To do what now? Deven blinked. “Am I supposed to understand what that means? Because that doesn’t even rise to the level of a hint, ma’am.”
Mrs. Drucker cleared her throat and glanced at Holling, then quickly away again. “We need something,” she said after a pause. “From the dragon.”
“You need something from the dragon,” Deven repeated, hoping the words would make more sense the second time. They didn’t. “And this somehow has something to do with me?”
“We think you’re the best person to get it. Your particular…talents lend themselves to —”
“Now hang on one bloody minute!” George cried. “Are you accusing my nephew of being a thief? Because you can go jump in the river and —”
“I’ve said nothing of the kind!” Mrs. Drucker thumped her fists on the arms of her chair. “George, if you can’t keep your mouth shut, you can go, and the next time my guests need expensive stabling for their horses, I’ll send them elsewhere!”
George sputtered and protested, but Deven simply took a plate, filled it with biscuits and chocolate, and handed it to him. The sputtering broke off in quiet, sulky crunching. Phina watched George’s diet with care, and he couldn’t resist temptation. Deven wasn’t too good to use it against him.
“This sounds ridiculous, but I’ll listen,” Deven said. “If you get to the point.”
Actually, it sounded like the most interesting thing anyone had talked to him about in ages. What could he possibly have to do with a dragon, and would it be more fun than serving ale? Almost certainly. But it wouldn’t do to let them walk all over him.
Mrs. Drucker nodded and sighed. “Have you heard the stories about dragon scales, Mr. Clifton? About their magical properties?”
“Vaguely. It’s an old tale for children, isn’t it? The boy who saves his mother with a dragon scale?”
“A very old tale, with its roots in reality, we believe,” she said. “A dragon scale, freely given, can be made into a tonic that will cure any human disease, so long as the ill person is pure of heart.”
“Well, that leaves out any of you lot. Who’s sick, then?” George asked, his voice muffled.
“It doesn’t matter,” Mrs. Drucker snapped. “And I resent that comment. We all do our best for the town of Ridley.”
“It does matter,” Deven said. “If you expect me to have anything to do with this, that is.”
Mrs. Drucker pressed her lips together tightly, shaking her head.
“It’s my grandson,” Holling said suddenly, looking up at Deven. His cloudy eyes were large and dark in his thin face. “My little Peter. He’s been sick for months, and it’s worse and worse. The doctors say there’s nothing they can do. He’ll linger another few months or so, but then — then he’ll take a turn for the worse, and —” Holling broke off with something suspiciously like a muffled sob.
A cold, nasty sensation slithered down Deven’s spine. He knew Peter Holling — or he had, before the lad had stopped coming around the stables to pet the horses a couple of months before. Deven had assumed he’d just lost interest in the beasts and moved on to some other obsession, like children did all the time. Peter was a strange kid, no question, talking more to the animals than to other people, but he always spoke to them gently and smiled when they nibbled his fingers.
“I’m sorry,” he managed through a tight throat. The last time he’d seen little Peter he’d been a bit slower than usual, a bit pale. He felt sick himself at the thought of the boy lying right now in his bed, fading away and longing for the summer sunshine. “Truly. But asking a dragon for one of his scales seems like a piss-poor idea, frankly, and how do you even know it would work?”
“My great-aunt was a witch. She left a book, full of recipes and notes. One of them was for making a medicine from a dragon’s scale.” Holling shrugged, the motion listless. “The others have all worked, when we’ve tried them. And she always seemed to know what she was doing. I don’t see why this wouldn’t work too. It has to.”
“Because it’s insane,” George put in. “No offense, and if it were something like harvesting stinging nettles under a full moon that was inconvenient but possible we’d all pitch in, but I don’t see you marching up the hill to ask a fire-breathing monster to rip off a bit of himself as a favor.”
“Because Stephen doesn’t know the dragon,” said Mrs. Drucker. “None of us do. He moved into Baron Marlow’s castle — and we haven’t heard anything since, except for his servants coming to town for supplies. They pick everything up, don’t even order deliveries. No one’s spoken to him. We assume he can change himself into human form like all the stories say, but he’s only been seen as a dragon.”
“All right,” Deven said slowly. Every alarm bell he possessed was ringing at its loudest pitch. Nothing was ever straightforward with a bloody committee. “All true. Do I really need to point out that I don’t know the dragon either?”
“But you have, let’s say, a gift for getting to know people,” Mrs. Drucker said, leaning forward and fixing Deven with a piercing stare. “Without mincing words, you can charm the pants off of anyone, and you frequently do. Quite literally. We don’t need a thief, Mr. Clifton. The scale must be given of the dragon’s own free will, and since dragon scales can be used against the giver in other types of magic, according to the same book, he won’t be easy to persuade. We need a seducer.” She sat back with a sharp nod, as if that settled the matter.
Deven gaped at her. He shut his mouth with a snap, and then gaped some more. At last he managed, “Are you completely out of your mind? A seducer? You’re quite seriously sitting here,” and he gestured wildly at the violet-patterned tea set, as if its respectable presence ought to confer some sanity on the proceedings, “telling me you want me to go up to the castle and ‘charm the pants off of’ a dragon? Who breathes fire. And quite possibly eats people, have we forgotten that? My chances of getting back alive with the scale are a hundred to one.”
Barclay let out a crack of laughter, and Deven whipped his head around. He’d almost forgotten the man was there. “Well, it’s not like anyone would miss you, and in the meantime maybe not every husband will be cuckold—”
“Shut up,” Mrs. Drucker hissed. “You’re not helping. And the dragon hasn’t eaten anyone that we know of, anyway! Dragons usually don’t these days, I understand.”
“Very reassuring,” Deven said, “but seriously, this is the worst plan I’ve ever heard. What am I supposed to say to account for showing up on his doorstep, anyway? They wouldn’t even let me in the castle.”
“Glad you asked, Mr. Clifton, because we have it all worked out.” She nodded again, this time with a smile, and Deven had the sudden sensation of a man who’d stepped into quicksand without realizing it, and was in up to his neck before he could blink.
“No, hang on a moment, I haven’t agreed to any—”
“A tribute,” Mrs. Drucker said, rolling over him with the ease of a veteran of a thousand council meetings. “It’s traditional to offer a human sacrifice to dragons when they move to a new place. Usually it’s a virgin, but,” she shrugged, “in this case that would be a bit counterproductive, wouldn’t it? So we’re emphasizing your innocence, since after all you haven’t committed any crimes that we know of and it’s not technically a lie.”