Augie Dechantagne came running through the parlor and like a freight train. “Mama! Mama! I shot a velociraptor!” He dived toward the couch, landing not on his mother, but instead in the lap of Cissy who sat next to her.
“You did what?”
“I shot a velociraptor!”
Yuah’s eyes shot daggers at the boy’s uncle, who followed him into the room, and who was in turn followed by a lizzie burdened with at least six assorted rifles and another with several large canvas bags slung over his shoulder. “He’s not even three years old.”
“Don’t get yourself worked up,” said Radley Staff. “I didn’t give him the weapon. I simply let him look through the sights and pull the trigger while I held it.”
“Quite appropriate,” said Iolanthe from her seat across the room, her eyes glued to the paper in her hand. “”A Dechantagne man must be proficient in firearms.”
“You should have seen the blood shoot out!” continued the boy. “How many did we get again, Uncle?”
“Only four,” said Staff, who then turned to the lizzies. “Put the gear away in my den.”
“I hope you at least made sure the guns were unloaded in the house,” said Yuah.
“I certainly hope you didn’t.” Iolanthe at last looked away from her paper. “What’s the point in having rifles if they aren’t ready to be used?”
“Yuah is right,” said Staff. “Safety first. But the best way to be safe is to ensure the children have a good working knowledge of firearms and know when and when not to touch them.”
“Ready for a nap?” Cissy asked the boy. “Sister is already asleep.”
“I’m hungry,” said the boy. “Can I get a biscuit?”
“Go get one from the kitchen,” ordered his mother. Then she stood up. “I certainly can use a nap. I shall see you all at tea.”
Making her way up the long sweeping staircase, Yuah snapped her fingers at Narsa, who followed her into her bedroom and helped her remove her day dress and then unfasten her corset. Waving for the lizzie to go, she unfastened her own hip bag and draped it over the chair, before stretching out on the bed.
“What are you still doing here?” she called, seeing the lizzie out of the corner of her eye. “Oh, it’s you again.”
It wasn’t Narsa hovering just outside Yuah’s bedroom door, but Cissy. She seemed to be making a habit of hovering outside doors.
“What do you want? I’m not doing anything.”
“I whatch you,” said Cissy.
“Yes, yes,” replied Yuah. “Go ahead and ‘whatch’ me.”
In this, book 8 of Senta and the Steel Dragon: Senta Bly, the most powerful sorceress in the world has disappeared and no one knows where or why. What happens to Port Dechantagne and Birmisia without her protection for four years? Wizards with all sorts of their own agendas descend on the colony, and the citizens must cope the best they can. Nineteen-year-old Iolana Staff lives the life of a famous author, far away in the capital city, but how does her friend Esther, the only Birmisian lizzie on the continent deal with human society? Meanwhile Iolana’s cousin Terra has made the journey to the lizzie city of Yessonarah, to learn what living in the palace of a reptilian king is really like.
City of Amathar 