Two

Before she met Audun, Millie had thought she knew everything there was to know about being a dragon. But after they fell in love and Audun had had to earn the right to learn how to be a human, she discovered there were a lot of things she didn’t know. Most of them, like how ice dragons differed from fire-breathing dragons, were interesting, but only a few affected her directly. Her sweet tooth was one such discovery. She’d always thought it was part of her human side, so she’d been surprised when Audun, who had been a dragon at the time, nibbled a honey-laced confection and declared that it was the best thing he’d ever tasted. It had never occurred to Millie to try anything sweet as a dragon, but when she did, she discovered that dragon taste buds amplified the flavor so that her entire mouth tingled. After that, Millie got in the habit of fetching a huge bowl of porridge in the morning, dribbling a generous serving of honey over it, and taking it back to her chamber to eat. She was sure most of the other inhabitants of the castle would find it disconcerting to see a dragon eating breakfast in the Great Hall, and she didn’t want to have to explain why she turned into a dragon just to eat breakfast.

She was in her chamber eating her porridge on the second day after Grassina’s departure for the tropical island when she heard a knock on her door. Thinking that it was Audun, she left the bowl on the floor and shuffled across the room, keeping her wings tucked to her sides so she wouldn’t knock anything over. Opening the door, she was surprised to find her grandmother Queen Chartreuse waiting on the other side.

After one glance at her granddaughter, the queen pursed her lips in disapproval. “Can’t you refrain from turning into a dragon at least for one day? And if you can’t restrain yourself, I wish you wouldn’t do it inside. This castle was never built for creatures with your … bulk.”

“Are you saying I’m fat?” Millie asked, backing into the room. Unlike her mother, Millie had never balked at speaking her mind to her grandmother.

“I’m saying that I’d prefer to talk to you while you’re a human. There,” said the queen as Millie obliged her by changing form. “That’s better. Some people have come to see your mother. If you’d been eating in the Great Hall as you should be, you would know that she was called away to speak to a herd of centaurs who have been stealing horses from local farms. They call it liberating them, which is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. Your mother had just left when these people came to see her. Ordinarily, I would send them to see Grassina, but she’s away, as you know. Your grandfather and your father have gone hunting, leaving me to deal with everything, but I put my foot down when it comes to dealing with something like this. You’re going to have to talk to them, so wipe the porridge off your chin and come with me.”

“Who are these people?” Millie asked, following Queen Chartreuse down the corridor. Her stomach was beginning to clench—not a good thing when it was full of porridge. She doubted that she’d be much help in a magical way, and she dreaded telling people that she couldn’t do anything for them.

“Fairies! Young people like you have no problem talking to them because you’re used to it, but when I was a girl, they never came to visit the way they do now. And I’m not like your father’s mother, Frazzela, who dotes on fairies. I have no idea what to say to them. Then there’s the wing issue. If they have wings, I try not to stare at them, but I know I will anyway, which is rude. And if they don’t have wings, I wonder why not—I always do—and then I lose track of whatever they’re saying. They shed fairy dust, too, which is so untidy. Now you go on ahead,” the queen said as they reached the bottom of the stairs. “You’ll find them just outside the door leading from the Great Hall into the courtyard.”

“No one invited them in?” asked Millie.

“Of course not,” the queen said, wrinkling her nose with distaste. “You’ll see why when you meet them. Oh, and by the way, you have gained a few pounds lately. You really must cut back on the sweets.”

Three fairies were waiting by the stairs in the courtyard, looking as if they weren’t sure they should be there. They turned to face Millie as she reached the bottom step. She’d met the fairy dressed in the soft green gown and matching floppy cap before. Moss had visited her mother and even come to some of the parties at the castle, but the other two fairies were unfamiliar.

“Good day, Millie,” said Moss. “Is your mother, Princess Emma, here? We have a problem and we think she’s the only one who can handle it.”

Millie shook her head. “She left this morning and I have no idea when she’ll be back. Maybe I can help,” she added, more because she thought she should than because she wanted to.

“You can if you’re as powerful a witch as your mother,” said the fairy with the pale skin and gown made of shiny green leaves. The nostrils of her thin, arched nose flared when she looked at Millie, giving the fairy’s narrow face a scornful expression.

