Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies

Chapter 44: Dragon Naming 

For three whole days, the baby dragon did not have a name, and it was beginning to cause problems.

Svend called her “my little ember.” Mirabel called her “sweet pea.” Everett, who had appointed himself chief uncle, chief babysitter, and chief taste tester all at once, called her “Biscuit,” which she seemed to like best of all, which annoyed Svend tremendously.

“She cannot be called Biscuit,” Svend declared over breakfast. “She is a dragon! She needs a name with fire in it. A name that makes mountains tremble. Something like Vulkara. Or Blazewing. Or—”

“She is not going to be called Blazewing,” Mirabel said, without even looking up from her porridge. “She’s half human, and she’s going to grow up next to a village. She needs a gentle name. Something peaceful. Like Rose. Or Willa.”

The baby, who was perched on the edge of the table gnawing on a crust of bread, sneezed. A tiny ball of flame shot across the table and singed the corner of Mirabel’s list of names. Svend looked smug. Then the baby crawled into Mirabel’s lap, curled into a ball, and began to purr. Mirabel looked smug.

Everett looked back and forth between them. “So she’s… both?”

Svend went very still. Then a slow smile spread across his face. “Ildri,” he said softly. “It is an old name from the north, older than the council itself. It means fire and peace.”

“Ildri,” Mirabel repeated, tasting it like a new recipe. Fire and peace. A little dragon and a little girl, all at once. It fit her as if it had been waiting for her all along. The baby (Ildri, now and forever) opened one amethyst eye at the sound and puffed out a contented curl of smoke.

“Ildri,” Everett agreed. “But I’m still calling her Biscuit.”

They did not get long to celebrate. There was a brisk knock at the door, and then it swung open before anyone could answer, because only one person in the whole village knocked like that. “Mirabel? It’s Mother! I brought you some of your father’s honey!”

Svend lunged for the bread box. Mirabel threw herself in front of it. “Not the bread box!” she hissed. “She remembers the bread box!” In a panic, Everett scooped Ildri up, stuffed her down the front of his coat, and buttoned it right up to his chin just as Ella bustled into the kitchen.

It went well for almost a full minute. Ella set down her honey. Ella asked how the new cottage in the clearing was coming along. Everett answered politely, sweating more and more by the second, because it turns out that holding a baby dragon against your chest is a lot like hugging a loaf of bread straight out of the oven. Then Ildri hiccupped, and a thin ribbon of smoke curled up out of Everett’s collar.

Ella’s eyes narrowed. “Everett. Have you taken up a pipe?”

Everett looked at Mirabel. Mirabel looked at Svend. Svend looked at the ceiling. “…Yes?” Everett squeaked.

What followed was the longest, sternest lecture Everett had received since he was nine years old, covering the evils of tobacco, the foolishness of boys who think they’re grown men, and exactly what his father would have to say about it. Everett endured it with as much dignity as a boy can muster while a dragon chews on his shirt buttons. When Ella finally paused for breath, she reached into her basket, pulled out a tiny knitted blanket, soft and blue-green as a mountain lake, and set it on the table.

“For that bird in your chimney,” she said sweetly. “It sounds like it might get a little chilly in there.” And she left, with the distinct air of a woman who knew a great deal more than she was letting on.

The moment the door shut, all three of them collapsed into chairs. Ildri wriggled out of Everett’s coat, slightly singed and extremely pleased with herself. “We cannot keep doing this,” Mirabel groaned. “Next time she’ll set Mother’s hair on fire.”

“Then perhaps,” Svend said thoughtfully, “it is time we took her somewhere she does not have to hide.”

Mirabel sat up straight. The dragon caves above Fiora’s village. Euphemia, who had taught her how to hold the bridge between her two worlds, and who was still owed something sweet. The other dragons, who had not seen a brand new hatchling in a very long time. And Fiora and Leoric, with little Leif and Elara, who had a new cousin to meet, even if that part of the visit would require some very creative hiding.

They decided right then and there: as soon as Ildri was big enough to ride on Svend’s back without tumbling off, they would fly to the mountains. Svend began packing immediately, even though the trip was weeks away. Mirabel began planning what to bake for Euphemia. Everett announced that he was coming too.

“You can’t fly, Ev,” Mirabel pointed out gently.

“Not yet,” said Everett. And there it was again, that gleam in his eye. “About that tea…”

“No,” said Svend.

“You haven’t even heard—”

“The council would turn my scales into a doormat.”

“But Kenric did it,” Everett pressed. “And Nova. Mir told me the whole story. They baked the blood into rolls so it wasn’t so disgusting. I’m a baker! I could bake it into something. And Mir isn’t bound by any oath. She said so herself.”

Every head in the kitchen turned slowly toward Mirabel. She thought about how lost her brother had been before he came to her kitchen, and how hard he had worked ever since. She thought about how much she would have given, once, for someone to simply explain the strange and wonderful thing that was happening to her. And she thought about Ildri, who would grow up between two worlds, and how lovely it might be for her to have an uncle who understood.

“One batch,” she said at last. “Just to start. And if anything strange happens, anything at all, you tell me right away.”

Svend put his hands over his eyes. “I see nothing. I know nothing. If anyone asks, I was in the smithy.”

Everett was already pulling out the butter. He made a soft, sweet shortbread dough, rolled it into little balls, and pressed his thumb into the middle of each one. Mirabel pricked her finger with a paring knife and let three drops fall into a pot of raspberry jam, stirring until no one could tell where the berries ended and the dragon began. Just like Nova’s cranberry, the tart raspberry swallowed up any hint of salt and iron. Everett spooned a glistening ruby dollop into every thumbprint, and into the oven they went.

When they came out, golden and jewel-bright, Everett ate one. Then he held out his arms and stared at them, waiting. Nothing happened. He ate another. Still nothing.

“How long did it take you?” he asked.

“A long time,” Mirabel said. “Longer than two cookies.”

Everett considered this. Then he ate a third, just to be safe.

Ildri, who seemed to think the cookies smelled wonderfully familiar, waddled across the table and tried to steal the fourth. These are the cookies that they ate.