“Some new faces here today,” Cassiopeia said as the meeting began.

Sam finished sitting down, putting his hands on the table. “I’m not going to waste time introducing you to each other,” he said. “If you want to know each other’s names, learn them when I’m not here.”

“We were speaking before you arrived, Sorcerer King,” said Mathilda the dragon, who wasn’t part of Ramona’s colony of dragons. She was from somewhere else in Kyaine, and had been an ally of his family since before Solomon had been born.

“I don’t care,” Sam told her. He wasn’t sure Mathilda was actually useful to him—she’d been the one who’d given Solomon the dragon artefact that had let them control some dragons to attack Three Hills, but it didn’t work anymore and she didn’t have anything else to give him. She’d insisted on having it back because it apparently looked pretty on her table or something, so Sam had given it to her so she’d shut up.

“Nor do I,” Mathilda informed him. “I was recently told of the importance humans place on small talk and was attempting it. But I see you take after your father, so let us begin. What do you want?”