Whale Mail by Patty Jansen

Author:Patty Jansen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Patty Jansen

Chapter 14

During the rest of the day, Perrin did his inspections and then made another tour of the warehouses, but no matter how much he pleaded, he found no one to transport a dragon.

Well, he was really stuck in a corner with this beast, because no one wanted it, but no one wanted to help him move the beast back to where it belonged either. And the longer he waited, the more attractive the mayor’s idea of keeping the beast in a zoo would seem to some people, and, knowing the dragon as well as he did, he was absolutely sure that wouldn’t end well.

He could wait until Grandmaster Yorick of Solania finally took an interest in the creature that was legally his, but Perrin suspected that he was beneath that man’s attention and Solania had rather too many dragons already and they didn’t feel particularly worried that one of them was creating havoc elsewhere.

The dragon was quite literally his problem, and he suspected he would need to employ some trickery to get it out of the city.

On his way out of the building in the afternoon, Verbena came to him. He smiled at her. He kind of missed working with Verbena as he had during the dressmakers’ fair.

She said, “You look miserable. Is everything all right?”

“Work is hard,” he said.

“Tell me about it. And trying to work while there is so much going on at home.”

Perrin was hesitant to ask further.

Verbena was a nice kid, who didn’t deserve her recklessly living sister.

Apparently, the latest man and father of impending child number eight had tried to kick Verbena out of the house.

And Verbena demanded that he leave or she would leave and take the older children. Perrin heard there had been a huge fight on the street before the eyes of all. It was all such a sordid story that he felt uncomfortable asking about it, even if she didn’t appear to feel embarrassed. The Verbena who lived with her sister in the harbour district was so different from the one he knew at the Bureau.

While they walked down the stairs, Verbena again asked why he was so miserable.

“I’m still dealing with that dragon,” Perrin said.

“Still?” she laughed. “I thought you put it on the train?”

“Yes, and it half destroyed the carriage and frightened the workers, so they refused to carry it any further.”

“Just like the truck?”

“Yes, sadly.”

“But how are you going to return it to Solania?”

“That is the big question, isn’t it? The trucks won’t carry it. It’s too big for a truck now anyway, and the trains won’t carry it.”

“How about you just let it go? It might find its own way back.”

“Dragons are loyal to the place where they grew up. This one hatched from an egg in the warehouse at the back of the meat works.”

“Oh.” She frowned. “Don’t your books have any suggestions?”

She meant Atreyo’s books of magic. The ones he’d gone to retrieve from Mirella’s house when the previous, illegal, owner of the dragon had tried selling dragon meat in her inn.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.