“I didn’t realize you took me seriously,” I whispered, my back pressed against the stall door.
“Well, it’s as good a place as any, this place—Lo-Weez?” Morv said from their perch atop the toilet seat.
“Lowe’s,” I corrected.
“Mhm. This place radiates so much…humanenergy that it’s not even straightforward for them to detect that we’re here at all. Let alone listen in on our conversations.”
“So who are they?” I asked urgently, feeling my many repressed questions welling up, bursting to be asked, now that it finally appeared to be safe. “Where have they taken Mom? Andwhy? And whoareyou?”
“Woah there,” Morv said, eyes narrowing. “I can’t answer all of those questions. I can’t tell you everything, even if there’s no one listening. I do have certain rules I must andwillfollow, even when I’m not being watched. Assuming I even know the answers to your questions, anyway,” they added.
“Why’s that?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Then whatcanyou tell me?” I demanded.
“I can tell you whotheyare.”
I held my breath.
“There’s a group of dragons… something like a council. Or an administration. Who have rules they enforce, and orders they deliver, based on joint agreements.” Morv drew themself up slightly, as much as a dragon can while squatting over a toilet. “Contrary to popular belief, it’sbecausedragons are loners that we are so good at working together.”
“I didn’t know that there was a popular belief about that,” I said.
“Of course there is,” Morv scoffed. “The humans always characterize us aslonersandantisocialandviolentand—”
I cut them off. “I want to know about my mom.”
Morv cast me a sidelong look. “What if… instead. I tell youhowI’m allowed to speak to you.”
“What does that mean?”
“I have rules I need to follow. So in order to follow them, I need to speakaroundtopics. Orovertopics. Or… not at all. Or… say certain things, no matter what.”
“No. No. Tell me those things another time.” My voice was getting louder, and I pressed my hand into the stall door. “Just tell me about my mom!”
“Well then, I can tell you only this,” Morv said, a look in their eyes I couldn’t read. “I don’t know where she is, or how she is. I’m not important enough for that. I’m only important enough to watch you.”
“But why are you watching me?”
“To keep you safe.”
“Fromwho?”
“Let me correct you there.”
“From whom. Sorry.”
“No,” Morv said slowly. “Fromwhere.”
I stared. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
The lights in the bathroom suddenly went out—they must have been motion-sensored. But Morv didn’t move.
“It means I’ve already told you too much,” they said.
“So?”
“We’ve been in here too long already. It’s unlikely we’d be constipated at the same time for so long. We’ve got to go.”
“Where?”
“You can’t drive, can you?”
I gave them a sidelong glance; it was unnerving to remember that they could see in the dark, but also useful. “I’m thirteen.”
“Okay. And I’m fifteen.”
“I thought you were seventeen.”
All of a sudden we seemed closer in the dark.
“That’s what I meant.”
“Mhm.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Alright, alright, I’m fifteen! I lied, okay?”
“Okay. Why’d you lie?”
“So you’d take me more seriously. See me as… old.”
“I do see you as oldcompared to me,” I said, confused. “I mean—when I can see you.”
I could hear them shifting around in the dark. “Well, then I’ll let you in on one more secret.”
“What?”
“This is my test. To see if I’m deserving of the honor of full entry into the Dragonhood.”
“Thewhat?”
“The council. I mean, I’d be the lowest rung of member, but I’d still be a part of it. I’m supposed to protect you… to prove my worth. I’m protecting you above all. But there are other expectations on me at the same time.”
“Okay… ” I didn’t fully understand, but we were getting somewhere.
“But if you start driving off somewhere,safely, then I’ve got to go with you. Do you understand? Wherever you go, I need to be with you. It’s better if you tell me first where we’re going, of course, but that’s really it. And so if you were to go somewhere where it’s harder for the council to track us… ”
“I can’t tell if that’s a good thing. I mean, if what they want is to protect me?”
“Butthey’renot protecting you,Iam,” Morv said.
“Okay. If you say so.”
“And if you go somewhere they can’t track you, I can start to… tell you things it’s otherwise not possible for me to say.”
“And why would you do that for me? How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“I can’t prove anything to you. But your wellbeing directly relates to my ability to join the council.”
“Right, but why do you want to tell me things you’re not allowed to tell me?”
“I have another stake in this matter.”
There it was again, this strange aloofness, maturity, and distance Morv seemed to possess, at particular moments. It was almost stranger to think of them as only two years older than me, rather than four.
“And that stake is?”
“You know the answer to that question.”
I glared at them, hoping they could detect the exact level of my irritation even in the pitch black bathroom. “So where do I go?”
Morv sniffed. “I’ll get us lots of rubies before we go. Because I want you to bring me to the place with the most and the stinkiest humans you can think of.”
“Alright,” I said, and took a deep breath. “I’ll admit it: Mom did teach me how to drive. I can’t say I’m a great driver. But I can drive. I even have a fake ID. Mom said it was for emergencies.”
“I know,” Morv said in a tone of complete unconcern. “This knowledge was what the entire conversation we just had was relying upon.”
“Oh,” I said. “Okay. I won’t ask how you knew that. But—”
“Your fake license is under a magnet on the fridge.”
I blushed. “Um. So true.”
“Well?”
“Let’s go. We’re off to Disney World.”