The wizard's tower looked like it had been halfway kicked over by a bored god and then forgotten. The top leaned at an angle that defied geometry, ethics, and most local building codes. Moss climbed the stones like it wanted to put the place out of its misery. One of the gargoyles had collapsed and was now being used as a chicken roost.
Perfect.
"Are we really doing this?" the Dragon grumbled, tail flicking as he squinted up at the crooked spire.
"Unless you want to sacrifice another chunk of your divine ass to the hag," I said, adjusting my cloak, "yes."
He grunted.
At the gate, a rusted bell rope hung from a warped wooden frame carved with protective runes that had mostly faded into 'please don't sue me.'
I yanked it.
The bell made a sound like a goat sneezing into a bucket. Something thudded upstairs. Then clanked. Then cackled.
Finally, the door creaked open just enough to reveal a man-shaped collection of robes, beard, and suspicion. His hair was wild, eyebrows wilder. His expression was that of a man perpetually caught between discovering great truths and misplacing his own socks.
He looked at me.
Then looked at the Dragon.
Then back at me.
"Roit," he said, voice thick with West Country gravel. "Tell me summat."
I smiled sweetly. "Of course."
"You seriously askin' me—me!—to conjure up a fake dragon scale… while standin' right there… next to a full-grown, breathin', stink-eyed, hoofin' great real one?"
The Dragon snorted.
"I am," I said brightly.
He stared. Long and hard.
Then looked at the Dragon again. Squinted.
Dragon gave a small nod, regal and slow. The kind that said yes, I exist, get on with it.
The wizard took a shaky step back.
"Roit. Okay. Right. No, that's fine. I just… need a second."
He closed the door.
A click.
A pause.
A distant shout from inside: "MAUDE! THEY'RE BACK AGAIN! BRING ME THE GOOD SPOON!"
I blinked. "Back?"
The Dragon muttered, "He's unhinged."
"I like him."
The door creaked open again. This time wider. The wizard stepped out, wringing his hands around a crooked wand that looked like it had once been a table leg.
He looked at me.
Then at the Dragon.
Then at the wand.
Then back at me.
"You're not a hallucination, are you?"
"I don't think so."
"Because I've had a nasty one 'bout a banshee tax auditor. Looked like you. Sounded like her too."
"Charming."
He nodded, mostly to himself.
"You talk too much to be from my head."
Then turned to the Dragon.
"You then. Real?"
The Dragon exhaled smoke.
The wizard coughed.
"Yep. Tha's real. Chest burnin', eye-waterin' real."
He pointed at me, still squinting. "You two married?"
I coughed. "Gods, no."
"Betrothed?"
"No."
"Business partners?"
The Dragon rumbled: "Circumstantial alliance between a bankrupt demigod and a sentient raccoon wearing bangles."
I elbowed him.
The wizard nodded thoughtfully.
"Aye, that tracks."
Then he shuffled back inside.
"Well, come on then. No promises. But I'll see if I still remember the spellbook an' where I put me bloody spectacles."
The door creaked open wide, revealing stairs that looked even more untrustworthy than the man inviting us up them.
I looked at the Dragon. He stared back.
"Ladies first," he said.
"If this place collapses," I muttered, stepping in, "I'm blaming the crow."
The tower's interior was about what you'd expect from a man who thought leaning was a lifestyle.
Every surface was covered in scrolls, dusty grimoires, half-melted candles, and things in jars that blinked when you got too close. A goat was asleep on the third step of the staircase. Possibly dead. Possibly enchanted. Possibly both.
We followed the wizard inside as he muttered to himself and rummaged through a pile of cracked leather satchels, cobwebbed crates, and something that squeaked when stepped on.
He pulled out a long green bottle with no label and a cork that looked like it had been gnawed on.
"Aha!" he cried. "Thought I'd lost you."
He uncorked it with his teeth, tilted it back, and took a good, long, heroic swig.
The smell that hit me could have peeled bark off a dryad.
Dragon raised one brow. "Is that… fermented wyrmroot?"
"Could be," the wizard coughed. "Could also be lantern oil. Either way—clears the brain like a blow to the noggin."
He blinked. Looked at us again.
Then blinked harder.
"You're still here?"
"Yes," I said carefully.
He pointed at the Dragon. "And you're real?"
"Yes," the Dragon said, exhaling a thin stream of smoke that singed a nearby curtain.