“I’m sorry, I should have introduced my friends to you,” said Moss. “This is Poison Ivy, and this is Trillium,” she added, indicating the shorter fairy with dark red hair that hung down her back almost to the ground. Her flower-petal dress was only a shade or two lighter than her hair, and it glistened as if sprinkled with dew.

“It’s nice meeting you,” said Millie. “But I’m not a witch.”

“I knew coming here was a waste of time,” Poison Ivy said, tilting her head back so that she looked down at Millie.

Taking a deep breath, Millie tried to tamp down the irritation welling up inside her at Poison Ivy’s rudeness.

Trillium sighed and said in a whispery soft voice, “Perhaps we should go.”

Millie started to agree with her. If the fairies thought they needed powerful magic to deal with their problem, Millie probably couldn’t help. Aside from her dragon magic, she had very little magic of her own. She could find lost items, but only if they were things she used all the time and had lost recently. She could turn the pages of a book with the wave of a hand, but only one at a time. She could even blow out a candle from across the room, but she couldn’t light it again unless she turned into a dragon. Millie wanted to tell the fairies that they’d have to return when her mother was home, but then she glanced at Poison Ivy again and knew from the curl of her lip that the fairy expected her to back down. The irritation she’d felt before flared into a spark of anger.

For most of her life, before Millie had learned how to control her temper, she turned into a dragon each time she got angry. Even now, controlling her temper wasn’t always easy. She knew that if she let little things bother her, even the smallest spark of anger could flare into full-blown rage. Millie glared at the narrow-faced fairy, then purposefully turned toward Moss. “If you tell me what the problem is, I might be able to help.”

Moss shook her head, and her cap slipped down over her eyes. She pushed it back with a rueful smile and said, “That’s very nice of you to offer, but I don’t see how you can possibly help us. It’s a plant problem, you see, and not a nice plant, either.”

“Is it one of your plants?” Millie asked, glancing from one to the next but letting her gaze linger longest on Poison Ivy.

“Don’t look at me!” Poison Ivy declared. “My ivy has nothing to do with this. I only came along to help.”

“There’s no need to act defensive,” said Moss. “I’m sure Princess Millie didn’t mean anything.”

“Ha!” said Poison Ivy.

“It’s not one of our plants at all,” whispered Trillium. “It’s a plant so nasty that it doesn’t have a fairy to watch over it.”

“That’s right,” said Moss. “No fairy wants anything to do with it. It’s new to the enchanted forest. We think some horrid person brought it here to stir up trouble. Thank goodness there’s only one.”

“It comes from a rain forest far away,” Poison Ivy added. “Too bad it didn’t stay there.”

“What’s so awful about this plant?” asked Millie. She was intrigued now. A plant couldn’t be that bad, could it?

“What plant?” asked Audun as he descended the steps behind her.

“Are you a wizard?” Poison Ivy said, looking Audun up and down. “Because we could really use a good one.”

“This is my betrothed, Audun, and he’s not a wizard.”

“Even so, I’m sure we can deal with a plant,” Audun told them.

Poison Ivy snorted. “Not this plant!”

Trillium tugged on Poison Ivy’s sleeve. “We could show it to them,” she said in a voice so soft that Millie had to strain to hear it.

“I’m not sure … ,” Moss began.

“Why not?” said Poison Ivy and sneered at Millie. “I’d suggest that you follow us on your broom, but you’re not a witch, so—”

“Would a magic carpet do?” Millie asked, anger building inside her again. “I’ll be right back.”

She left Audun talking to the fairies while she went to her chamber to fetch the carpet her mother had given her for her last birthday. It was also an excuse to leave the fairies for a few minutes. Generally, the only people who were rude to Millie were those who didn’t know either that she was a princess or that she could become a dragon at will. Moss had mentioned in Poison Ivy’s presence that Millie’s mother was a princess, so it couldn’t be that. However, there was a good chance that Poison Ivy might not know about Millie’s dragon side; Emma had been using magic for years to keep it a secret. Millie was tempted to turn into a dragon to show the fairy just whom she was dealing with—which was exactly why she couldn’t let herself do it. Once she was a dragon, the temptation to fry Poison Ivy would be hard to withstand.

