Page 113 of Cauldrons and Cat Tails
Tandor coughed, pounding a fist on his chest. “Nope. I see it too.”
The sprite froze, turning to ice. Actually. Frost crystals clung to her hair. “You can hear me?” her squeaky voice asked.
I nodded, dazed. “I sure can.”
The sprite jumped up and down, fluttering her tiny wings and waving her arms. “She can hear us! The Godsblood can finally hear us!”
I glanced at Tandor to find him looking just as frazzled as I felt. He slowly set the roll of mirthroot aside, extinguishing the flame on the end.
“You guys have been… trying to speak to me?” I asked.
“Yes! For ages! We haveso muchto catch up on.”
“What should we try next?” Fiella asked, arms crossed. We stared at the three scaled dragon eggs where they sat in a basket on my worktable.
We had tried countless methods to get the eggs to hatch.
We’d tried potions. Spells. Immersing them in boiling water. We’d even tried using brute force and cracking them open with a hammer.
Fiella and I wrote letters to folk across the realm, begging and pleading for suggestions. For answers. For ideas.
We tried everything. Nothing worked.
“Let’s just toss them in the broken cauldron and let them rest for a while. I’m fresh out of ideas.”
Fiella sighed. “That’s not the right attitude to have, Miss Hand of the Dragons.”
I snorted at her use of my new title. “I’ll think of something tomorrow. I just need a break. If we don’t figure it out by Merry Day, we’ll take them back to the mountains and see if anyone has any ideas.”
“Merry Day! How could I have forgotten about Merry Day! I need to start preparing my gifts!”
Just like that, Fiella had moved on to a new mission.
I needed to prepare my gifts, too. I had no idea what to get for Tandor. I would probably make some sort of potion for him, or maybe a fancy mug for his ales, but I wanted it to beperfect.
Fiella and I left the dragon eggs in the broken cauldron as we left the shop, heading to the bakery for teas and pastries. Hex curled up around them like some sort of sludge cushion.
We didn’t notice the hairline crack beginning to form on one of the eggs.
