The Dragon's Dentist of Dunsmere

• Chapter 1 Cloves, Pumice, and Panic
• Chapter 2 The Royal Summons
• Chapter 3 The Shadow Over Mount Brimstone
• Chapter 4 Tools of Unconventional Trade
• Chapter 5 Up the Winding Crag
• Chapter 6 An Entrance of Smoke and Scowls
• Chapter 7 Ignis the Terrible's Toothache
• Chapter 8 The First Examination
• Chapter 9 Black Enamel and Brimstone
• Chapter 10 The Diagnosis of Dark Magic
• Chapter 11 Chamomile for a Scaled Beast
• Chapter 12 Whispers of Dunsmere's Court
• Chapter 13 The Midnight Alchemy of Pain Relief
• Chapter 14 Pliers, Pulleys, and Patience
• Chapter 15 A Grudging Truce
• Chapter 16 The Curse Revealed
• Chapter 17 Countdown to the Nuptials
• Chapter 18 A Recipe for Dragon Anesthetic
• Chapter 19 Smoke in the Surgery
• Chapter 20 The Extraction Begins
• Chapter 21 Roots of Malevolence
• Chapter 22 Out with the Bad
• Chapter 23 Soothing the Beast
• Chapter 24 A Golden Filling and a Grateful Roar
• Chapter 25 The Royal Procession
• Chapter 26 A Practice of One's Own

The mortal mouth, Barnaby Tuggs had long maintained, was an architectural catastrophe waiting to happen. Human beings possessed entirely too many nerves packed into far too little jawbone, and they insisted on subjecting the whole fragile arrangement to hot gruel, cracked walnuts, and hardened sugar spun from the colonies across the sea.

Barnaby inhaled deeply, bracing himself against the doorframe of Master Tobias Gromwell’s apothecary and surgery. The scent that met him was an old friend, though perhaps a rather suffocating one. It was the thick, medicinal warmth of crushed cloves and oil of wintergreen, underpinned by the dry, mineral bite of ground pumice stone and vinegar. To anyone else in the cobble-paved town of Dunsmere, the smell meant suffering, bloodletting, and the terrifying scrape of iron upon enamel. To Barnaby, it merely smelled like a Tuesday morning.

"Tuggs!" a voice barked from the depths of the rear examination room. It was accompanied by the rhythmic, grating sound of steel being rubbed against a whetstone. "Stop hovering like an errant ghoul and prepare the chalk paste. Mistress Hobb is due in twenty minutes, and her gums are notoriously intolerant of tardiness."

Barnaby tied his canvas apron around his waist with quick, nervous jerks, smoothing the front over his thin waistcoat. He was twenty-and-two, possessed of untamable sandy hair that perpetually smelled of peppermint, and possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of oral anatomy that far exceeded his confidence in applying it.

"Already on the pestle, Master Gromwell," Barnaby called back, though this was only an aspiration until he actively crossed the threshold to the heavy oak worktable.

The main chamber of the apothecary was a study in controlled clutter. Shelves groaned under rows of dark amber bottles, stoneware crocks sealed with bee’s wax, and bundles of dried yarrow and mint dangling from the low-beamed ceiling. A massive wooden barber-surgeon's chair occupied the center of the flagstone floor, padded in scuffed brown horsehide and fitted with leather straps that Barnaby tried not to look at before lunch. Near the window sat the display case, showcasing Master Gromwell’s prized collection of extracted curiosities: a petrified badger tooth, the hooked molar of an estuary hog, and a pair of walrus tusks that Gromwell swore were dragon canines whenever he wished to charge a wealthy merchant double for a scaling procedure.

Barnaby set to work. He measured out three heaping spoons of powdered chalk from the gray crock, followed by a pinch of crushed cuttlefish bone to act as an abrasive. Next came the oil of cloves—precisely four drops, dispensed from an amber dropper that shuddered slightly in his hand. If you used three, the patient complained of the sour taste; if you used five, their tongue went so utterly numb they could not articulate their gratitude when the agony stopped.

He gripped the marble pestle and began to grind the mixture in a steady, circular rhythm. The sound was rhythmic and soothing, scraping away at the perpetual flutter in his stomach.

