He gave her a quizzical look and merely exclaimed, “Ha!”
Bealomondore and Ellicinderpart pored over the journals the next morning. They waited for Det to come back with news of a house that might supply their daggart-making needs.
Bealomondore cast glances up to the balcony where they had seen the shadow of Old One. He didn’t appear to be watching them today, or he was being careful to keep out of sight. Airon had gone out with the watch, and Tak had stubbornly refused to come in after they walked to get breakfast. The goat roamed the fenced-in park behind the library. His nibbling of overgrown shrubbery could only do the landscape some good, and the children never came that close to the library.
Ellicinderpart had on an unusual combination of blouse, skirt, and vest. Obviously parts of the original outfits were still held hostage by the horde. She didn’t complain, and that made her very special in his eyes.
His mother would have hid in a closet. Even his more sensible sisters would not have gone out of the house. But the young tumanhofer lady took it in stride and wore what she had available without a fuss. In fact, he was impressed with her relaxed attitude about almost everything that came their way. He had been more irritable when he first bumbled into Rumbard City.
If she’d get over this crazy scheme to tame the wild ones, he’d be happier. Mixing with that immature gang could lead to disastrous misadventures.
Right now, her intent gaze fixed to the pages of a book, she showed him a profile of innocence and determination. He reached for a pencil and stopped, remembering his duty to find information about anything. That goal superseded all other considerations. They knew practically nothing, so anything ranked as valuable information. He would have years to sketch her likeness.
Bealomondore looked back at his book, a history, The Migration of Urohms. He flipped through the pages until he came to a chapter titled “Transformation.” He read the first sentence and then read more rapidly, his attention caught. When he finished, he called Ellicinderpart to take note.
“This is remarkable. Listen. The urohm race is exclusive to the land of Amara. Those who came to Chiril came as diplomats. But their origin is in Amara, where they unselfishly stepped up to help defend a group of kimens who were under threat of annihilation.
“The account is stunning. They went to bed determined to fight the overwhelming odds and knowing it was probably a lost cause. In the morning, they awoke to find that Wulder had enlarged their bodies to match the bigness of their hearts. Their clothing and horses and weapons were also large, but they kept their houses and furniture on the small side to keep themselves humble.”
He and Ellicinderpart both raised their heads and looked around. The huge furniture and grandiose size of the rotunda—all the architecture in the city—sure didn’t measure up as small.
“Well,” said Ellicinderpart, “the urohms in Amara may have normal-sized homes, but these urohm diplomats must not have believed as strongly in humility.”
Bealomondore scanned the upper balcony again, wondering if Old One eavesdropped. He raised his voice just in case. “I sure wish Old One had the itch for company. Imagine the details