“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.”

“It wasn’t funny, Uncle Vernon,” Bonnie said.

Vernon snorted. “Be quiet, Eldest.”

“I’m not Eldest! Are you saying I sound like a boy?”

“No, I’m saying you all sound the same, Youngest,” Vernon said as he reached forward and flipped Vur onto his stomach. Bonnie thumped the ground with her tail before exhaling two jets of flames out through her nostrils. Vernon stroked his chin and nodded. “Yep. Mhm. I see, I see.”

“Well?” Tafel asked once Vernon stopped inspecting her husband.

Vernon tilted his head. “Well what?”

Tafel clenched her hands. “Do you know what’s wrong with him?”

“What’s wrong with him?” Vernon blinked. “Didn’t you just want me to look at him? Those weird symbols do look very nice. Did you draw them yourself?”

Sera smacked Vernon’s snout with her claw. “Some kind of red light entered Vur’s body, and he fainted.”

Vernon rubbed his stinging face. “And? What else?”

“That’s it.”

Vernon raised an eyebrow. “That’s it? You’re expecting me to draw a conclusion from that alone?”

“Well, no,” Tafel said. “You’re supposed to look at Vur too to see if you can find anything wrong with him.”

Vernon rolled his eyes. “So Vur fainted,” he said. “Just give him a few minutes and he’ll come to. What’s the big deal? You both act like Vur fainting is the end of the world. Heck, he fainted for ten years once and look at how he’s still perfectly normal. He’ll be fine.”

Sera snorted. “I’m going to find Leila,” she said. “There’s nothing that can’t be fixed by sending in a dragonsworth of holy cleansing magic into someone.”

“Leila’s busy taking care of her egg,” Vernon said.

“Then I’ll find Kondra.”

Vernon raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure? Your mother won’t be very happy about that. Neither will Nova.”

Sera narrowed her eyes at her mate. “Then do you expect me to do nothing while my poor baby’s in distress?”

“Is he in distress?” Vernon asked and nudged Vur, flipping him onto his back. A line of drool leaked out of the corner of his mouth, and a loud snore rang through the room. “He seems pretty satisfied with whatever dream he’s having.” His eyes lit up. “Ah. Dreams. Didn’t Grimmy’s little elf do a thing with dreams? We can ask her to check on Vur.”

“Good news!” Mr. Skelly said. “Speaking of the mistress, I got in contact with her earlier, and she’s on her way over right now.”