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“Since when does a dragon have two heads?” Athos wanted to know. “They’re bad enough with one. Most dragons have fangs that are longer than my arms. The last thing we need right now is to deal with a dragon with twice as many fangs. It must be a mistake.”

  Breslin looked at Tristofer. “You’re the scholar. I know you told us your field of study focused primarily on Nar, but you must have at least heard of a two headed dragon, right?”

  Tristofer sadly shook his head. “Not once in all of my studies, readings, or teachings have I ever heard of a dragon with two heads. I’m sorry, my friends. I cannot help you there.”

  “What do we do?” Venk asked. “We’ve come this far. We can’t give up now.”

  “Our next course of action is simple,” Breslin informed everyone. “We must find ourselves a dragon and ask them about this. If this unique dragon does exist then I would think another dragon would have heard of it, or perhaps even tell us where we can find it.”

  “How do you propose we do that?” Venk asked.

  “Do what? Find a dragon? That’s easy. We return home. You can’t walk ten paces in our valley and not see signs of a dragon.”

  Lukas was crestfallen. They had to walk all the way back home before they could start the next leg of the journey? That would take days!

  “Don’t look so glum,” Athos told his nephew. “We know what we need to find. We just need to know where to look.”

  “But the two-headed dragon could be right around here!” Lukas complained. “It’ll take days to make it all the way home!”

  “True. We are a patient race, nephew. We’ll get there, just give it some time.”

  Just as they were about to depart from Lake Alpin, now known to be the confirmed home of the last band of nixies, Breslin stopped and turned back towards the water.

  “What is it?” Venk asked, automatically walking around Lukas to put himself in front of his son.

  “I thought I heard something. Splashing water. Anyone else hear that?”

  Athos nodded as he appeared at Breslin’s side. “More nixies?”

  Suddenly a small object floated to the surface. Did the nixies have something else to tell them?

  Tristofer was delighted.

  “It’s a book! It’s one of my books! How wonderful!”

  More objects surfaced. Whatever force the nixies had been using to hold Tristofer’s pilfered possessions underwater had now decided to let go. All of his items bobbed to the surface.

  “I’d get them now, while you can,” Breslin told the scholar. “Wait too long and they all may sink.”

  “But that means I’ll have to get... to get...”

  “Wet,” Breslin finished for him. He clapped a friendly hand on the scholar’s shoulder and tried to conceal his smile. “Better hurry.”

  With a muted curse, Tristofer stripped off his jacket and hurried into the water. He made it about five paces when the ground disappeared and he plopped straight down into the lake. Sputtering, cursing, and floundering as much as a recently caught fish that had been dropped on the ground, Tristofer managed to collect his belongings and dump them on the shore.

  “What now?” the sodden scholar asked. “It’ll be hours before everything is dry.”

  “We don’t have time for that,” Breslin informed him. “Just stow everything back in that jacket of yours and let’s continue on.”