The Blood of a Dragon

Epilogue

Sella looked up as Teneria entered.

“Good to see you back safely,” she said. “Come for your things?”

Teneria nodded. She had learned years ago never to be surprised by Sella’s conversational leaps. And she had, in fact, come to collect her belongings and move back to Fishertown-she could finish up her apprenticeship later. Right now, she did not want to live under Sella’s roof, where she would be reminded of her failure.

“Have you decided what you’ll be doing with yourself, now that you’re a journeyman?” Sella asked.

“But I’m not...” Teneria said, startled. “I mean, I didn’t bring Dumery back!”

“Oh, nonsense,” Sella told her, waving away such details. “You found him, and he got home safely, and he’s given up his half-witted schemes and taken a respectable apprenticeship with a jeweler, so who cares if you didn’t actually come home with him? And he says it was your magic brought him home so quickly, though of course we both know that’s not true.”

“He said that?” Teneria stared.

Sella nodded.

Teneria considered that for a moment, then shrugged. The boy might have done it to make up for the trouble he had caused her, but more likely it was part of some scheme he had devised, intended to distract his parents from something. “Dumery,” she said. “Ha. I’m glad to be done with him.”

Sella smiled understandingly.

“Mistress...” Teneria began. Sella held up a hand, cutting her off.

“Not any more,” she said. “You’re not an apprentice any more.”

Teneria smiled. “That’s right. Sella, then. Sella, do you know anything about warlockry?” As a puzzled frown crept across the older witch’s face, Teneria noticed a pair of bulging eyes peering around a curtain.

“Or spriggans?” she added.