___

H

ara stared at the tall ceiling of the ballroom. They had already been there two days and today they had been invited by Janus to go on a tour of the palace. Janus waved his hands expressively to take in the grand hall. The ceilings were decorated with gold babies with small bows and arrows.

Hara was glad they weren’t invited to a real ball as she had no intention of wearing a dress and certainly not one that passed for fashion in the Emperor’s court. Or at least she wouldn’t without copious amounts of complaining. Those women could barely breathe let alone do anything practical with their lives while they were dressed like that. She wore stays and corsets but it was the tight lacing she abhorred.

Hara knew she might have to wear a dress to see the Emperor but she would put that off as long as possible.

Janus hummed and spun around slowly as if he were dancing with an invisible partner. Gideon caught Hara’s hand and spun her around into a dance. He was surprisingly agile and coordinated.

Hara said, “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a dancer.”

He grinned back. “I did peg you for someone who leads.”

She snorted and realised that she had tried to lead. She settled into his arms and let him swing her around the room to silent music and the off tune humming of Janus.

Hara said, “I learnt how to dance while I was dressed as a boy.”

Janus said, “You would have been a very pretty boy.”

Gideon snorted at the comment. Hara was surprised at the lack of jealousy from Gideon. He usually didn’t allow males to make comments about her like that without pulling them up. He had certainly stood up for her against her father when he had treated her as merely a possession to be used.

While Hara had travelled with her father, she had dressed up as a boy. At first, she thought it had been exciting. As boys could do so much more than what girls were allowed. By the time she had hit her teens, she had realised that she was dressed as a boy because her father had needed her to complete his cons. He didn’t care what she wanted or needed, only what he wanted. Unfortunately, that meant she hadn’t learnt to do things women normally learnt to do.

Gideon frowned. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She glanced at Gideon, surprised that he had picked up the slight tone in her voice that said the memory wasn’t a pleasant one.

Hara sighed and answered, “Not really. I just can’t help myself getting mad whenever I remember all the things I used to do to please my father.”

“He didn’t deserve it,” Gideon said intensely. He had strong opinions on her father.

“I know, but that is why I’m so mad about it. I was so stupid to think that I could somehow mean something to him.”

Gideon’s voice was fierce as he spoke. “You weren’t stupid. A collection is supposed to care for each other. He did not appreciate you and that is why you are now mine.”

Janus said, “You could always stay out of collections. I find that is easier.”

Hara sighed. “It doesn’t work like that for humans, Janus. We are born into collections.”

Janus stopped dancing for a moment to place a hand over his heart in mock shock. “What a messy, horrible thing. I hope you escaped from your collection as soon as you were able.”

Hara shook her head, not because she hadn’t but rather because she didn’t want to talk about it, and she would have said something along the lines of minding his own business in any case when one of the brave women who had seen them dancing approached.

She bowed like a man and said gallantly, “May I cut in?”

Hara stepped between the woman and Gideon. “Not now and not ever. Why do you women plague him? He has given no indication he wants to be with anyone else so why bother him so?”

The woman flushed with embarrassment and Hara felt bad. The woman had been rather brave to approach them but it bothered Hara as so many of the women over the last two days had been flirting with Gideon at every opportunity they could get.

Janus said, “Gideon was quite the catch in his day. He often had women flocking after him. He is, after all, related to the Emperor and a dragon. But I prefer the word plagued.”

Hara sighed and said to the young noblewoman, “Sorry, I snapped.”

The woman shook her head. “There are so few dragons that attend court anymore. My mother said in her day there were dozens. They treat their wives so much better than the pompous noblemen who come to Court to hunt wives.”

Hara glanced at Gideon, who nodded as confirmation. Hara turned back to the woman. “Well, this dragon is taken.” Hara grinned a little cruelly. “He is free though.” Motioning to Janus.

Janus got a panicked look in his eye and started waving his hands in denial. “No, no. Don’t even think about it. I might be unattached but I like it that way.”

