Page 28 of Scales ’N’ Spells: Volume Two

“Ooh, we have main theme song!” Ravi lifted a drink from the tray. “Bottoms up!”

The thought broke, and Sora blinked back into the present. He took a glass and clinked it against Ravi’s. “Bottoms up.”

Enjoy tonight, he mentally chastised himself. You can always think later. And every moment with Ravi should be enjoyed.

Hopefully he wouldn’t get so drunk he’d forget half the evening. Although, at the rate they were planning to consume alcohol, Sora didn’t give that high odds.

Sora smiled to see Ravi jogging toward him, his eyes aglow with some hidden delight and his face a little flushed. He was dressed in a dark button-down shirt and black slacks. Sora was beginning to think this was Ravi’s work uniform, as he always seemed to be wearing it while protecting the king and running errands for him around the castle. The colors seemed too somber for the perky dragon, but they did nothing to dampen his cheerful demeanor.

In the past four days, Sora had met dozens of dragons, but not one of them made his heart skip a beat the way it did when he saw Ravi smiling at him.

“Sora!” Ravi crowed. “Just the mage I was looking for. Wait, how did you escape Lisette?”

Sora shoved his hands into the pockets of his worn jeans. “I basically took a break for the afternoon. They’re covering first-level spells; it’s not something I need to be there for. Why, did you need me?”

“Something like that. You got a minute to give me a hand with a critical mission?”

Sora blinked at him, excited at the thought of spending more time with the dragon. But there was something about Ravi’s expression that had him questioning Ravi’s definition of critical. “Sure. What can I do?”

Ravi threaded his arm through Sora’s and turned him toward the hallway. He looked around before finally settling on a door. Pulling Sora along, Ravi dipped inside what proved to be a small sitting area with tall windows looking out on a thick forest. The bright blue sky was steadily darkening toward evening, and Sora could see hints of orange slipping into the horizon as the sun set.

Ravi released him as he closed the door behind them. “So, I know you met Gunter.”

Sora had met so many people that it took a second to recall him. “Yes, he’s the king’s lead researcher and historian, right? Blond hair and glasses?”

“Yep. That’s him. Though, I like to call him Alric’s librarian. Incredibly smart dragon. He tries to keep the clan’s entire history locked away in his head. But he has a problem that Hoheit has charged me with helping him sort out.”

“What’s that?”

Ravi paced the room as if he had too much energy to even attempt to stand still. “Gunter doesn’t like to leave his books. He stays locked away in his dungeon.”

Sora felt his eyes go wide and his mouth fall open. “You actually have a dungeon here? I know it’s a castle, but I hadn’t thought⁠—”

“No! No!” Ravi said quickly, waving his hands as he rushed across the room to Sora’s side. “I mean, we do have some cells we could use if someone were to do something really bad, but they haven’t been used for that in centuries. I think there’s a couple casks of whiskey in there right now that someone is trying their hand at brewing. No, I teasingly call the royal library the dungeon because it’s a room without windows and it’s on the lower level.”

He paced away from Sora again, waving his hand. “Gunter said something about the sunlight being bad for the old documents.”

Sora released a heavy sigh of relief. “Oh, good.”

“Good for books. Bad for dragons. Gunter forgets to shift and fly. His dragon gets grumpy, and then he gets grumpy, and no one wants to be around him when he’s grumpy. Hoheit worries about Gunter.”

“And if you get Gunter to fly, then the king won’t worry,” Sora filled in.

“Exactly! I knew you’d understand.”

“I’m not sure I understand why you need my help, though.”

Ravi’s expression twisted up a little. “Well, Gunter doesn’t willingly leave his library. He has to be…coerced.”

Sora narrowed his eyes at Ravi, and the wind dragon’s smile turned devilish.

“Ravi, what are you planning to do to Gunter?”

“It’s just that, in order to get Gunter to fly, I usually have to get him to chase me.”

It was an incredible struggle to not grin at the dragon when he was being so adorable, but he wasn’t entirely sure that he should be encouraging this behavior.

Ravi rushed back to his side and grabbed both of his arms. “I was thinking that I could set off a glitter bomb in the library.”