“To the most beautiful… woman in all of Birmisia.” He paused in the middle of his toast as Saba, walking back to the shore caused the wooden dock to sway unpleasantly to one side.

“I hope that’s me,” said Egeria.

“Of course it’s you.”

Saba returned a moment later. This time he pulled a small cart, which Yuah was pushing from the other side. Despite the wheels getting caught on the wooden planks of the dock a time or two, they managed to wheel it to the table side. The cart carried a large bowl with a tossed salad. While Saba walked back to the shore, Yuah dressed the salad and served it into white bowls with thin blue lines trimming the edges.

“Is this a subtle indication that impending events are approved of by your family?” asked Egeria.

“It’s not a subtle indication that you are young enough to be my daughter.”

Both Egeria and Yuah burst out laughing.

“Sorry,” said Yuah. “Pretend I’m not here.”

A moment later she was gone and they ate their salad.

“This is lovely,” said Egeria, looking at the sun setting across the bay. “I knew I could count on you.”

By the time that they had finished the salad course, darkness was beginning to overtake them. Saba returned and lit two candles in the center of the table. Egeria sniffed the air.

“They’re magic.” Zeah answered the unasked question. “They are supposed to keep the insects away.”

“Excellent,” she nodded.

Zeah raised his index finger, in a “watch this” gesture. Reaching into the pocket of his coat, he pulled out a small cylinder. He tapped the end on the table. Nothing happened. He turned it around and tapped the other end. Immediately, dozens of tiny lights shot out and began to dance around the table in the air.

“Ooh,” said Egeria.

“Yes,” said Zeah. “The romance of fireflies without the unpleasantness of their being insects.”

Saba collected the salad bowls and salad forks and Yuah served them their supper. Pleased with Mrs. Finkler’s cooking two nights previous, Zeah had engaged her again and given her liberty to cook the most spectacular thing that she could come up with. She had produced a pork shoulder roast with a crunchy crust, seasoned with salt and pepper, and served in a dark sauce, made from the roast stock, meat broth, dark beer, onions and carrots. This was accompanied by plump dumplings and red cabbage. Though different from anything he had eaten before, Zeah enjoyed the meal. This was notwithstanding the fact that he thought it might come up again at any moment.

“This is a lovely meal,” said Egeria.

Zeah nodded.

“I can’t wait to see what you have planned for dessert.”

Dessert was indeed spectacular and again was something that Zeah had never seen before, let alone eaten. It was a custard that just about matched Egeria’s dress, made from black and red currants, raspberries, strawberries, and cherries cooked in juice with starch as a thickener. It was topped with clotted cream, flavored with vanilla. From that evening forward, the taste of the dessert was intricately linked in Zeah’s mind with the image of Egeria carefully spooning the confection into her perfect lips. He also remembered the monstrous splash created by some horrible submarine beast as it burst from the water in the middle of the bay and his fervent hope at the time that the potency of Zurfina’s spell preventing such beasts from coming near the dock remained in effect.

As Egeria approached the last bit of her dessert, Zeah picked up the small cylindar he had used to create the magical fireflys. He tapped the device twice on the table and said “bechnoth”. The dancing little lights that had been a fixture during the meal began to coalesce over the water. Within twenty seconds they had formed letters spelling out “marry me”, except they didn’t quite spell out “marry me”. The second m was a z, so the magical fireflies spelled out “marry ze”.

“Bugger and blast,” said Zeah.

“Marry Ze,” said Egeria. “Yes, I will.”

“Look at all these lousy zeets,” said Graham Dokkins, as he and Senta walked between the hundreds of make-shift tents on the southwest side of the hill from the barracks.

“What are zeets?” asked Senta.

“That’s what they’re called. My Da says they’re evil, and they don’t even believe in Kafira.”

“Zurfina doesn’t believe in Kafira either. I mean, not like us. She says the Church is all bullocks.”

“Yeah, well my Da says she’s evil too.”

If Senta was offended at the idea that anyone would call Zurfina evil, she didn’t let on. She bounced ahead, her skipping steps seeming to defy gravity. In one hand she carried a stick and in the other her doll. Graham stomped after her.