The woman flushed red again and Hara asked, as the woman seemed capable of whole sentences when speaking with Hara. “Why do you all want a dragon any way? They are really annoying? I mean bang your head against a wall annoying. They invade your space and never leave you alone.”

Gideon chuckled at this and it was clear he wasn’t offended. The woman looked between the three of them. “Well, with a dragon, they never stray and they give you immortality.”

Gideon interrupted her. “Not quite immortality. We can still be killed and though we live longer here on this planet than on our own. There will come a time when our bodies’ fail, though considering the tinkering we had to do to be able to travel here, it might still be awhile. My calculations are inaccurate though as I haven’t been able to collect all the data that I would need to make an accurate prediction.”

“It is all your fault, Gideon. You were the one who wrote the equations,” Janus added helpfully.

Gideon glared at his friend. “It was that or become a fried and crispy critter on our own planet or worse, trapped underground.”

Janus shuddered at the thought and agreed wholeheartedly, “Definitely not that.”

Hara rolled her eyes. “See what I mean? Annoying. He spouts stuff like that all the time.”

Gideon added, “Other dragons don’t. Harlen wouldn’t know a thing about quantum physics or genetic manipulation at the atomic level.”

Hara knew a little of what he spoke about. Enough to know that they were not fields of study she was interested in. She liked to see the point of her work in more concrete ways. Give her an engine or complicated mechanisms and she was in paradise.

Gideon was more of a theorist. But then he had been working as a mathematician at over a dozen universities over the years while he hid from his family.

Janus said, “Neither do I. Even though I do understand some of it.”

Hara said with a triumph, “Ha, and he is just as annoying as Gideon.”

Janus gave her some puppy dog eyes and said in a wounded voice, “You kill me, my love. I am bleeding here.”

Hara was going to say something else to the woman when a courtier entered the ballroom. He saw them and rushed over to them. He handed Hara the gold embossed card and then bowed and left.

The woman said, “It is an invitation to the ball tomorrow.”

Hara groaned. “Now I have to wear a dress.”

Janus clapped his hands. “Excellent. Something that shows off your assets.” Cupping his hands at his chest to indicate which assets he spoke of.

“Only if you want me to cut off your assets, Janus,” Hara threatened.

Janus looked to Gideon and asked, “Aren’t you going to defend your friend?”

“Are you kidding? She might cut off my assets,” Gideon sallied back.

Hara was about to tell them off for being silly when Angel screeched and Hara turned to see her clawing at the door frame as a man tried to pull her out of the room.

Gideon said, “Let me.”

He made his way across the room but before he could get to Angel, she turned her long sinuous neck towards the man trying to steal her and spat needles. He screamed and brought his hands up to cover his face.

Angel scrambled up the wall and sat on one of the ornate frames around a painting and chittered angrily at the man. He swore at Angel and was about to make another attempt at catching her when he saw Gideon heading towards him. He cut his losses and ran.

Gideon went to painting and said softly, “You can come down now, Angel.”

Angel chittered a little bit before she hopped off the frame and glided to land on his shoulder. She couldn’t fly very far as she was mostly a glider.

Janus said, “A marvellous creature, your dragon.”

Hara smiled. “The clockwork one or the real one?” Janus just gave her a knowing smile.

Gideon headed back to Hara. “The needles are a new thing.”

Hara winced at his facetious tone. “We have been upgrading her. I didn’t think she would need to use the needles here at court so I didn’t mention it before.”

Gideon shrugged. “You mock me for teaching her to count and you experiment on her. What did she think of that?”

Angel answered that by biting his ear. Before Gideon could even curse at her, she jumped off his shoulder and glided over to Hara’s shoulder. Angel twittered in pleasure as she curled around Hara’s neck and rubbed her cheek against her chin.

Hara patted Angel and crooned softly, “Don’t worry, my dear. Papa Gideon won’t hurt you.”

Gideon rubbed his ear where Angel had bitten him. “But you aren’t getting that treat I promised you, cheeky minx.”

“Talking to me or the clockwork creature,” Hara asked.

Gideon chuckled. “Both.”