The wizard didn't even flinch. He just swigged again and nodded.
"Right. So not a hallucination. Unless I'm double dreaming. That happens sometimes. Woke up once, still in the same dream. Took me three days to escape and I never looked at soup the same way again."
He sat down heavily on a stool that squeaked like it wanted to quit its job.
"Okay. Let's try this again. From the top. Slowly. With nouns."
I grinned. "We need you to make us a fake dragon scale."
"A faux scale," Dragon added helpfully.
The wizard stared at us like we'd just asked him to paint a portrait of time using mayonnaise.
"Right," he said. "Right. Yes. Very clear. Except… why?"
"Long story," I said.
"I got time. You got madness."
"Let's say it's for a hag."
He raised an eyebrow.
"A swamp hag?"
"Yes."
"Does she smell like frogs and existential failure?"
"Very much."
He whistled low. "You're in trouble."
"Which is why," I said slowly, "I need you to fake a scale."
He leaned back. Looked at the Dragon again.
"You mean his scale."
"No," I said.
"Yes," Dragon said.
We looked at each other.
"No!" I snapped. "Not his! A fake one! Something that looks like it could have come from him. But didn't."
The wizard blinked. "But… you have a dragon."
"Yes."
He gestured wildly. "So just pluck one off his bum and dye it purple or somethin'!"
"I did that," I said. "Already used five of them in a trade. Didn't work out."
"You what?!"
"Long story."
He stared at me. Then at the Dragon. Then back.
"You're tellin' me," he said slowly, "that you have a genuine, living, slightly cranky, prime brood dragon… and you're here askin' me, a half-retired spell-slinger with a gammy knee and a tower full o' rodents in hats, to conjure a bloody fake scale while yer sittin' next to the real deal?"
I smiled. "Yes."
He looked at the bottle. Looked at me.
"…I'm hallucinating. That's what this is. You're not real. Neither of you. I'm havin' a stress episode brought on by mold and wizard gout."
He took another swig.
"You know what? Maybe if I keep drinkin' I'll blink and you'll be gone."
We didn't move.
He sighed.
"All right," he muttered. "You want a fake scale. You insist on a fake scale. You're sittin' next to a dragon who literally grows them, and you—" he pointed at me— "you're lookin' me in the eye and sayin', 'No thank you, I'd like a cheap magical counterfeit, please and thank you, wizard sir.'"
"Yes."
He stared at the Dragon.
"You're just lettin' her do this?"
"I've learned not to interfere in her idiocy. It only encourages escalation."
The wizard buried his face in his hands.
"Mauuude," he howled toward the stairwell. "Bring me my headache candle and the soul clay. The idiot's brought friends again."
The wizard had started muttering to himself as he rifled through a trunk labeled "Absolutely Do Not Open (Maude I Mean It)". Scrolls, bones, broken wands, what looked like a half-melted wax replica of someone's ex. The usual.
I leaned casually against a shelf, watching him dig like a badger with trauma.
"Also," I said, "the scale should resemble a specific bloodline."
He froze.
Slowly turned his head.
"…What d'you mean, specific?"
I smiled. "You know. Aesthetic match. Color. Pattern. Implied grandeur."
He narrowed one eye. "What… kind of grandeur?"
Dragon, still lounging in the corner like a giant cat who ate his own reputation, added helpfully:
"Imperial. Judgmental. Theatrically terrifying."
The wizard stood fully upright now. Not twitching. Not joking.
Just pale.
"Who exactly are we pretending the scale came from?" he asked, very quietly.
I looked him dead in the eye.
"Aunt Threxaval."
There was a long, long silence.
Then he dropped the scrolls in his hands.
And staggered back three full steps.
"NO. Nope. Absolutely not. No way. Not doin' it."
I blinked. "Wait—"
"Are you MAD?" he bellowed. "You want me to fake a scale… from her? From Auntie Fuckin' Threxaval?!"
Dragon sighed. "She is not called that."
"She bloody is in this tower!" he snapped, flailing wildly at the room like the air itself might report him. "I don't even write her name down! I refer to her as The Unutterable Elegant One in footnotes!"
I blinked. "You know her?"
"I fear her! Same thing!"
He paced in a tight circle, muttering to himself, hands flapping.
"Mad. I've gone mad. This is a stress dream. I'm actually passed out in the bath again. Maude! If this is a fever coma, stab me awake!"