The magic carpet was right where she’d expected to find it—buried under all the things she had tossed into the back of the storage room. She pitched the old shoes to the other side of the room and set the broom she’d never been able to fly next to the basket of toys she’d loved when she was younger. Maybe she’d give a few of the toys to Felix.

And then there were all the things she kept because she was sure she would need them someday: her great-grandmother’s old chipped scrying bowl; the bouquet of crystalline flowers that her great-aunt, Grassina, had given her and that Millie had broken with one accidental swipe of her tail; the troll-hide trunk that her mother had wanted to throw out; her great-aunt’s old magic mirror. Millie had propped the mirror against the wall to keep the magic carpet from unrolling, but the dark wood frame was so heavy and awkward to move that she considered getting someone to help her. Instead she turned into a dragon just long enough to lift the mirror aside as if it weighed nothing at all.

She would have remained a dragon long enough to carry the carpet out of the room, but she was too big to turn around in the small space, so she had to change back into a human. When she was finally able to drag the narrow carpet into the center of her chamber, she spread it out on the floor and sat down in the middle with a sigh. This was not at all how she had meant to spend her day! Now all she had to do was remember the magic words to control the carpet and she could take care of this silly errand. The fairies were worried about a plant, for goodness’ sake. Even she could handle a plant!

Because Millie didn’t have the kind of magic to control a carpet herself, her mother had given it a simple set of commands. All the princess had to do was repeat a few words and the carpet would go wherever she wanted. It wasn’t as much fun as flying in dragon form, but there were certain places where a royal princess would be welcome whereas a dragon would not. Her parents had made her promise never to leave Greater Greensward in dragon form unless another dragon accompanied her. Too many people feared and hated dragons, and she wasn’t safe outside her own kingdom. Millie never even flew to Upper Montevista as a dragon. The royal archers still shot at dragons that dared to fly near the castle, which didn’t bode well for relations between Millie’s Upper Montevistan grandparents and her future in-laws.

“Rise and leave!” Millie said, bracing herself because she expected the magic carpet to levitate. When nothing happened, she tried again. “Climb and depart!” The carpet remained motionless on the floor. It had been many months since Millie had used the carpet. She knew the phrase her mother had chosen was short and to the point, but that didn’t help if Millie couldn’t remember the words. “Float and flee!” “Ascend and fly away!” she said to no avail.

“I can’t believe this!” she declared out loud. “All I want to do is make this carpet get up and go!” The carpet lurched into the air, sending Millie toppling onto her back. Flinging her arms wide, she grabbed hold of the edges and held on while the carpet shot through the window, only to hover two stories above the ground. “Ah,” she murmured. “I think I remember it now.”

The magic carpet wobbled beneath her as Millie sat up and looked around. She hated that things like this happened whenever she tried to use ordinary magic.

Millie shifted her weight the way her mother had shown her, making the carpet change direction. She straightened her clothes as the carpet floated around her parents’ tower and into the courtyard outside the castle keep. The fairies were still there talking to Audun. Though Moss and Trillium both looked worried when they saw her, Poison Ivy only managed to look smug. “So you did come back,” the fairy said as if she’d tasted something nasty. “I thought you might have been frightened into running away.”

“I’m sorry it took me so long,” Millie replied, turning to face Moss and Trillium, “but it took me a while to get my carpet out of storage. Audun, if you’re ready …”

Millie leaned forward and the carpet drifted to the ground, allowing Audun to climb on behind her. He gave her a searching look as he sat down and crossed his legs. After all they had been through together, he was attuned to her moods more than anyone and often seemed to know just what she was thinking.

“This should be fun,” she said over her shoulder, giving him an encouraging smile.

Audun nodded, although his eyes showed that he didn’t believe she meant it. She’d told him many times how worried she was about her lack of nondragon magic and how ineffective she felt in a family where most of the women were witches.

“Then let’s go!” Poison Ivy announced. The next instant she was no bigger than Millie’s little finger and sported iridescent green wings. She was the first to dart over the castle wall with Trillium only a heartbeat behind her.

