They had just arrived at the village and Tobia’s mother was already chattering with the women who had been introduced to them as Granny Astra and Daphne. Tobia suspected it was something she needed, some surrogate for the routine and the friendships she’d lost after their old life had gone up in flames in the span of one single night. Pushing those memories away, he studied the two women. 

The older one, Astra, had looked understandably cross when Lux and Marion had shown up with three strangers in tow. She seemed to have relaxed a bit now, mollified by the impeccable castle manners of Tobia’s mother as she recounted their misadventures to her new audience. The younger woman was making Chiara drink some hot beverage that smelled strongly of ginger. Both of them had dark skin and kinky black hair twisted in neat styles above their heads, quite different from Lux’s pale complexion and the stubby, thick braid that rested on the back of their neck like a clump of coal. 

The homey, relaxed atmosphere in the hut was a blessing for Tobia’s frayed nerves. Now that adrenaline had stopped pumping through his body, though, he was left trying to process everything that had happened in the last few weeks. He still felt numb about it, as if his memories refused to shape themselves into something that resembled real life. Maybe his mind could only parse it from a fuzzy sort of distance, like he would break if he stopped to think about it from up close. He envied Chiara, who could just weep until she was too exhausted to do anything but sleep.

Right as he was about to ask if there was anything he could busy himself with to help, in the hope that it’d keep him buoyed, Marion burst back inside. She looked frazzled, and she didn’t even bother to take off her boots before pointing at Tobia and his family. “You three,” she said, “come with me. Lux, you too.”

Lux, who had already stood up, started gently ushering Chiara and Tobia’s mother toward the door. “What’s going on?” they asked, terse.

Marion shot Tobia a fierce glare, which he took as his cue to get a move as well. “Guards are headed up from the valley floor. Whoever these people are, we’re moving them to my place,” she said. She spoke in a commanding tone that left no room for arguments, but she was still trying to help them, rather than throwing them at the guards’ feet. Stopping to pick Chiara up, Tobia gave her a grateful nod. 

The five of them made their way toward the outskirts of the village; a few people noticed them, but they were all quick to turn their heads the other way. Maybe noticing Tobia’s puzzled expression, Lux nudged his shoulder. “No one’s gonna talk,” they told him in a conspiratorial whisper. “Granny’s wrath is way scarier than a few guards could ever hope to be, at least as far as these folks are concerned.” 

“That’s mighty lovely,” Tobia whispered back, “but I can’t fathom why Madame Astra would be so kind to us.” 

At his words, Lux stopped dead in their tracks. They squinted at him, as if they were trying to piece something together, but Marion’s voice interrupted them before they could say anything. 

“We’re here, hurry up inside,” she said with urgency in her voice. They were standing in front of a round, mud-red construction. It was built in a different architectural style than the rest of the huts Tobia had passed, with materials that looked far newer than most of the artfully cobbled-together wood, stones and precious tufts of hay the village relied on.

The moment he stepped inside, he thought he could smell the hint of something sharp in the air, like the ghost of those fancy spices the castle cooks would use on special days. Other than that, the place looked way less cluttered than what he might have expected from a dragon’s lair. There were books scattered on a wide carpet of fluffed-up wool, as well as a few knickknacks strewn about, but nothing that could be classified as a hoard. 

“What are you looking at?” Marion asked with the kind of voice that suggested Tobia keep any unflattering comments to himself. Without waiting for an answer, she bent down and swept the carpet off the pavement, then she started making quick work of the floorboards, lifting them up from their spots one after the other. Soon, there was a sizable hole in front of them. 

“... A fake floor?” Tobia asked. 

“It’s a dragon thing,” Lux said airily, as if that alone counted as an acceptable explanation. “There’s enough space for all three of you. It should suffice as a hiding place for now.” 

Tobia opened his mouth to argue, but his mother beat him to it. “How do we know they won’t find us here?” she asked. “You people have been kind to us, and I thank you for that, but we can’t drag you any further into our problems.”

“They won’t find you here,” Marion said, “because this is the one place they won’t dare turn upside down, no matter how much money’s on your heads. Now get in there, we don’t have all day.”

Tobia’s mother still looked as unconvinced as Tobia himself felt, but she started climbing down the hole with ginger steps, beckoning him to follow. She and Marion helped lower Chiara inside, while Lux stood guard by the door. After Tobia jumped down himself, Marion gave him a curt nod. 

“Help me with the floorboards and then hurry back home,” she told Lux. “It’s probably just a royal patrol, but you never know. If it’s any of those ex temple folks from town, it might get ugly.” There was tension in the lines of her posture, in the twitching of her fingers, but soon enough Tobia couldn’t see it anymore. All he could see was the dark, with pale rays of light filtering through the floorboards and the carpet. 

He reached for his family in the inky blackness, stroking Chiara’s head and trying his best not to step on any of the rather expensive-looking objects that littered the ground. He’d gotten a glimpse of them before and he could have sworn he’d seen the rough, beautiful surface of a raw diamond in there. Now that was something he’d call a hoard.

For a while, the only sound Tobia could hear was his own breathing, punctuated by Marion’s nervous footsteps coming from above. Then, after what felt like an endless, slowed-down stretch of time, someone knocked on the door. The newcomers spoke in muffled voices, their words hard to make out, but the intonation of their back and forth with Marion signaled they were probably asking questions. Growing up in the castle meant that Tobia knew how guards were supposed to sound: arrogant, curt, in control of the situation. The people trying to interrogate Marion sounded more like a handful of bumbling mice bowing in the presence of the Rat King. He knew people outside of the direct influence of the castle tended to think of dragons as something higher, something almost heavenly; to witness it, though, was still bizarre. 

He was starting to think things would be fine, when Chiara coughed. It was a stifled, feeble sound, but a tense silence descended on the place in its aftermath. For one single, suspended moment all Tobia could do was stare at the fake floor above his head in terror as he struggled to breathe. Had the carpet muted the sound? Had the guards heard it? 

Then someone started asking something, in a far less awed tone now, and Tobia’s blood ran cold when Marion raised her own voice in kind. She clamored for them to get out, but the guards wouldn’t budge; the metallic hiss of someone unsheathing their weapon slithered through their air.

Tobia reached for his cape for the second time that day, hating how easy it all—violence, shifting, the wolf—came to him, and he let his fur cover him once more. If these people wanted a fight, he’d give it to them. 

Before he could try bursting out of the secret floor, though, the smell of sulfur suddenly got so intense it prickled his nostrils. The roar that followed rang loud enough that Tobia could hear it clear as day, as well as he could hear the frantic clanging of people in armor running away as fast as they could. 

“Yeah, run along!” Marion shouted, regal and deep in her dragon form. “Fugitives! In my lair!”

Chiara gasped, startled by the sudden hubbub, but this time the noise was swallowed by a loud, final bang as Marion probably swung the door shut with a little too much force. “Complete jokers,” Tobia heard her mutter from above and, for the first time since everything had gone wrong, he allowed himself the luxury of a smile.