Chapter 3
The dragon looked like it had absolutely no plans to take me home.
The next day, it went out hunting again, and when it came back, it had a piece of expensive-looking velvet in its claws, along with its usual prey.
It set the velvet down in front of me and nudged it toward me with its claw.
I glanced at the velvet, then back at the dragon.
"You want me to cover the collection with this to keep the dust off?" I asked.
The dragon nodded.
"You're a dragon. How can you even understand human language? And you can even nod?" I asked, still in disbelief.
The dragon rolled onto its back.
Suddenly, where the dragon had been, there was now a man.
He had silver-white hair, sharp features, and amber eyes with slit pupils. He wore a black robe, the collar hanging loosely open.
He was tall.
When he stood up, he was almost as tall as the cave ceiling.
He said, his voice deeper than I expected, "I can understand human language. And I can speak it too."
I took a step back.
I wasn't scared.
It was just that his collar was hanging way too open.
He glanced down at his collar, tugged at it, but it wouldn't stay closed.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Page Harding," I replied.
"Which palace are you from?" he asked.
"Her Highness Amanda Knowles's chambers," I said.
"You're not the princess," he said.
"I'm just a maid," I replied.
He paused, looking a little annoyed.
"So I snatched the wrong person," he muttered.
"Yeah, I figured," I said.
"If you knew, why didn't you say something?" he asked.
"You were carrying me in your claws, flying five hundred feet above the ground. How was I supposed to speak up?" I shot back.
He went quiet again.
His ears turned a little red.
"I'm Lonnie Santiago," he said.
"Okay," I said.
"This mountain's my turf. Not a soul for three hundred miles. There's no way for you to leave right now," Lonnie said.
"Got it," I replied.
He said, "I'll get you back once I sort things out."
"Sure," I said.
I was surprisingly chill.
But Lonnie looked a little out of his element.
Lonnie paced around the cave, stopping at the labels I'd stuck up to mark the jewelry sections. He brushed his fingers over the charred writing on the wall.
"You organized my treasure hoard," he said.
"I couldn't stand the mess," I replied.
"Was it really that messy?" Lonnie asked.
"You used a one-of-a-kind Alsace tapestry as a mat for your candlestick," Page said.
He fell silent.
"And you stacked three crowns from different dynasties on top of each other. Now the one at the bottom is totally squished," I added.
He remained silent.
"And your oldest coins date all the way back to the Black Iron Era, but you just mixed them in with last year's new ones," I said.
Lonnie turned around, his face a mix of emotions.
"Are you really just a maid, or are you some kind of curator?" he asked.
"Just a maid, but I know a thing or two about managing collections," I replied.
He stared at me for a long moment.
"It might take a bit to get things in order," Lonnie said.
"How long?" I asked.
He said, heading over to the cave entrance with his back to me, "No idea. Just stay here for now."
"So where do I sleep?" I asked.
He paused.
He shot me a look over his shoulder.
Then he turned back into a dragon, used his tail to sweep a pile of gold coins into the corner, flattened them out, and covered them with that fancy velvet he'd just brought back.
It was a bed with a mattress made of gold coins.
I'd never slept on anything this expensive in my life.
It was quite lumpy.
But Lonnie was lying at the cave entrance, his tail tapping the ground in a steady rhythm. Every so often, he'd turn his head to check on me, just making sure I was still there.
Lying on that lumpy bed of gold coins, I closed my eyes and thought that this dragon wasn't nearly as terrifying as the legends made him out to be.