Page 16 of The Teacup Dragon Sanctuary

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The snuggery was blissfully quiet, a circular room right at the top of the main tower, high over the castle and the island, entirely devoted to Iris’s teacup dragons. All around the edges were little nests in dark cubbies, which simulated the clifftop perches and hidey-holes favoured in the wild. Once it had been a library, Iris had told him. It still bore the marks of that – those cubbies had been shelves, the higher levels accessed by rolling ladders attached to a brass rail for those not blessed with wings, numbers on the mahogany finished in faded, flaking gilt, shelf after shelf now given over to dragons and all the paraphernalia they needed. Light came from the tall, narrow windows that ringed the tower room above the shelves. In the centre was a long table where food could be laid out or dragons examined. Off to the left of the main door, someone had installed a shoot to the midden below, where dragon droppings could be disposed of. All quite practical.

The teacup dragons swooped back and forth, as they did in the orangery below, though there was less space here, and a lot less greenery. Not that they were any less beautiful. Iridescent wings fluttered so fast they blurred and their long slender bodies moved like water. They were blue and golden, red and purple, orange and green, every shade much brighter than the dragons toted around by society. Shafts of sunlight fell from high windows and these happy, healthy dragons were like darting rainbows all around him, little stained-glass wonders filled with delight.

Noah checked the nests containing the hatchlings first, seven of them in all, one or two to a pair. As a breed they were attentive parents, and given that he had arrived with Iris, who had been careful in her introductions, the more mature dragons had accepted him easily enough, which meant the hatchlings did as well. The rest, those flitting around in the orangery, would take a little longer. But he would get there in the end. Patience would win out.

Iris really did know everything there was to know about them. The set-up here was all they could want. She was also an elderly woman who was clearly in poor health. He’d noticed that the moment he arrived and the thought of her climbing the ladders, or heaving around bags of feed or shovelling dung instantly made him worry. And now Portia had confronted her about it head on. None of this boded well for the sanctuary. Iris was its heart. If anything happened to her with no clear plan of succession in place…

Well, all it would mean to him was he’d be out of a job. He couldn’t focus on that. He had work to do now. And reports to make. Besides, he didn’t intend to be here that long.

He had cleaned up three of the hatchlings’ nests and was about to move on to the last one when someone cleared their throat below him. A soft whoosh of wings passed by his ear and Jade landed on his shoulder again, craning her neck around to peer right into his face, so he knew who had arrived. Carefully, he climbed down and turned to face Portia Starling. Her dragon flew back to her again.

‘What do you need me to do?’ she asked, as curt as ever.

Noah hesitated. ‘I’m not sure…’

‘My great-aunt has agreed to take more rest and to let us care for her if, and only if, I work with you here. So, what do you need me to do? This isn’t open for discussion, Dr Turner. I’m sure you like it as little as I do, but I need to make sure she doesn’t make herself ill again. Or worse, take a fall and break something. My siblings have been covering for her for quite some time without letting me know that there was a problem. I’m going to speak to her doctors as well. She’s a stubborn woman who is far too used to getting her own way but that has to stop now.’

‘Shouldn’t she be the one to decide that?’ he asked before he thought better of it.

It was the wrong thing to say. The woman clearly loathed him; she didn’t even try to hide it. She certainly didn’t need him interfering in her familial affairs.

‘As I said, my great-aunt has agreed to take a step back if I take her place and help you. The matter is not up for discussion, Dr Turner.’

So much for no titles. That was Iris’s rule. Clearly Portia felt differently. Well then, that was a line of demarcation between the two of them that he could follow. It would probably make things easier.

He breathed out slowly, calming himself. ‘I apologise. I overstepped, Lady Portia.’ He could be petty. There was a whole bucket of dragon droppings ready for the castle midden to begin with.

But that wasn’t who he was either. He would see to it himself.

‘You could put out the feed, if you don’t mind. I’ll finish up here and clear the waste away. And then I need to check a few of the dams. Iris thinks there’s another brood in the offing.’