“Why do you gotta carry that doll everywhere?” he asked.

“Cause I’m a girl, stupid.”

They reached the edge of the tent village. Some of the women from among the Freedonian refugees had set up a series of clotheslines and were hanging up clothes. Almost every piece was black, white, or grey.

“They don’t seem any different to me,” said Senta. “Except they talk funny.”

Suddenly several of the women who had been hanging clothes began to scream and they all began to run toward the tents. Looking up, the two children saw a steel colored streak flying downward from out of the sun. The steel dragon buzzed the tops of the women’s heads and then zipped along parallel to the clothesline and with a flick of its tail, knocked every other piece of clothing from the line into the dirt. Spreading its wings out to their full six foot breadth, it stopped in mid-air and dropped to the ground at Senta’s feet. It opened its mouth to the sky and a small puff of smoke shot out.

“Funneee,” said the dragon.

“It’s not either funny, you potty twonk. You’re going to get everyone angry, and who’s going to get in trouble? Not you. Me, that’s who.”

Despite Senta’s declaration that the dragon’s actions were not funny, Graham was laughing heartily. The dragon hopped over to his feet and rubbed his head against the boy’s leg as if to share in his mirth. Graham, still laughing, slapped his knee. The dragon suddenly bit his hand.

“Sod it!” shouted the boy, his laughter suddenly gone.

The dragon looked up in the air, with feigned innocence.

“See, now you’ve made Graham angry too,” said Senta. Both the girl and the dragon looked at the boy, who had gone all white and sweaty.

“My Da didn’t say it, but I think dragons are evil.”

“Pet,” said the dragon, in a pleading tone.

“Yeah, alright,” Senta said, fishing a small brown bottle from the pocket of her baggy black dress. “But if you bite anyone else, I’m going to need a new bottle of this.”

She poured the draught from bottle onto the wound on Graham’s hand. The liquid bubbled and fizzed on contact with the boy’s blood, but after a few moments nothing was left of the injury but a small scar.

Senta, Graham, and the dragon looked up to see they were completely surrounded by a crowd of people. The reptile leapt to the girl’s shoulder in one swift motion and curled up around her neck. Graham stood up next to Senta and took her hand in his. The people began to whisper amongst themselves. Finally one of the women stepped forward.

“Sorry about your clothes,” said Senta.

“Der drache is, how you say, vunterfull,” said the woman.

“Oh yeah, he’s great,” said Graham, sarcastically.

“He is bootifull. He is yours?”

“Yeah, sort of,” said Senta.

“You bet he’s hers,” said Graham. “She’s a really powerful sorceress and he’s her dragon. And they’re really scary and magical. Just look at them. And that’s her magic doll.”

He suddenly started laughing. The dragon made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a smirk.

“We’ve got to go now,” said Senta. “I’ve got to lock up my dragon and my troll here.”

“Hey!” shouted Graham, following Senta who was already hurrying through the opening in the crowd that magically parted before her. “Who you calling a troll, monkey face?”

The two children walked up to the top of the hill and parted without saying goodbye, but with the innocent expectation that they would see each other later and continue on just as they had. Senta made her way to a quiet place that she had found next to the protective wall. She plopped down in the grass and the steel dragon climbed off her shoulders. She stretched out and he curled up beside her and placed his whiskered snout on her stomach.

Senta held her doll up and looked at it. The doll had on an outfit just like hers. She called the dress she was wearing her doll dress for that very reason. The doll had the same hair style that she did. She could almost imagine that the doll was made especially for her. But it hadn’t been. She had seen it many times in the toy store before she had purchased it.

“I wonder what Geert’s doing now?” She mused. “He’s my cousin,” she explained to the dragon.

She heard the approach of voices and pushed the dragon’s face off of her stomach so that she could roll over and see who it was. It was Miss Dechantagne. She was walking along holding the arm of the blond officer from the ship. She had on a stunning yellow dress with white lace trim. It had at least seven layers on the skirt, ruffles and fringes on the shoulders, and a magnificent bow on the bustle. The matching hat trailed a long piece of yellow silk down her back.

“That’s the kind of dress I want,” said Senta quietly.

“No,” said the dragon.