Yogurt

Chapter 43: Dragon Hatchling

The egg hatched on a perfectly ordinary morning, halfway through breakfast, which seemed a very rude way to treat such an extraordinary event. There was a crack, sharp as a snapping twig. Mirabel dropped her spoon. Svend dropped his entire bowl. Then there was another crack, and a tiny claw poked through the shell, followed by a tiny snout, followed by the tiniest sneeze, which promptly set a corner of the nest blanket on fire.

It was a full year earlier than any dragon egg had a right to hatch. “Half human,” Svend whispered in awe as he patted out the flames. “Impatient. Just like you.”

“Just like me?” Mirabel squeaked, but she was already on her knees by the nest, laughing and crying all at once.

The little hatchling wriggled free of the last of its shell and blinked up at them. Its scales were the deep blue-green of a mountain lake, as if Svend’s emerald and Mirabel’s sapphire had been stirred together in one pot, with delicate amethyst edging its tiny wings. It was no bigger than a loaf of bread (Mirabel immediately thought of it that way, of course), and when it opened its eyes, they were amethyst. Mirabel’s eyes.

They were ecstatic. They were exhausted. They were completely, hopelessly in love. They had also, they realized about an hour later, made absolutely no plans for how to hide a baby dragon from Mirabel’s very large, very nosy family.

That very afternoon, Mirabel’s mother, Ella, dropped by unannounced with a loaf of bread and two of Mirabel’s younger siblings in tow. Svend scooped up the hatchling and stuffed it in the bread box. The bread box began to smoke. “Burnt toast!” Svend shouted, fanning wildly. Then the bread box chirped. “Bird in the chimney!” Mirabel added, a touch too loudly. Ella gave them both a long, motherly look, set down her bread, and left with the distinct air of a woman who had decided some things were better not asked about.

Everett was not so easily put off.

The next morning he let himself in early, as usual, and found the hatchling curled up asleep in Mirabel’s mixing bowl. It woke at the sound of his footsteps, yawned a little puff of smoke, and looked up at him with enormous amethyst eyes. Everett looked at the baby. Then he looked at his sister, standing frozen in the kitchen doorway. Then he looked very carefully at his sister’s eyes.

And suddenly, all the pieces fell into place. The sweltering cottage. The hissing lullabies. Svend blowing smoke on the egg. Gregory carrying a whole tree on one shoulder. The way Mirabel had loved that “exotic egg” like… well, like a mother.

“You’re dragons,” Everett breathed. “All of you. And that is not some egg you found on the road. That’s your baby.”

Svend opened his mouth. Then closed it. Then opened it again. His blood oath to the council meant he could not tell a human he was a dragon, but technically, he hadn’t told anyone anything. Everett had figured it out all on his own. So Svend simply nodded. Very, very enthusiastically.

Mirabel let out a long breath. She was bound by no such oath, and she was tired of keeping secrets from her favorite brother. “Sit down, Ev,” she said gently. “This is going to take a while. I’ll get the yogurt.”

Over a big bowl of homemade yogurt, drizzled with honey and cinnamon (the human wise woman had been right about that much, at least), Mirabel told him everything. The blacksmith’s house. The “special tea.” The dragon blood, the first scales, the day she set Svend’s pants on fire and couldn’t stop laughing. Everett listened with his mouth hanging open, spoon forgotten, while the baby dragon crawled into his lap and fell fast asleep.

When she finished, Everett was quiet for a long moment. Then he looked up with a gleam in his eye that Mirabel recognized all too well.

“So,” he said. “About that tea…”

Svend choked on his yogurt. This is the yogurt that they ate.