Page 109 of The Discount Damsel

“Yes, thank you.” Millie held Bradley’s mug out, and the luck dragon used his magic to swirl the tea out of the pot’s spout and into the mug with nary a splash. She took a bite of a scone leftover from the morning. “We’ll have to plan carefully so as not to raise suspicion. You need some rest”—her eyes flitted over his scales—“so why don’t I take care of that? After Mr. Donmarin’s gone to sleep, I could dig around in the books some more, you know, as a second pair of eyes? Maybe I’ll see something you missed. And I wonder . . .”

“Yes?” Dirk found himself leaning forward, hopeful yet fearful and altogether in suspense.

“Well, Sir Eustace has overseen many a DDP, hasn’t he? Perhaps he’ll know when to expect lulls in the Heroes’ rescue attempts so a certain dragon and his princess could sneak off to a certain lighthouse-converted-into-a-library without anyone being the wiser.”

“That’s genius! If only Duchess could talk—she’d charm an answer out of him in a second.”

“Indeed. Well, let’s give it a go, shall we?” She rose from the tub and stretched out her lower back before collecting the tea tray. Dirk followed after her into the bedroom. “And maybe we can learn a thing or two about enchanted weapons at that library while we’re at it.”

Millie glanced at the little bed, and, as if detecting her gaze, the warhammer released a flash of green light.

She shivered. “There’s something off about that warhammer.”

“Don’t I know it. It whispers.”

“It’s settled, then. I’ll snoop, you’ll snoop, and we’ll figure it out.”

Before Dirk could reply in the affirmative, Sir Eustace announced the arrival of another challenger with his bugle.

Millie opened the door for him and kissed his cheek as he flew past. “After you whoop some Hero fanny, of course.”

CHAPTER 47

THE LURE OF THE CHERRYWOOD BOX, DARK THOUGHTS, AND HOWLING IN THE TOWER

Bradley stood at the edge of the large desk, hands at his sides. He’d been standing there for ages now, barely registering the cooing of the pigeons in the attic above him, the sigh of sand shifting under the passage of the desert wind, not even the dull drumming of his heart.

Outside, seemingly faraway and very faint, Dirk battled his princess’s would-be rescuer. That was good. The little luck dragon wouldn’t be able to interfere with what came next.

The cherrywood box seemed to gaze back at him. In this staring contest, the two contestants were equally matched, though only one was wrestling with his conscience.

The apprentice reached for the box. It was warm to the touch, the hook latch sliding as smoothly as butter across a hot skillet as his thumb swept it aside.

Licorice, sweet and sharp, wafted towards him. The parchment folded at the bottom of the shallow box appeared no less demure than a lady’s stack of letters from a secret lover. No less chock full of details and declarations that could damn them both.

There was still an opportunity to close the box. Lock it and hurl it outside for the desert to consume. He could still break his curse without selling his soul. Master Excelsior wouldn’t have brought him here if it couldn’t be done. Unless this had been his master’s plan all along, to create a dark disciple. Out here in the desert, no other students were at risk and Master Excelsior’s secret was safe.

Unless this was a test.

Nothing was what it seemed with Master Excelsior, not ever. When other professors had Bradley practicing magic in the controlled environment of the classroom, Master Excelsior had thrown his pupil out into the middle of a thunderstorm and told him to make it his bitch (which was where Dirk had picked up the colorful phrase).

“You need to broaden your mind, dear boy,” the twiggy sorcerer had crowed. “It needs to be as limber as a wet noodle! Those fools inside don’t want you to get wet. I want you soaked and grinning.”

Then the crazy man had caught lightning in his fist and thrown it back into the sky.

I’m broadening my mind, Master. Setting his jaw, Bradley lifted the parchment and returned the cherrywood box to the desk. His fingers trembled as he unfolded it and angled it into the sunlight.

But he’d made his decision. He was done with the suffering. The inching and crawling for meager scraps of progress.

He would use the knowledge he had gained from Small Magicks and summon a djinn from the desert wastes, free it of its purgatory by his very blood if necessary, and task it with freeing him of his curse. Blood magic was dangerous and forbidden, but no one was here to witness it. And if nobody else knew about it, perhaps one day Bradley could forget he’d ever performed it.

He recognized the illustrations inked upon the parchment as clearly as if he’d seen them only yesterday. The strange inscriptions were still a mystery to him, but as he stared at their foreign swirls, the script began to change. Before his very eyes, the strange language translated itself into Commons.

Every alarm bell sounded in Bradley’s mind.

“Suspect everything that comes too easy, my boy,” Master Excelsior had told him. “If you haven’t earned it, it won’t do you any good. Not now, and not in the long run either.”

Why would his master tell him that and then conveniently leave this dark magic instruction manual for him to find?