I hurried so I walked beside him.
In silence, we came to a shelf-lined room of labeled crates, bolts of cloth, and other supplies. On the floor sat a crate half-full of ropes and bizarre slats of wood. Shamino tossed more slats inside, along with a few hand-size hooks.
I eyed the crate. “So… this is for…”
“Dredging the dragons’ sulfur spring. Dirt collects on the bottom and has to be removed twice a year.”
Now his clothes made sense. It’d be hot, humid work. But it’d be no worse than harvest. “Do you need me to—”
“I do this. You get to oil Maolmuire.” He looked over his shoulder at me, and for a fleeting moment I thought I saw guilt. He turned back to his task. “You know we care for the unbonded dragons? What a Dragon Mage does for his dragon, we do for all the dragons in the Quarters. One of their physical needs is oiling—cleaning the dragon and keeping his scales from drying out.”
I tried to imagine that. Cleaning… a dragon. With what, a sponge? Dragons were huge; how would I even reach all of it? Shamino took another glance, likely to catch my dismay. He didn’t see any. Puzzlement, maybe.
“Dirty, time-consuming work,” I summarized. Fine, as long as it didn’t need magic. “What do I need to start?”
Shamino’s eyebrows raised. I was certain the Tressas and Anastasis would have left already. He covered his surprise with a frown. “Second shelf on the right, you’ll find two boxes of oddly shaped sticks. Take five from each. Below—see those massive cloths? You need at least an armful. Those are oil drums in the corner. Two are in the cave already, but you’ll have to come back later for two more.”
I hurried to gather my supplies. Once I clutched everything I needed, Shamino hefted his crate and I kept my gaze away from those tempting arms. He led me down the hallway—no Transportation spell—past three closed doors. Three widely spaced doors. I suspected a dragon behind each.
At the fourth door, Shamino set down his crate. He paused with his hand on the handle. “A little over half of the trainees leave because they hate oiling.”
You can’t run me off. I have nowhere to go. “If I am to start, you have to open the door.”
Shamino ran a hand through his hair. “Regarding Maolmuire…”
“Yes?”
“He’s… Do you know the fireproofing spell yet?”
“Nooo…” Uneasiness crept up my neck. Dragon Mages worked in the Quarters. What was Shamino getting me into?
“Just a precaution.” Shamino gave me an intense frown. Shimmering dark-green fire flowed over my skin before vanishing. I didn’t feel a thing. “There. It only works for dragonfire, by the way, so don’t jump in a fireplace or anything. Here we go.”
We entered the dragon’s cave.
Maolmuire’s home couldn’t have been more different than Raul’s. There were no seats for human visitors. There were no decorations. A water trough, a bed of blockish rocks. That was it. That and a dirty floor. The only hopeful thing in the room was the sunlight streaming from the open double doors.
There was no dragon.
“Fire and Smoke, I told him to be here,” Shamino growled. “And I swear he makes a mess on purpose.”
His eyes unfocused. After a moment, he told me to fetch two brooms.
It only took a few minutes for me to sprint down the hall and return. Shamino began to sweep the mess, muttering how they’d just cleaned the cave, and the dragon knew he couldn’t be oiled in filth. Wordlessly, I swept as well.
The dirt’s strange. I crouched to take a closer look. Aside from the regular brown dirt I knew, there were hundreds of tiny, tan rocks. Tiny. Just a bit bigger than grains of soil. Maybe that was why no one farmed the mountainside. The dirt looked as if it’d starve plants.
Shamino was watching me. I hurried back to work. There was no way I was going to comment on the soil. Nobles never noticed dirt, I was sure, unless it dusted their shoes.
We swept the mess to the wall. Shamino set aside his broom. “I’ll sweep it over the edge later—he’s about to land.”
I braced myself.
A dragon darker than a moonless night didn’t so much land on the platform; he slammed into it. I jumped backward and may have squeaked. Shamino didn’t flinch; his folded arms tightened and his mouth became a thin line.
Maolmuire straightened from his crouch, bigger and bigger—or maybe I was shrinking, smaller and smaller. Even if Shamino had ripped off his shirt in that moment, I wouldn’t have been able to tear my eyes from Maolmuire. The dragon was huge, almost twice Raul’s size. He locked a topaz eye on me as he slunk into the cave. Muscles rippled with each step, reminding me how easily he could crush me. He stopped an arm’s-length from us, peering down as if we were bugs. A yawn. Teeth as long as my hands glinted in the sunlight.
My insides turned to water and my vision darkened as I caught sight of the lake past the platform. Calm. Breathe. Maolmuire won’t hurt you, he’s just a bad-tempered goat.
I met that topaz eye.
I smiled.
A tight, half-terrified and half-angry smile. But it was a smile. The dragon wanted me to scream, but I wasn’t going to. Nor would I give Shamino the chance to turn me out of the Quarters. I could vomit later, in the privacy of my rooms.
“Hello, Maolmuire,” I said, feeling proud relief at the steadiness of my voice. “I’m Adara. Pleased to meet you.”
An eyeridge raised. The dragon softly snorted.
Shamino let out a slow breath. I turned my smile to him, and my mouth involuntarily softened into a real smile. Shamino almost returned it, then scowled.
“Oiling.” He snatched one of the sticks from my bundle, a large one with a curved hook. “Leg, please?”
Maolmuire thrust a leg at us.
Shamino showed me how to pry the dirt from between the scales
