Page 176 of Nine-Tenths

"But like, what does she look like? Do we call the egg a she, or an it before it's hatched, or…?"

"You can call her by her pronouns," Dav says.

"How do you know it's a girl?"

"How do human mothers know?"

"You ultrasound the egg? What's the egg like, is the shell strong enough for that?"

"Wouldn't do it otherwise, would they?"

"True. How big is the egg, is it—?"

"Darling!" Dav laughs. "Would you like to come meet my sister?"

I turn to face him. "Is that allowed?"

"You're my Favorite. Of course it's allowed. This way."

Dav leads me back into the newer part of the house. But he's unsure about the way, and twitchy, too. "I could have sworn there was a door over… oh, no, it's there." I squeeze his hand. "I am too used to Fynyth. But this is no longer my territory. It's uncomfortable."

"Itchy?"

"Yes."

"Roman itchy?"

"Not that bad. It's a matter of familiarity," Dav assures me as we climb to the top of the house. "The longer you are welcome in someone else's territory, the less itchyit becomes. Onatah visits me frequently with few problems, you'll note."

One more thing to fix, I decide.We’ll be visiting her, too.Onatah can't be the only one experiencing discomfort for friendship.

We end up in one of the rooms graced with a pointy gable. The balcony it lets out onto is just large enough for two humanshaped folks, or one dragonshaped one. The stone balustrade is covered with deep claw marks, and I'd guess this is where generations of Tudors have made their first, fumbling attempts at flight.

Oh man.

Flight.

I've seen Dav in his dragonform a few times now. Sometimes he'll transform and flop all over me like a blood-warm, scaly St. Bernard. But I've never seen him as a crimson blur against the high, bright blue of the sky. I want to see that so bad. It'd be cool.

The rest of the room is exactly what Dav called it—a nursery.

A bucolic scene of idyllic Welsh countryside, replete with fuzzy lambs frolicking in the meadows and hedgerows, is painted on one wall. It looks like something one of the great Romantics might have created. As dragons do have the ability to annex anyone whose talents they value, it's possible that maybe one of them did. There's a rocking chair, a changing table, a low bookcase already crammed with well-loved board books and new stuffed animals. The floor is covered with soft, fuzzy carpets that look like they might be the end result of those lambs on the wall.

The only way in which this nursery is different is that there’s no crib.

Instead, tucked into a recess built right into the chimney stack, separated from the hearth by a thick brick wall is, yes, a nest. It's low to the ground so any tumble from the deep arched alcove won't damage an egg or hatchling, but not so low that anyone can kick the egg by mistake. Dav pulls me over to sit on one of the poufs piled around the opening. The fire to the left of the nest is limpid, and Dav gently works it to get the flames leaping again.

Inside the alcove, a bundle of fragrant straw and woolen fluff holds the lady of the hour snuggly in place. There's a sort of prop under all the stuff, like a breakfast egg-cup, but porcelain and intricately painted to match the mural.

As for the egg itself, it looks perfectly, well,normal.

It's oval, and about the size of a newborn baby. Propped up on its fat bottom, it’s creamy white, shot through with marbled veins of gold and red.

"It's…she'sbeautiful."

"You can touch her, if you like. She should know your smell."

"She can smell me through the shell?"