Page 34

Now that they could walk into the dragonland and back as well? It was this strange situation.

“I didn’t think it would be so complicated,” Cosmo admitted. “I thought we’d be getting Amazon packages and periodically welcoming the lost dragon in to make sure he was all right before we let him through. Has it always been this hard?”

Hawk shook his head. “Of course not. The last time the veil opened, technology wasn’t a thing. We’re talking kings and round tables and swords. Knights on horseback. Awful tales of us capturing princesses. Who do you think the guardians were then? When the veil opened that time?”

Cosmo tilted his head. “Was it you?”

Hawk snorted. “Me? No. No, and I wasn’t here. I was in the Old Lands back then. The guardians in that time were women. Three mermaid fae crossed. They were triplets called Nimue, Nimnian, and Vivian. They were beautiful, and they were fierce, and they did not allow the evil ones to cross into our home.”

Cullen tore apart a Yorkshire pudding and dipped it in his gravy. “How did you get here?”

“I flew. I was bored, and then I was lost. Then when I arrived, I found I enjoyed it here. The seas, the deserts, the mountains—there was so much to see. And no one seemed to mind me. So I stayed. And then I couldn’t get back. How about you?”

“Oh, that’s an easy one!” Cosmo clapped his hands. “Our father sent us to find his old friend, Gavin, and give him some book that he was searching for. Then Gavin asked us to stay and work for him, and it was so much fun that we did.”

It wasn’t a fancy story, but it was their story, and it was the truth, so he told it that way.

He seems like he has seen a lot.Corbin murmured, just between them.I didn’t want to like him, but I do.

He’s an old dragon. He’s my dragon. He says he doesn’t want to go across the veil. He says he wants to stay here with me, and I want to stay here with you.

Corbin nodded, just barely moving his head.We’re glad.

Maybe that was all his brothers had been worried about. Maybe all the hostility had been because they had been scared he was going to leave them.

Sure, he understood. Hawk was new and different, and he was old. They had assumed that Cosmo would want to go with Hawk, see where Hawk was from. But they were his brothers.

He couldn’t leave them anymore than he could stay away from Hawk. Now he was glad he didn’t have to do either. His brothers were beginning to understand.

“So what do we do about all this?”

Hawk just smiled. “Well, what we do is we figure out what needs doing.”

“Is it really that easy?” Cullen asked.

“Oh, no. It’s probably going to be quite difficult, but that’s okay. That’s what keeps life interesting. When it gets boring, you go to sleep. Or sometimes, it just gets to be too much.” That made Hawk frown.

“How do you mean?” Cosmo wanted to reach out and smooth the frown away.

“Things got very loud.” Hawk rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling, as if searching for answers. “Things became completely crazy. Everything started moving too fast. I wasn’t sure how to keep up, and so I went to sleep. But now? But now I have you. And you understand this new world better than I ever could. Together, we can make this work.”

“Do you think that we can keep bad magic from crossing in either direction?” He wanted that vision wiped from his mind.

“I think we can certainly try. I mean, I do have the example of those fierce mermaids, don’t I?”

“Yeah, and we have Google.”

Chapter

Nine

It turned out that there actually had been a series about the last century on this thing they called the History Channel.

Hawk had learned many things in a very short period of time, the main of which was that magic had become something called technology in this world.

That seemed fine. More available than magic and less specific, but fine nonetheless. He approved.

So long as it stayed where it belonged.