Not in violation of the Accords. If he violates the Accords, you may tell any of us and we will deal with it. Otherwise, it is none of my affair. Go away.
“If you don’t wish to order him to move to the new lair, perhaps you could persuade him. Or just talk to him about it. He won’t listen to us, but it’s a very nice place, with a small lake and—”
At that point, the mayor and four of the five people with him had fallen asleep. The fifth—a husky National Park Service employee—had been told to remove the collapsed members of his party. He had. Quickly.
D.C.’s mayor was wonderfully persistent. That’s why Lily knew about the exchange between him and Sam. After he woke up, he’d gone to Grandmother to ask her to intervene.
Grandmother had served him tea—not the full tea ceremony, simply the beverage—gotten the story from him, then told him the truth. “Mika has shown admirable restraint in the face of such rudeness. You will learn to live with his presence. You will stop pestering him, and you will not pester any of the other dragons about this. No one tells a dragon where to lair. Not even another dragon.”
Lily smiled as she reached the end of the tree tunnel. Grandmother did enjoy telling that story.
Trees and path alike ended at a wall of earth and rock greened by uncut grass and an assortment of what gardeners optimistically refer to as volunteers or native plants. Weeds, to most people. Lily looked up. As hills go, this one was more abrupt than most. Lots of boulders, which was like the rocky jumble back home, but these were planted, not grown naturally from the earth’s bones.
She’d been warned about this aspect of Mika’s upgrades, so she’d dressed for it—jeans, Nikes, a tee, a light jacket that hid her weapon and had a secure inside pocket for her phone. After a moment, she spotted the faint trail off to her right and started climbing.
There were two ways into the heart of Mika’s lair. One involved the lost parking lot, now a large livestock pen. Lily had been told not to approach through the dining room, so she toiled up the Mika-made slope. It was steep but not tricky; only one short stretch required handholds.
As she reached the top, magic buzzed faintly on her skin. Mika’s ward, she assumed. She looked down. Farther down than she’d come up.
It didn’t look much like an amphitheater anymore. Where rows of seats had stepped neatly down toward the stage, stone buttressed the earthen wall she’d climbed. Not solid stone, nor were the boulders arrayed with the tidy geometrics humans favored; it was thicker here, thinner there, with the occasional jut of a boulder clearly not native to this soil. An artistic choice, perhaps. At its foot was bare earth—Mika’s landing pad and sun porch. Beyond that, the half dome where orchestras had played was partly obscured by hard-packed dirt built up to create a lip. The dome’s roof was obscured by yet more heaped dirt. For a startled moment it made Lily think of an enormous sand crab burrowing down to safety.
Dragons always lair in earth and rock. They blocked the mental cacophony. “Hello, Mika,” Lily said—and nearly jumped when a small, gray streak arrowed past her feet. A cat.
I named her Beelzebub, Mika said. His mental voice was different from Sam’s—cool and precise, yes, but without the razorlike clarity, and with a whiff of flavor. It was like the difference between Arctic ice and a snow cone dribbled with a few drops of Bahama Mama. She wanted more syllables at first, but I don’t think her name should be longer than she is. Beelzebub is a use-name, of course.
“Ah—do cats have real names?” Lily eyed the rocky jumble. This was going to be harder than the other side had been. Her bad arm twinged as if already protesting its role in the descent.
Your question is silly. I don’t know all cats.
“I suppose not. Look, do I have to come down there for my lesson? Maybe we could do it with me up here.”
No. Thirty feet below and twice that far horizontally, the shiny coils disposed on the sun porch began unwinding. Mika wasn’t as large as Sam—no longer than a house, she thought, tail included, and dragons were eighty percent tail, neck, and wings. But he was ohmygod beautiful.