Jane's mind stuttered to a halt. "Alone?" she squeaked.

"Come now," said Nikolay silkily. "As an avtorka, you will need to face much scarier things than a little fire-breathing dragon."

Coming here had been a bad idea. A really bad idea.

"A few pointers, hm?" said Nikolay. "Don't look the dragon in the eye. Don't believe everything she says. They find lying distasteful, but they are fiendishly good at wordplay. Don't insult her. And whatever you do, do not mention me. I think that covers the basics."

"You can't make me go up there!"

"Can't I?"

The familiar hook-through-the-navel sensation made Jane wince. She shot Nikolay a pleading, furious glare, but he had already vanished.

If she survived, she was going to kill Nikolay!

His levitation charm deposited her just inside the mouth of the dragon's cave. The smell hit her immediately: a smoky, sulfurous odor. Jane would have gagged, had she not been furiously scanning the cave for the dragon.

It was not hard to find.

The dragon was night black, from its wicked snout to the long, lethal hook at the tip of its tail. Each one of the dragon's scales was bigger than Jane's head. One swipe of those clawed forelimbs could easily crush her.

Jane swallowed.

A trickle of smoke threaded from the dragon's nostrils. There was a lethality, a wildness to its features, from the reptilian slant of its eyes to the forked tongue that tasted the air with surprising rapidity. Its blue eyes were half-lidded, but Jane knew it was awake.

Jane remembered Nikolay's warning about not meeting the dragon's eyes. That advice now seemed ludicrous. Did he expect her to look away while the dragon attacked her?

"Who dares intrude?" said the dragon. Its voice was landslides and sizzling lava.

Desperately, Jane tried to cast a concealment charm on herself.

The dragon laughed.

"I can still see you, little darling. Your silly human spells are ineffective against my eyes. Why have you come here, intruding on my quiet?"

Jane felt her magic trickle away.

"I—" she said. "I'm here because—"

Nikolay's earlier warning—Whatever you do, do NOT mention me —echoed in her head. However much she loathed him, it seemed unwise to disobey.

"Well?"

"Your... Greatness..." Jane tucked her shaking hands against her chest and bowed. "I need your help. The Tsar of Somita is dying. I heard you have a magical healing chalice that might save his life."

The dragon laughed, a low grinding sound that sent thrills of fear through Jane's belly.

"This is really too much," it said. "Come here, Precious."

It turned the full intensity of its gaze on Jane.

Jane's mind blurred.

Against her volition, she stepped forward. Her arms and legs were no longer hers to command; they moved loosely, independent of the signals her brain sent them.

She should have felt panic. But perhaps that was also part of the dragon's enchantment. The longer she stared at the dragon, the more remote the danger seemed. A gentle fog settled over her mind; it was almost pleasant to relax, to obey...

The dragon looked away. Abruptly, the pleasantness vanished. Reality returned with a lurch.

"I forgot how feeble humans are. Your kind are almost as weak-willed as sudok, and twice as fun to control."

Jane swallowed. The dragon was much too close. Its breath was hot on Jane's neck.

"Let me give you a lesson in history, pet. Eons before your time, we Fire-Breathers invented the logic of this land. Man – the invader – has brought nothing but ruin in his wake. So, even if I could help you, little mortal, I shall not. Your king is dying, and there is nothing in my possession that can save his life.

"But now that I have you here, before I devour you, we shall play. It is my custom to... hmm... entertain my visitors, and it has been years since I've had a satisfactory plaything. Hopefully you are smarter than your recent actions lead me to believe, or your life will be very short indeed. I shall ask you a series of riddles, and if you solve them all, I may just set you free. How does that sound?"

Jane had just enough time to think – with a hopeless sort of terror – that the dragon and Nikolay would have really hit it off, before the dragon waved a massive scaled paw, and three chests materialized. The first chest bore a glittering sign that said "Rubies"; the sign on the second chest said, "Emeralds"; and the third chest read, "Rubies and Emeralds."

The dragon chuckled deep in its throat. "One of these chests contains rubies, one contains emeralds, and one contains both. All of the chests are incorrectly labeled. I will give you an object from one chest of your choosing, after which you must tell me what each chest truly holds. Answer wrong, and you will die."

Jane sucked in a breath.

Logic puzzle.

It was just a logic puzzle.

Were she not still scared out of her wits, she might have smiled with relief.

Jane closed her eyes. It was hard to ignore the presence of the giant dragon, but she tried her best to disregard the distraction. To think.

She couldn't take a gem out of the chest labeled "Rubies" or the chest labeled "Emeralds." One of those chests contained the ruby-emerald mixture. So taking a gem out of those chests would tell her nothing.

The only chest that would tell her something useful was the one labeled "Rubies and Emeralds." That chest had to contain a pure sample of gems.

Jane pointed. The dragon yawned, and an enormous emerald appeared.

So the "Rubies and Emeralds" chest contained pure emeralds. Which meant the chest labeled "Rubies" had to contain the emerald-ruby mixture, and the chest labeled "Emeralds" had to contain rubies...

