Book 3: Chapter 84 (1/2)

“Is this okay?” Mr. Skelly asked, whispering to Tafel. He bounced up and down once Sera’s tail slammed into the ground again. “The easiest way to undo the magic on Vur is to have the person who casted it cancel it.” He gestured towards Sera. “But he’s currently…, yeah.”

“You have a very good point,” Tafel said and nodded. “However, don’t you think it’s already too late? He’d have to be incredibly strong to survive something like that. But I’ll ask anyway. Hey, Sera?” The dragon’s tail paused in the air as she turned her head back around and looked down at Tafel with murderous eyes. Tafel swallowed and shook her head. “Um. Never mind.”

Sera resumed thumping her tail, and Tafel shrugged at Mr. Skelly. Mr. Skelly shrugged back and stroked the portion of his helmet covering his chin. “You know what they say,” he said. “If your witness died, just bring him back to life. Let me see if I can get in contact with the mistress.”

“Don’t worry,” Sera said with a growl. “I’m only angry, not dumb. He’s still alive.”

“Really?” Alice asked, doubt coating her voice. “Your definition of alive, and my definition of alive may be slightly different.”

Sera snorted and stopped pulverizing the ground. She used the tip of her tail to dig around the fissure and fished out a bloody thing that resembled a person’s shape. “See? Still alive,” she said and dropped Zyocuh onto the ground beside Vur. “What did this thing do to my baby?”

Tafel shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “A door opened connecting to Vur’s stomach, and a stream of light flowed from his body”—she pointed at Zyocuh—“into Vur’s. Then Vur fainted.”

Sera pushed away Mary, who was trying to get to Zyocuh, with her claw and nodded. Before she could say anything, a high-pitched voice echoed out from behind Tafel. “Woah! Is this the world called the outside?”

Three sky-blue dragon heads poked out of the portal that Tafel still hadn’t closed. They looked around in all directions too scared to bring any other part of themselves through before their bodies were shoved into the room by a golden dragon. “Make way, make way,” Vernon said.

“He’s calling us fat again,” Eldest whispered in a voice that everyone could hear.

“He’s saying we take up too much space,” Youngest said and nodded.

Bonnie sighed. “I wish Alora were here so I could feel smaller.”

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?” Alora shouted. “I’m totally smaller than you right now!”

The annoying trio exchanged glances with each other before trotting over to Alora. They surrounded her and smelled her, their nostrils flaring, like curious dogs. Their heads tilted his way and that. “Why are you a human?” Bonnie asked.

“Well, you’re still fat compared to other humans,” Eldest said and nodded.

“I’m not!”

“Aren’t you?” Youngest asked and poked Alora’s chest. “Look at how much fat is up here compared to her.” He pointed at Tafel with his tail. “See?”

Tafel covered her chest by crossing her arms and glared at the dragon before sighing. She teleported over to Sera, next to Vur’s body and sat beside him. “Can you do anything, Sera?”

Sera clicked her tongue and waved at Vernon. “Dear, come here and take a look at Vur.”

Vernon raised an eyebrow and craned his neck forward to squint at the two bodies on the ground. “He looks pretty dead to me: all squished and pasty. What happened to him? Was he crushed by a falling meteor?”

Tafel stared at her father-in-law with a face full of disbelief. “That’s not Vur.”

Vernon cleared his throat twice. “I knew that,” he said and nodded before shifting his gaze over onto Vur. “It was just a joke.”