Dunsmere was an anxious place this season. Three weeks remained until the Royal Nuptials, an event so grandiose that the entire kingdom seemed to have lost its collective wits. Princess Aurelia of the western valleys was to wed Prince Valen of Dunsmere, uniting two dynasties that had previously settled their trade disputes by throwing heavy stones at one another’s river barges. The wedding was intended to bring lasting peace, cheaper wheat, and an endless parade of silk-draped dignitaries through the lower ward.

Consequently, every soul in Dunsmere wanted their teeth cleaned.

The guild-masters wanted pearly grins to flash at the royal pavilion. The court ladies wanted mint-scented breath so they might swoon without causing their dancing partners to choke. Even the scullery maids had begun trading eggs for dried sage leaves, scrubbing their incisors until their gums bled in hopes of catching the eye of a touring footman. Master Gromwell had never been busier, nor had he ever been more unbearable.

The door to the inner room swung open, and Master Tobias Gromwell appeared, wiping a wicked-looking pair of curved steel forceps on a grease-stained towel. Gromwell was a broad, barrel-chested man who looked less like a practitioner of delicate oral arts and more like an anchor-smith who had wandered into medicine by sheer accident. His silver-streaked muttonchops bristled with perpetual indignation, and his spectacles perched so precariously on the bridge of his bulbous nose that Barnaby often expected them to tumble into an open mouth.

"The consistency, Tuggs," Gromwell grunted, squinting into the mortar bowl. "Is it smooth, or does it look like wet gravel?"

"Smooth as Devon clotted cream, Master," Barnaby said, holding the bowl tilted toward the morning light that filtered through the leaded glass window.

"Hmph. Passable. Mind you don't over-saturate it with the wintergreen today. When Lord Carberry spat into the copper basin on Friday, he claimed he could taste nothing but alpine hemlock for two full days. Thought I’d poisoned him."

"His lordship has an unusually sensitive palate," Barnaby murmured, careful to keep his tone neutral. "And his tartar was exceptionally calcified. It took twenty minutes just to uncover his bicuspids."

"Excuses butter no parsnips, lad. Nor do they keep the Royal Purveyor of the Tooth from docking our guild license." Gromwell laid the freshly oiled forceps on a linen cloth beside the chair with a terrifyingly heavy clatter. "This wedding will make our reputation for the next thirty years, Barnaby. Or it will ruin us. If the High Chamberlain smiles upon our work during the bridal procession, we could see an appointment to the palace itself. Just imagine it: silk slippers, a royal stipend, and not a single blacksmith's apprentice needing a root-tap on a Sunday night."

Barnaby forced a thin smile. The idea of royal appointments did not fill him with ambition; it filled him with a cold, hollow dread. The high nobility were notoriously litigious and had an alarming habit of throwing medical men into damp dungeons whenever an infected root failed to heal within the hour. Barnaby preferred the humble folk: the bakers with their flour-rotted molars, the weavers who bit thread until their incisors had tiny notches in them. They were predictable. They cursed, they sweated, they drank a dram of cheap brandy, and they went home.

A sharp rap sounded at the street door, accompanied by the muffled, watery moan of someone in profound distress.

"There she is," Gromwell said, his demeanor instantly shifting from gruff craftsman to sympathetic healer. He smoothed down his brown velvet coat, adjusted his spectacles, and tucked the forceps slightly under the hem of the linen cloth so as not to cause premature hysteria. "Open it, Barnaby. And look professional. Stop fidgeting with your apron strings; it makes you look like an urchin begging for lard."

Barnaby hastened to the heavy timber door, drawing the brass bolt.

Standing on the threshold was Mistress Hobb, the town’s premier cheesemonger. She was a woman of substantial girth and even more substantial opinions, but today she looked entirely defeated. A thick woolen muffler was wrapped around her jaw, tied securely atop her mobcap like an oversized pair of ears, and her right cheek was swollen to the size and color of a prize turnip. Behind her stood her husband, a meek little man who clutched a jar of pickled onions as though it were a holy relic.

"Come in, Mistress Hobb, come in," Barnaby said gently, stepping aside. "Mind the lintel."

"Ooh-wugh," the cheesemonger whimpered, shuffling across the threshold. She moved with the peculiar, stiff-legged balance common to people who believe that a single sudden movement will cause their head to detach from their neck. "Tobias... oh, Tobias, strike me dead and be done with it."

"Now, now, Elspeth," Gromwell said smoothly, taking her elbow and steering her with practiced ease toward the horsehide chair. "None of that unchristian talk. The flesh is weak, but the iron is true. Sit yourself down. Arthur, put the onions on the shelf, for heaven's sake."