“I’ll show you the way,” said Moss, and then she too was tiny.

Millie had never flown with fairies before. By the time the carpet rose above the walls, both Poison Ivy and Trillium were out of sight. Moss was careful to stay where Millie could see her, however, although she had to circle back if Millie and Audun didn’t move fast enough. Soon they landed in a small clearing in the heart of the enchanted forest.

“Where is this plant?” Millie asked, looking around her as she climbed off the carpet.

“It’s a tree, actually,” said Moss, settling on the forest floor a few feet away. The air shimmered as she turned back into a full-sized fairy in time for her to raise her arm and point. “It’s down that path. Just look for the tree with the red berries and the dead bird by its roots.”

“Aren’t you coming with us?” Millie asked, feeling a touch of unease.

“We wouldn’t go near that thing for all the pollen in the kingdom!” said Poison Ivy, who was already back to full size. “It’s up to you now. We just wanted to make sure that someone came to take care of it. Come on, Trillium, I hear they have a new batch of dandelion wine at the old stump.”

Moss shook her head as the other two fairies darted away, tiny once again. “I’m sorry, but she’s right. We’re not able to go near that tree safely. Thank you so much for coming. We weren’t sure that even a strong witch like your mother could handle this. Let us know how it goes!”

The air had begun to shimmer around her when Audun called out, “Are the berries poisonous?”

“Maybe,” called Moss, her voice becoming fainter as she shrank. “I don’t know. But it’s not poison you have to worry about.” And then she was gone, leaving Millie and Audun alone in the enchanted forest.

“What do you suppose is wrong with this tree?” asked Millie. “What could be so awful about it that no fairy will claim it?” Now that Poison Ivy was gone, Millie’s temper had cooled and she started to wonder what she’d gotten herself into.

“Is that what they said?” said Audun. “I thought every plant had a fairy to watch over it. It must be pretty serious if none of the fairies likes it.”

“Maybe we should go back,” said Millie. “The fairies said this would take really strong magic. My mother should be home soon and we can bring her here, now that we know where to come.”

Audun frowned. “You shouldn’t second-guess yourself, Millie. There’s no need to worry. We’re dragons. We can handle anything. Unless it’s your human side speaking now, in which case—”

“Are you implying that my human side is any less than my dragon side?” Millie asked.

Looking surprised, Audun backed up a step. “You’re the one who has doubts. Lack of confidence is rarely a dragon trait. As far as I know, humans are the only creatures who are ever uncertain about their own abilities.”

“I’m not uncertain!” said Millie. “It’s just that my magic isn’t very strong and that’s what we need to take care of this plant.”

“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” Audun told her. “You stay here, and I’ll go look.” He started down the path, glancing from one side to the other.

“I will not!” Millie said as she hurried to catch up. “I came here on my mother’s behalf, so I have to take care of this. You’re the one who should stand back and wait for me to look into it!”

“Look,” said Audun, gesturing at a tree a few yards away. “Is that the tree they were talking about? It has red berries.”

It was a pretty little tree that couldn’t have been more than seven feet tall. Its leaves were nearly heart shaped, and the branches bore clusters of red berries.

“They look like raspberries,” said Millie, reaching out to pick one.

Audun knocked her hand aside. “Don’t touch it!”

“Moss said it wasn’t poisonous.”

“She said she didn’t know if it was poisonous, but she still thought it was dangerous. There’s the dead bird she was talking about.”

“And there are three more dead birds over here,” Millie said.

“I saw some plants once that had branches like arms. The plants could move around. I wonder if this tree can, too.”

Millie shook her head. “It doesn’t look like it.”

A breeze sprang up, shivering the leaves of the trees around them. Audun slapped at his cheek. “Something just stung me!”

Millie took a step toward him. “Let me see,” she said. A flurry of loose leaves broke free from the tree and fluttered through the air. One brushed against her upraised hand. Millie cried out as blinding pain tore through her. She stared at her hand in horror, stumbling back until she bumped into the solid trunk of an old oak.

“What happened?” Audun asked, his hand pressed to his cheek.

“I don’t know,” Millie gasped. The pain radiating up her arm was so intense that she could think of nothing else.

