Baking Bad--A Cozy Mystery (With Dragons) by Kim M. Watt

Author:Kim M. Watt [Watt, Kim M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kim M. Watt

Mortimer came back down to the lake as it got dark. The water had taken on the colours of the sunset sky above it, a delicate pale grey shot through with apricot and gold. There were clouds sneaking around the horizon, hinting at rain to come, but for now the air was cool and clear and full of the sounds of night creatures emerging. He landed among the boulders and padded through the smooth rocks until he found the High Lord, stretched out on his belly on the sun-warmed stone, his gold eyes half-closed and his front paws folded under his chin.

“Um, sir?” Mortimer said. Sometimes he still didn’t know how to address Beaufort. There were days when the old dragon felt like an over-enthusiastic child, racing from one idea to the next and throwing himself into each with wild abandon and little thought for the consequences. On others … Well, on others he was the High Lord. Older than anyone could exactly say, with a scar on his shoulder from a knight’s lance and claw marks on his belly from a cowardly challenger who had set upon him while he slept. There were more battle scars than the old dragon could remember how he’d come by, so he made up stories to thrill the hatchlings, stories of krakens and trolls and giants.

He’d outlived the cause of every twisted ridge of scar tissue. He’d watched villages become towns, towns become cities, cities spread and grow and sprawl. He’d seen cart tracks become roads that burrowed across the land, watched humans take to the air and the sea and beyond. He’d watched his own kind and others fade and shrink and even die out, while the humans rose, and rose, and rose.

Sometimes it exhausted Mortimer to even think about the passage of all those long years, to imagine waking morning after morning, to look out on sunset after sunset, to deal with squabbling dragons, and trade disagreements with dwarfs, and arguments with dryads over wood, over and over and over. Sometimes he couldn’t understand how the old dragon kept going. And sometimes he understood perfectly why Beaufort treasured scones with cream and jam, and the perfect joy of a good cup of tea.

“Hello, lad,” Beaufort said, not moving from his spot.

“Ah, hello. Um, have you eaten?”

“I’ve been thinking.”

Well, that didn’t sound good. “Have you?” he said, trying not to sound too anxious. Many things came of the High Lord’s thinking, but in Mortimer’s opinion they were mostly chaotic and rather alarming things, such as wearing dog costumes to sneak into the Toot Hansell Christmas market.

“Yes. Maybe we need to involve everyone more.”

“Oh. In what, exactly?”

“Well, I know you have Amelia and now young Gilbert helping with the baubles and so on, but maybe we could get some more dragons interested. Kind of a community effort.”

Mortimer had visions of Walter glowering as he tried to shape one of the delicate baubles that bloomed into floating flowers when they were lit, and shuddered. “It takes a, um, certain touch.

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