"No coma," I said, crossing my arms. "Just us."
"YOU—" he pointed at me, "—you want me to conjure a forgery of a scale from the single most judgmental draconic entity in existence. A being who graded an empire's collapse and rejected it for poor structure!"
"Yes."
"While you're standing there—" he pointed at the Dragon, "—the world's most obvious source of the real thing!"
"She's picky," Dragon muttered.
"She's omnipicky!"
He staggered to the table. Grabbed the bottle. Swigged. Wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Then blinked hard.
"…Nope. You're still here. Definitely not a vision."
"I told you."
He looked at me. Then Dragon. Then me again.
Then flopped into a chair with the sigh of a man who'd just realized his insurance doesn't cover divine retaliation.
"Roit," he muttered. "Okay. So let me get this straight, one more time, for the dead ghosts listenin' in me walls."
He ticked it off on his fingers.
"One. You want me to conjure a fake dragon scale."
"Yes."
"Two. You have a real dragon."
"Correct."
"Three. You're not using his scales."
"Already tried. Didn't work."
"Four. The scale needs to match Aunt Threxaval's lineage."
"Roughly."
"Five. You're not joking, high, cursed, or sufferin' from head trauma."
"Not today."
He stared at me. Long and hollow.
"…You're all insane."
"Yes," Dragon said.
"But we're very committed."
The wizard took one last swig from the bottle like a condemned man toasting his own execution, then wiped his mouth with the sleeve of a robe that had seen too many experiments and not enough laundry.
He rolled his neck. Cracked his knuckles. Spat into the fireplace.
"Right then," he muttered. "Let's summon us a pretty lie."
I gave him a polite half-step of distance.
The Dragon shifted behind me, wings rustling.
"You sure about this?" I asked.
"Not even slightly," he replied. "But I'm curious what kind of mistake it'll be."
The wizard had drawn a crude summoning circle in chalk and bits of what might've been dried herbs or old toenails. Candles lit themselves. The room darkened. A breeze blew in from nowhere.
He chanted something that made my molars ache. The floor buzzed. The stone hissed.
For a moment, I thought it was working.
Then the summoning circle pulsed—once—and something wet hit the air.
I felt it before I saw it.
That smell.
Ink. Mold. Paper cuts that never healed.
"No," I breathed.
The air ripped open.
And it slithered through.
A humanoid maggot.
Six feet tall. No face, just a stitched-on smile.
Ribbed flesh glistening with some dark slime.
Draped in a half-burnt scholar's robe, crawling with parasitic footnotes.
Its hands were fingers—all fingers.
It turned toward me.
And hissed:
"REDACTED."
"OH NOPE," I screamed, already backing toward the door. "Absolutely not. Not again!"
The Dragon growled, stepped forward, and unleashed a plume of fire that could've melted a small castle.
It hit the maggot square in the chest.
For a second, I felt hope.
Then the maggot split.
Wetly.
Now there were two of them. Smaller. Meaner. Faster.
They both turned their too-wide smiles toward me.
"Appendix…" one whispered.
"Index…" the other cooed.
Wizard paled. "Maude!" he shrieked. "They're back! Get the net! GET THE NET!"
I bolted.
No hesitation. No thinking.
Just raw, primal flight.
Out the tower. Down the goat-path. Nearly tripped on the dead or enchanted goat. Didn't care.
Behind me, I heard the Dragon curse, then the thunder of his wings.
More screams. More wet hissing. More chanting.
"WHY DO YOU EVEN HAVE THAT SPELL," the Dragon yells at the wizard.
"I THOUGHT IT WAS THE SCALE ONE!" the wizard squeaks.
"You IDIOT!"
"IT HAD A PICTURE OF A LIZARD ON THE COVER!"
I kept running.
Maggots didn't follow.
Maybe Maude got the net.
Maybe they went back to the Library of Urveth.
Maybe they decided we weren't properly annotated.
Didn't care.
I didn't stop until I was halfway down the mountain and the sky had the decency to blush in embarrassment.
I collapsed into a patch of moss, gasping, shaking.
The Dragon landed next to me with a grunt.
"Well," he said after a long silence, "at least we didn't get a singing scale."
I glared at him.
Then lay back, stared at the clouds, and muttered:
"I swear to all the gods, if the crow shows up and says 'nice panic,' I'm eating him."