“It must have something to do with that tree. We have to change, Millie. Do it now!”

“It hurts so much!”

“The change might help. Please, you have to try!”

Millie’s entire body vibrated from the pain. It was hard to concentrate, but she forced herself. The transformation seemed to take forever, but then her skin turned from the soft flesh of a human to tough dragon hide and the pain ended with surprising abruptness. Millie turned to face Audun, who was now a dragon as well.

“Are you all right?” he asked, his voice heavy with concern.

“I am. Are you?”

Audun nodded. “Look,” he said, striding closer to the tree. “The entire thing is covered with fuzz—the berries, the leaves, the bark—everything.”

“Like a peach?” asked Millie, joining him beside the tree. She arched her neck for a better look. Dragon eyesight is far better than human, and she could now see things that she couldn’t before.

“Not at all,” said Audun. “Peach fuzz is soft. This stuff is more like tiny needles.”

Millie glanced down at her front foot. She could see her dragon hide forcing the needles out even as she watched. When they were fully expelled, she exhaled a puff of flame, melting them like molten glass. “I can see why the fairies were afraid of the tree.”

“They should have told us what to expect,” said Audun.

“Fairies rarely do what they should,” said Millie. “They don’t think about things the way we do.”

A breath of air rustled the leaves again. This time Millie could see the cloud of tiny needles that swept from the tree into the surrounding forest.

“What do you want to do about the tree?” Audun asked.

“Burn it to the ground,” Millie said, backing away. “The fairies were right. This tree is too dangerous and shouldn’t be here.”

Audun stood to the side while Millie blasted the tree with fire, letting her flame wash over it so that she burned the tiny needles as well as the plant itself. When she was finished and there was nothing but ash, Audun stepped forward and began digging up the ground where the tree had stood. “Remember those plants … I … told you about?” he asked, puffing with exertion. “I thought I’d killed them … but just a few weeks later … they started to grow again. If we really want to … get rid of this tree … we have to destroy … the roots as well.”

“Good idea,” said Millie.

A dragon’s talons are tougher than metal yet refined enough to pluck a gnat from the air without hurting it. Millie watched as Audun dug up the roots, knowing that he would find every one. She waited until he was out of the way, then burned every scrap of root to ashes, too.

“That was awful!” Millie said as they returned to the spot where she’d left her magic carpet.

They flew back to the castle side by side. Millie was delighted with what she’d been able to accomplish, but she couldn’t help wondering what she would have done if the task had required the kind of magic she didn’t have.

Millie was relieved when she found her parents waiting for her in the Great Hall and couldn’t wait to tell them what had happened. But before she could say a word, her mother kissed her on her human-again cheek and said, “Your father and I are leaving. Grassina and Haywood should have returned by now. I told your father I was worried, and he suggested that we go to the island to see if they need our help. I’m sure your father is right and nothing bad has happened, but I can’t help thinking that we should have heard from them.”

“And when we get there and your mother sees that everyone is fine, she and I might just take a few days to enjoy the beach,” said Eadric, Millie’s father. “We haven’t been there in years.”

“We shouldn’t be gone long,” said Emma. “Your grandparents will be in charge of any nonmagical issues, but I’m depending on you and your cousin, Francis, to help out if any magical problems come up. And keep an eye on Felix, too, if you would. His nursemaid has everything under control, but I’d feel better if I knew you were watching over him as well.”

“Of course I’ll keep an eye on Felix, but are you sure you have to go?” Millie asked, and immediately felt selfish and petty. This was her great-aunt and great-uncle her mother was talking about, people who were very dear to her. If they needed help, her parents had to go. But being left alone to deal with all of the magical problems … Francis would be there, but she couldn’t imagine that he’d be much help. He was so preoccupied with becoming a knight that he never spent much time on his other magical studies, even though he was more gifted than Millie. If she had half the magic he had, she would have studied every book and parchment she could get her hands on …

“Don’t you worry about a thing,” Audun told her parents, pulling Millie to his side and giving her a reassuring hug. “I’ll be here to help Millie and Francis if they need it. I’m sure there won’t be any problems that the three of us can’t handle.”