"Very good," the dragon purred, as Jane rearranged the chests' labels. "Let's try a harder one, shall we?"

It waved its paw again. The chests vanished. They were replaced with three glittering chalices, each one a different size. A fountain materialized behind them.

"The blue chalice holds nine swallows of water. The green chalice holds eleven swallows. Using only the right and left chalices, you will exactly fill the red chalice to the desired volume of four swallows of water."

The chalices were massive. A swallow for a dragon, Jane thought dubiously, would surely be enough liquid for a human to drown in.

She had seen variants of this puzzle before. Solving the puzzle was easy, but carrying out the task of transferring water...

It was a struggle to even lift the green chalice to carry it to the fountain. It was even more of a struggle to maneuver it into place to allow water to flow into it. It all came back to how dreadfully out of shape she was. Olesya kept ribbing her on her lack of upper body strength, but it wasn't like Jane was going to get magically stronger overni –

Magic!

Jane resisted the urge to smack her forehead.

She closed her eyes for a second, finding the magic within herself and drawing it out. Gently she maneuvered her magic to lower the blue chalice back down to the ground, and then dipped the green chalice to subtract from it.

Eleven swallows minus nine swallows equals two swallows...

She poured the remaining two swallows into the red chalice. Then she went back to the fountain to repeat the process.

Two swallows plus two swallows equals four.

The dragon watched her with eyes that glittered darkly. "Well done, my pet," it said, but Jane thought it sounded anything but congratulatory.

"Did you make all these puzzles yourself?" said Jane.

"It passes the time." Its tail lashed. "Since my mate died."

"Oh," said Jane, "I'm sorry."

The dragon turned its eye toward her and Jane felt herself drawn once again into that void of control. Then the dragon looked away. Jane shivered and looked at her feet.

It struck Jane that perhaps she ought to have pretended to struggle more with the challenges. Most dragons, at least in books, were rather vain. This dragon seemed no different.

"Your puzzles are very good," she said awkwardly. "Really, really great, I mean." She plastered a smile on her face and stepped away the dragon. "Probably most normal people wouldn't be able to solve them as fast, but back home I loved these sorts of puzzles, I think I'm better at them than average, we sort of learned how to think analytically in my classes — I was a computer science major..."

"Perhaps I should give you a harder puzzle," the dragon interrupted. A trickle of smoke threaded from its mouth. Rather than placating the dragon, Jane's words seemed to have made it even angrier. "A harder puzzle... One more suited to your abilities. I have been too lax on your thus far. Yes...."

It paused for a minute before speaking again.

"You may say one thing to me. If your utterance is false, you will die in an instant. If it is true, I will grant you either your freedom, or a small treasure from my collection, but not both. And I will be the one to choose which one you receive. Those are your only possible fates."

Jane waited, for the dragon to continue. "That's it?"

"Is that not enough?" The dragon's tail lashed. "I offer you a chance for your freedom; you should be thanking me for my generosity!"

"Um - thank you," said Jane.

The words to the riddle rang again through her head as she set about evaluating her options. She could say something that was obviously true ('You are a dragon. My name is Jane.') but there was no guarantee that the dragon would let her go. It would probably just give her the gold treasure from its coffer, and offer her another puzzle or kill her, whichever it preferred.

Or she could figure out a statement that would lead to her freedom. Assuming that the dragon kept its promise. Jane would just have to hope Nikolay was right, that dragons weren't fond of lying. She would have to trust that the dragon was a dragon of her word.

She started running through her options. This was a word puzzle, and she should be able to figure it out by running through a bunch of possible statements related to what the dragon had said.

If she said "You will set me free," or "You won't kill me," the dragon could just bellow "false!" and kill her.

If she said "You will kill me," the dragon would not be able to keep her promise but she might become so tied in knots that she would kill Jane out of fury or spite. No, Jane had to use her statement to force the dragon to free her.

As if thinking with a dragon staring at her wasn't hard enough, a voice was now whispering in her right ear. A familiar voice. Nikolay's.

"Walk to your right, and make it look natural."

Jane glanced to her right. Nikolay was nowhere in sight.

"Well?" said the dragon. "I'm waiting."

Jane glared at the ground. The answer was so close, itching on the edge of her consciousness, it was like she only had to reach out and grab it...

Nikolay's voice hissed in her ear again, telling her to move. Jane squeezed her eyes shut and covered her ears. Focus, she thought—it was on the tip of her tongue—an answer to the dragon's riddle—

And then, just like that, she had it, the sentence that would lead to her freedom. Jane opened her mouth, triumphant, to tell the dragon –

And then the world exploded.

-v-

Hey guys! Happy Thanksgiving, for those of you who celebrate! I realize it's been a little while since the last update... *ducks rotten tomatoes* My schedule may be a little sporadic these next few months, but hopefully I can get back on a regular schedule soon.

Thanks so much for reading! Special thanks to my boyfriend for proofreading, and DomiSotto, CelticWhovian, FantasyUnlocked, DawnAshes, and SheWhoLovesPineapple for feedback!

If you enjoyed, don't forget to comment or hit the little star :)