Light Dragons 01 - Love in the Time of Dragons

asked.
    “Lots and lots of transcribing,” I said, sighing. “We’re expected to copy out vast compendiums of arcanery, most of which are bizarre things that no one in their right mind cares about anymore. There are some useful things to be learned, like how to wield arcane destructive spells, but those come to more advanced apprentices. Ones at my level spend their days perfecting their wart removal spells, and ways to make a person’s ears unstop. Last week—or rather, the last week I remember—I ran across the mention of a really rocking spell to make a person’s eyebrows spontaneously combust.”
    “Wow,” May said, an odd expression on her face.
    “I know. Underwhelming, right?” I sighed and glanced at my watch. “Someday I’ll get to the good stuff, but until then . . . I should be going now. Brom, I expect you to behave yourself with Maata, and not give her any trouble.”
    He made a face as I grabbed my purse, but his eyes lit up when I tucked a few bills into his shirt pocket.
    “Don’t forget, the sárkány is at three,” May said as I ruffled his hair.
    There was a slight undertone of warning to that, a fact I acknowledged with a nod as I left the dining room.
    I’m not quite sure what sort of a reception I was expecting from Dr. Kostich, but I assumed he would express some sort of pleasure that I was once again amongst the cognizant.
    “Oh. It’s you,” was the greeting I received, however. He looked over a pair of reading glasses at me, a frown pulling his eyebrows together, his pale blue eyes as cold as an iceberg.
    “Good morning, sir. Good morning, Jack.”
    “Hi, Tully. Glad to see you’re up and about again. You scared the crap out of us when you just keeled over a month ago.” My fellow apprentice Jack, a young man in his mid-twenties, with a freckled, open face, wild red hair, and a friendly nature that reminded me of a puppy, grinned for a few seconds before some of the chill seeped off of our boss.
    As Dr. Kostich’s gimlet eye turned upon him, Jack lowered his gaze back to a medieval grimoire from which he was making notes.
    “Thanks. I have no idea why the fugue struck me just then and not in October, as it should have, but I am very sorry for any inconvenience it’s caused you,” I told Kostich.
    He tapped a few keys on the laptop before him and pushed his chair back, giving me a thorough once-over. I had to restrain myself from fidgeting under the examination, avoiding his eye, glancing around the living room of the suite he always booked when he was in London. Everything looked the same as when I had left it some five weeks before, everything appeared normal, but something was clearly wrong.
    “I have been in contact with the silver wyvern, whom I believe you are currently staying with,” he said finally, gesturing abruptly toward a cream and rose Louis XIV chair. I sat on the edge of it, feeling as if I had been sent to the principal’s office. “He informed me of a number of facts that I have found infinitely distressing.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that. I hope that perhaps I can explain some of the circumstances and relieve you of that distress,” I said, wishing I didn’t sound so stilted.
    “I have little hope that will happen,” Kostich said, steepling his fingers. “The wyvern informed me that you are not, in fact, a simple apprentice as you represented yourself.”
    I glanced over at Jack. His head was bent over the grimoire, but he watched me, his gaze serious. “You know, Gabriel is a nice guy and everything, but he and May have some really wild ideas. I don’t hold with them at all,” I said quickly, just in case he thought to wonder about my mental status. Lord knows I was doing enough of that for both of us.
    “In fact, the wyvern tells me that you are a dragon, and were once a member of his sept,” Kostich continued just like I hadn’t said a word.
    I flinched inwardly at the grim look on his face. I knew from the rants he’d made over the past year that Kostich did not like dragons very much. “Like I said, wild ideas. He’s wrong, of course. Everyone can see I’m human!”
    “No,” he said, taking me by surprise. “That you are not. You appear human, yes, but you are not one. I knew that when you applied for apprenticeship.”
    “You did?” I had a feeling my eyes were bugging out in surprise. I blinked a few times to try to get the stupefied expression off my face. “Why didn’t you say something to me?”
    He