CHAPTER 80

"She's been human for less than twenty-four hours. Though she has watched over mankind for centuries, it doesn't mean she understands them." Zel threw a look at Quetzalli. "I don't pretend to fully understand a dragon's supernatural biology, or the spell that transformed her. Fae magic is certainly a thing to behold, but so is a dragon. Her body is still acclimating to this form, and because some of her draconic traits have already manifested since her arrival, like the scales on her skin, it's possible other traits may push through the enchantment over time."

"So puberty for dragons, got it. Hey, can I ask you something? What do you know about Sulyvahn?"

"The dullahan?" She shrugged. "I haven't talked to him, actually. I've been too busy here."

"What about the others? I've seen him speaking with the centaurs and I wonder what he's been talking about."

"Oh? You have my curiosity. Why the sudden interest in him?"

Mike frowned. "The faerie queen knew we were coming and made sure we had a nasty welcome waiting for us. Naturally I assume he told her because he's a spy."

The centaur rolled her eyes. "Well, you weren't exactly being quiet about what you were doing or where you were going. Even if he did report to the faerie queen, you can hardly call what he did spying. If your neighbors could actually see what was happening in your front yard, even they would have known you were up to something, cause you built a small closet in the middle of your yard and then had a squad of magic rats chew a portal in it. So even if Sulyvahn is spying on you, you can't blame him for passing on information that you pretty much handed over."

"You sound like you're on his side." He hadn't expected Zel to lecture him about the dullahan, and his cheeks were now burning.

"He may be in your front yard, but he still answers to the queen. You can't be mad at him for siding with his boss, especially when you've made no effort to properly welcome him here."

"So he has been spying on us." He shook his head, wondering how he was going to get rid of the headless nuisance.

"If he is, he's only reporting what he sees. It's not like we answered a bunch of questions about you or the house." Zel crossed her arms. "In fact, the only thing he's really even talked about is the garden in the front yard."

"What about the garden?" Mike asked.

"He seems super into botany, but he keeps offering useless advice on those bushes near the front—the ones that keep getting sick and dying. I have some of our best botanists keeping your yard in good condition. They love tending to your plants, and it's their way of thanking you for letting us live here. He keeps offering up holistic approaches to your poor soil issues, and the centaurs just smile and nod for him because he's friendly."

"That's a little weird."

Zel nodded. "It is. He suggested planting iron spikes all around your bushes because it might loosen the soil, then told my top herbalist that a ring of salt might keep slugs away. You don't even have a slug problem, so we told him we would keep it in mind."

"A slug...problem..." Mike put his chin in his hand, his mind whirring through the possibilities. Why would the queen's spy become so involved with how he kept his yard? He hadn't liked the dullahan since he had arrived, but he knew now that he hadn't given him a fair shake. Now that he knew how nasty the queen could be, he thought back to Sulyvahn's warnings. Had the dullahan really been looking out for him?

"Ack! Pffft!"

A stray bit of hair had gotten stuck in Quetzalli's face, and she was actively trying to remove it. Unfortunately, it looked to be the hair of a centaur's tail, and she poked herself in the eye trying to pull the thing off her face.

"Hold still," he told her, then got a nasty zap for his efforts. He was able to peel the hair off her face, but when he let go of it, it floated back toward her and stuck to her belly.

"That's been a bit of an uphill battle," Zel informed him. "She fell into a hay bale earlier and it took us an hour to get it all out of her hair."

"It was unexpectedly itchy," Quetzalli added. "And I did not care for the flavor, either."

"You're not supposed to eat it." Zel let out an exasperated sigh. "And we don't eat it either. We use it to lie down and things like that."

"But I thought that horses ate hay?"

"Again, like I said before, we aren't horses. This part of me is like a horse, but that does not mean we're...you know what? It's fine." Zel looked back at Mike. "Now that your head isn't broken, you should probably get back to the house. The others are waiting for your return, and I'm sure Quetzalli would like to find out where her room is."

"I'm very curious to see the inside of a house," the dragon added. "I've even heard that you have running water inside of them, like a magic river."

"Just wait until I show you the internet," Mike said, then gave Zel a big hug. "Thanks for taking care of me."

"Try to stay out of trouble," she told him, then smiled. "But it was very nice to see you. Are you still coming to my ceremony?"

"I wouldn't miss it." He ran his hand along her cheek, then turned toward Quetzalli. "C'mon, let's get you home and figure out where you're sleeping."

"Am I not sleeping with you? I thought humans slept together?" She pressed her hands together, overlapping her fingers. "Does a family of humans sleep in a big ball, like this? I imagine there's an upper limit."