Chapter 24: A Meeting Kept from the World
Lilith’s mood was sandpaper on skin at Satan’s pageantry of secrecy; the Little White Dragon just wanted the woman to lay the cards on the table instead of blowing smoke rings.
Still, the Little White Dragon figured some things were better shown with ink and spine than with tongue and wind, so she took Satan’s advice and, led by a maid, stepped out of the room like a leaf following a current.
A gray-white little Demon tried to scuttle after them, only for her mother to snag her by the collar like a kitten plucked mid-pounce.
The Little White Dragon sighed in her heart for that unlucky duck, then caught the maid’s pace and slipped from the chambers like a swallow from a eave.
Lingering in another woman’s bedroom was a candle burning too long; the Little White Dragon wasn’t that close to the Demon lady before her, so, like a tide turning, Lilith chose to leave fast.
Nidhogg and Litt were waiting by the door like shadows cast long by a noon sun; the Little White Dragon had barely crossed the threshold when she almost barreled headfirst into Nidhogg’s belly.
“You popped out of nowhere, what was that for?” The Little White Dragon rubbed her reddened forehead, a little huff like steam from a kettle.
“I heard your steps and came to check,” the Black Dragon said, draping an arm over her shoulders with old-friend ease, half-crouching to inspect the spot like a hunter checking a fletch.
Her milk-pale skin flushed a petal-pink, but it wasn’t a real bruise; even if Lilith’s skin was tender enough to bead dew with a pinch, bumping a belly wouldn’t break a White Dragon.
Once sure she was fine, the Black Dragon asked what they should do next, words steady as a hand on a helm.
“Satan invited us to the city’s Grand Library,” the Little White Dragon told Nidhogg, voice a cool spring over stone. “I don’t get why we can’t just say everything here, but going along shouldn’t wreck anything. And I can tour Bosaklie’s royal stacks. I’m curious if Demons keep their ancestors’ knowledge the same way Vampires do.”
She still remembered the library under Morris; there, Lilith had found the key to upgrading the Shattered Ark. Maybe this time she could find a way to make the Elemental Ark and that black sword sing in duet like wind and string.
Come to think of it, Lilith still hadn’t named the sword. She decided if she didn’t find its true name on this trip, the Little White Dragon would christen it herself.
Call it “Until Lilith Turns the Tables, No New Name,” a blade bearing her simplest wish like a ribbon tied to a spear.
The whim bubbled up and made Lilith laugh; she turned the black blade into a silver hilt, then tucked it into the warm cleft at her chest like slipping a dagger into velvet.
Yes—suddenly the Little White Dragon realized her human form could pull that off now. She’d known her chest was growing like a crescent waxing, but she hadn’t expected it to be this… accommodating.
Good. Better to have a proper use than just giving Nidhogg something to knead like dough; ever since losing her storage space, life felt like pockets turned inside out. The Elemental Ark hiding on the back of her hand had delighted her for a while, and now the black sword had a home too. That was a small sun in her ribcage.
“Alright, let’s move,” Lilith said, bright as a bell, stepping forward like a kite catching wind—then she noticed Nidhogg had stalled, turning to look at her.
“Nidhogg, what is it?” The Little White Dragon tilted her head, curiosity like a sparrow on a twig.
“Nothing,” Nidhogg swallowed, then fell into step, her eyes a banked ember. The innocent Little White Dragon had no idea how tempting that casual tuck had been. If they weren’t so busy, Nidhogg would’ve found time to teach her to keep a bit of dragonly decorum in public—or, failing that, she wouldn’t mind making the Little White Dragon lay one more egg.
Nidhogg and Lilith followed the maid out of the palace like two shadows following a lantern. Litt didn’t come; they’d discovered Abaddon had been left behind, and the Demon girl, newly escaped her mother’s claws, finally reunited with her friend. The two stayed in the palace to complain about their unreliable guardians like wind chimes rattling before a storm.
The maid led them onto the street and toward the Grand Library. The sandstorm had long blown itself hollow; now the avenues filled again, a tide of bodies rolling through Bosaklie’s bones. The Little White Dragon didn’t know the city’s population, but seeing that human sea, Lilith guessed it wasn’t small.
The maid offered them a “carriage.” Bosaklie had no horses—no animals at all, really—save for scorpions the wind swept in like stray thorns and hawks that rested here like passing clouds.
This city’s carriage was a creature with a strange skeleton.
The Little White Dragon could swear—two lives and counting—she’d never seen a vehicle with the cabin trailing behind and the engine hauling in front like an iron ox.
Yes, an engine. She’d stake her horn on it. The thing hitched before their car looked exactly like a boiler from a moving picture: a mouth of flame for exhaust, an iron door for feeding coal, and a pipe heated blood-red, sending white-hot steam down to the wheels like veins pulsing heat.
She’d never imagined a vehicle like this gear-and-fire chimera; the strangest part was the steam, the breath rising from beneath her seat.
It didn’t scorch her butt.
And even using steam—an energy source as clumsy as a bear in a tea shop—the carriage still ran fast, almost not slower than Lilith at a sprint, wind humming at their ears.
“Does this thing burn through a lot of fuel?” Lilith asked the maid sitting up front, hands steady on the reins of iron and heat.
A moment ago this same maid had been pouring tea for a queen; now she was driving a steam car, fitting Lilith’s stereotype of a maid who could do anything like a glove to a hand.
“Not much. We only add one shovel of coal a day,” the maid said without turning, her gaze cutting sideways. Lilith followed it and saw a big iron shovel.
The kind you’d see in a field, the common sort; the shovel face was about as big as the Little White Dragon’s head—horns not included.
One shovel for a whole day?
The Little White Dragon took back her judgment that Bosaklie ran on technology.
This was pure magic.