‘Already? I thought she wasn’t breeding them?’

He laughed without thinking about it. ‘I suspect they’re handling that part themselves. They thrive when they’re happy, and no one can doubt that they’re happy here. I’ve seen the conditions some of the breeders keep them in, and the number of broods they force on them. That’s inhuman. This is more like their behaviour in the wild, I assure you.’

Portia’s hand was up on her shoulder, stroking Jade’s back without really thinking about it. The dragon crooned softly, as if trying to comfort her.

‘They pine if the family groups are separated,’ he went on, trying to explain. ‘They’re sociable creatures, especially when they bond with another. In the wild they rely on each other for everything. And the lore of the great dragons said that when they found the one they were destined to be with only death would part them. When one died, the other followed soon afterwards. Their pack bond, their mating bond, their familial bond, it’s extremely powerful. Even for the teacup varieties. Well, you only have to look at Jade and the way she is with you.’

Portia raised one of those damnably expressive eyebrows, although he was fairly sure it was more in amusement this time. ‘Are you suggesting Jade thinks she’s my mate? Are you jealous, Noah? Of me or the dragon?’

Noah’s breath caught in his throat and he felt the hot flush of embarrassment creep up his skin, his cheeks burning. Portia’s mate… She was only teasing, he knew that. He turned away, flustered, and tried to summon one remaining ounce of professionalism. ‘No, of course not. I just mean… I mean, the bonds they form… not just with each other, are powerful. But not just for mating. It can be for… for company or…’

Portia Starling laughed and the sound shook his trapped breath free. The laugh was bright and invited him to join in. It was beautiful, rich and full, a sound of genuine amusement. It made her beautiful – even more beautiful – and Noah thought with a start that if he listened too long to that sound he’d be in real trouble. He didn’t understand, but he knew it on an instinctive level.

‘Forgive me,’ she said more seriously, perhaps recognising his embarrassment. ‘I shouldn’t tease. But that would be just my luck, wouldn’t it? If the only prospective partner in my life was a teacup dragon. Iris would call it my just desserts. Right, let me get the feed sorted for them.’

She didn’t need instruction on how to do that. She clearly knew where everything was, the requisite amounts of feed and how to lay it out for them. Protein, fat and sugar, a mixture of Iris’s own devising, which she had gone over with him on his first day in great detail. Luckily Noah was a quick study, because he wasn’t sure Iris would have been impressed if he’d asked her to repeat herself. By the time he had swept up and emptied the malodourous bucket into the shoot leading to the midden, Portia was almost done.

‘Did you help your aunt as a child?’ he asked. What must it have been like to grow up here with such a host of dragons, and someone like Iris Starling in loco parentis?

‘We all did,’ she replied. ‘No lollygagging around here. Besides, we needed employment. Something to keep us occupied and not fretting on… well, the past I suppose. You’ll find that’s a theme with my great-aunt. Iris believes that hard work gets you through anything. That included becoming orphans.’

Gods, he’d just put his foot in it again, hadn’t he? Orphans. Well, there had to be a reason they’d grown up with Iris. He swallowed hard, tried to think of something to say and failed. His own childhood had involved a loving family and doting grandparents. He’d been lucky.

‘She wasn’t entirely wrong either,’ Portia went on. ‘We needed something and she didn’t have the first clue what else to do with us. We barely knew her. I was ten, August twelve. We were both in boarding schools, but Ophelia and Seb were too little and still lived with our parents and a nanny in Tesh. Iris had only just started this place. Our grandfather, her brother, was long dead. Uncle Art was as devastated by our parents’ loss as we were I think, so not a great deal of help. He blamed himself, and my mother’s family blamed the Starlings. They were cousins to the royal family so that figures. They certainly didn’t want us. It could have been worse. Better here than ferried around the court as someone’s ward, don’t you think? Can you imagine?’ She actually shuddered at that thought.