The star dragon preened.
“That’s… so fucking cool,” I breathed. “Are you being serious right now? Lesbians are amazing. This is going to be a piece of cake! We’re family! I’ll just walk in, talk about how I love penis, and they’ll love me!” I paused, considering. “Okay, maybe
that plan needs some fine-tuning, but I’ll figure it out. But that makes things so much easier. Lesbians love me for some reason. But that’s okay, because I love them too. It’s all good in the hood. Finally, something going my way—”
“Who are you talking to?” Randall said from the top of the stairs.
Since I hadn’t expected him to be there, I spun around and screamed.
The room had some pretty killer acoustics, which taught me that I sounded significantly less masculine than I thought I did when I screamed out of fear. It was crushingly disappointing, to say the least.
“My word,” I said, hand at my throat. “Why are you sneaking?”
He arched an eyebrow at me.
“The star dragon.”
He looked around the room slowly. “There’s nothing here.”
I looked over at the far wall. Sure enough, only ice remained.
“He was there!” I exclaimed, turning back to Randall. “He totally was!”
“You sound like a heretic.”
“I sound like a sexy heretic.”
“That’s not even remotely a thing.”
“I’m making it one.”
“You’re going to be loud the whole time you’re here, aren’t you.”
“You can always send me back,” I said hopefully. “Then you’ll get five weeks of blissful silence until we get here.”
“The thought has crossed my mind.”
“Thank the gods.”
“But then I realized that seeing how far you’ve come is more important than my comfort levels.”
“Damn the gods.”
“However, we can still have blissful silence during this time.” That didn’t come out sounding like a request.
“It’s like you don’t even know me.”
“No,” he said. “I could never be that lucky. You do realize that seeing the star dragon is exactly what happened to Vadoma, correct? You can no longer doubt any aspect of her when you’re capable of the same thing.”
“You just had to go there, didn’t you?”
“Are you ready to discuss your secrets?”
“Are you?” I snapped back without thinking. I wanted to take the words back as soon as I heard them echo around the foyer.
Randall’s mouth thinned to a bloodless line. “Eight in the morning, Sam of Wilds. Not a second later.”
Then he turned, robes swirling, kicking up little shavings of ice, before he disappeared down a hallway. A door opened and closed a moment later.