Page 71 of The Discount Damsel

The apprentice kicked away the objects of impalement that had fallen from her hands. Finally, he could explain to her the danger she knew nothing about without getting shanked in the kidneys.

Sneezing, the princess emerged from the dust cloud. She attempted to jump onto his back like a wildcat, but her foot got caught in a crab trap. Bradley seized the net and yanked. Millie fell again and rose to find herself shrouded by in a bedsheet like a child’s ghost costume for Samhain and what felt like a band of iron trapping her arms against her body. The apprentice was insufferably strong, and without the use of her elbows (or teeth, as they were blocked by the sheet) to harass the softer parts of his body (if they even existed), she had to resort to wriggling. Unfortunately no amount of wriggling would free her, but she refused to give up.

“Let me out and fight me like a man, you steaming heap of goblin turds!”

At this moment, the luck dragon finally freed himself from the wardrobe. A bonnet now joined the shawl tangled amongst his horns. Dirk, caught up in the moment, shouted, “Remember your training, Millie! Make his instep your bitch!”

The princess obeyed, with the same vehemence of an ornery donkey, and the apprentice staggered back with a smarting foot. Millie yanked the sheet off her head, her auburn hair sticking out at every angle like the quills of an enraged hedgehog. “Thank you, Master Dirk.” She whirled on the apprentice. “You.”

Millie threw the sheet aside, snatched up her cinquedea letter opener, and leveled it at him. “Try that flip move again.”

Bradley couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He could out-maneuver her, out-strength her, and he certainly outweighed her, and yet there was no ounce of quit to be found in her. Not even with her blistered and bandaged hands. She was infuriatingly tenacious.

Switching tactics, the apprentice yanked the nautilus necklace from his pocket by its chain. The jumbling about it had experienced in his pocket had only polished it to an even more alluring luster.

As expected, its appearance refocused the princess pirate’s attention.

“You will return my property to me at once,” Mutineer Millie demanded, stomping forward.

“Skin my scales,” Dirk whispered.

The fishing nets, the salt-weathered chest, the marine decorations on the jewelry box, it all made sense now!

“No, Millie. Don’t touch it!” With a distressed cry, he sent the princess stumbling back with a whoosh of wind from his tail.

She caught herself by seizing one of the bed’s posters and brushed the hair out of her eyes. “Crone’s Crooked Tits, why not?”

“Touch this,” Bradley shouted, “a-and it will steal your v-voice! If that’s what you w-want, then reach for it. Caelus knows I c-could use some p-peace and quiet around here!”

“Mr. Donmarin!” Millie straightened out of her crouch as quick as the darkness that chases an extinguished light. “You barely stuttered just now.”

The apprentice touched his throat, suddenly self-conscious and bewildered and hardly daring to believe. “I-I⁠—”

No other words were forthcoming. He released a frustrated sigh. He’d had it, just for a second, and lost it, whatever it was. His fingers slipped from his throat to clench the collar of his robe. Dammit!

The spell of his momentary victory gone, the princess eyed the necklace in his hand. The apprentice squared off, ready to truss her up in that fishing net if she charged him again.

“Let’s all take a breath,” Dirk suggested.

The princess pushed her bottom lip out in disgruntled consideration, then threw up her hands. “Fine.”

As Bradley replaced the necklace in the jewelry box, Millie fished around under the discarded sheet to reclaim her hairpin. After twirling her hair up into a bun and securing it, she sat on the edge of the bed with her letter opener once again sheathed. Another, much smaller, dust cloud rose from the mattress with a light foom. “I want a new necklace.”

“What?” Bradley and Dirk asked.

“By the laws of piracy, that shell necklace, enchanted or not, rightly belongs to me. I need it for my brand.”

“Your . . . brand?” the apprentice echoed.

“Precisely. Not only will I be the one-in-ten pirate captain Sir Roger spoke of, I will also be the best dressed. And that means accessories.”

“Oh, good for you.” Dirk clapped.

Bradley glared at him, and the applause petered out. Turning back to the princess, the apprentice made a few calculated decisions in rapid-fire succession, and they all revolved around the fact that there was a magical artifact, and a dangerous one at that, outside of the sorcerer’s workroom. Given the princess’s stubbornness, she might just go behind his back to reclaim what she thought was rightfully hers. Furthermore, she might not reveal to him any other magical surprises she found, possibly endangering not only herself, but them all.

A compromise was needed here. “You can have any necklace you find,” he signed, “so long as it’s not a magical artifact. You can keep anything, so long as it’s not magical.”

Her fingers drummed against the crook of her elbow as she thought. “I find your terms acceptable.”