Arthur Hobb hastily obeyed, sliding the glass jar between a bottle of distilled spirit of nitre and an anatomical chart illustrating the cranial nerves of a mule.

Mistress Hobb lowered herself into the chair with a series of wet, bubbling groans. Barnaby was already at her elbow, draping a broad oilcloth cape over her bosom and tying it securely behind her neck. He moved with quiet efficiency, his initial anxiety receding the moment an actual patient was before him. Bodies, he understood. The intricate machinery of bone and tissue did not deceive you the way courtly ambition did.

"Let us see the offending party," Gromwell murmured, picking up a silver mirror attached to an ivory rod. "Open wide, Elspeth. Like a trout taking a mayfly."

The cheesemonger whimpered again, but she slowly loosened the woolen muffler, exposing the hot, crimson bulge of her lower right jaw. Barnaby winced internally. The swelling was pronounced, extending downward toward the submandibular gland. When she opened her mouth, the telltale, foul-sweet aroma of advanced decay cut straight through the scent of wintergreen and cloves.

"Lower second molar," Barnaby said under his breath.

"I have eyes, Tuggs," Gromwell muttered, angling the mirror into the shadowed recess of her mouth while gently depressing her tongue with a flat horn spatula. "Aye. Look at that crater. Black as a pit at midnight. How long has this been singing to you, Elspeth?"

"S-since Michaelmas," she mumbled, tears spilling freely over her plump cheeks. "It only throbbed when I ate the rind, at first. But last night... oh, sweet Saint Jude, it felt as though an imp had crawled inside my jaw and was beating an anvil with a hot poker."

"Classic pulpitis," Gromwell pronounced, straightening up and sighing through his nose. "Deep-seated. The pulp has died, and the rot has reached the root tips. No amount of oil or gum-charring will save it now. It must come out."

Mistress Hobb gave a strangled shriek, her knuckles whitening where she gripped the armrests. "No! Not the pullers! Tobias, can't you just smoke it? The barber on High Street said if you burn goat-dung and henbane seeds on a tile and inhale the fumes through a funnel, the tooth-worms will drop out dead!"

Barnaby felt a rare flash of genuine anger. "The barber on High Street is a charlatan, Mistress Hobb," he said firmly, forgetting his customary timidity. "There are no worms in your jaw. It is putrefaction of the inner marrow. If you inhale henbane and dung, the only thing that will drop dead is your good sense. The tooth is poisoning your blood."

Gromwell cast a sidelong glance at his apprentice, half-amused, half-warning. "The lad speaks the truth, though with somewhat less bedside diplomacy than the guild encourages. The tooth must be drawn, Elspeth. If it stays, the jawbone itself will curdle, and then you’ll be drinking broth through a straw until your funeral."

Mistress Hobb began to weep in earnest, the blubbering vibrations visibly aggravating her inflamed jaw. Her husband reached out a tentative hand to pat her shoulder, thought better of it, and withdrew into the shadow of the medicine cabinet.

"Tuggs, prepare the draught," Gromwell commanded, turning toward the tool tray. "The heavy tincture. Poppy, mandrake, and a splash of grain alcohol to cut the bitterness. We’ll give her ten minutes to drift before we take the lever to it."

"Yes, Master," Barnaby said. He turned to the poison cabinet, unlocking the small iron grating with the brass key kept around his neck. He reached for the heavy green glass bottle that bore the skull-and-cross marking of Papaver somniferum. He measured the thick, dark liquid into a small pewter cup with steady precision, counting each drop as it fell. One, two, three...

A sudden, sharp shudder rattled the shop window.

Barnaby paused, the dropper suspended over the pewter rim.

The glass panes in the leaded frame did not merely vibrate; they hummed with a deep, subterranean resonance that set the smaller vials on the shelves clinking together like tiny porcelain bells. From the cobblestones outside came the muffled sound of carriage horses whinnying in panic, followed by the dull thud of heavy bootsteps running through the square.

"What in blazes was that?" Gromwell muttered, freezing with a pair of curved elevators in his hand. "Did the powder-mill blow down by the docks?"

"No," Arthur Hobb whispered from his corner, his eyes wide and terrified. "Not the powder-mill. Look out the window."

Barnaby set the dropper down on the marble counter and hurried to the front of the shop. He pressed his face against the cool, warped glass, peering up between the steep gables of the timbered houses toward the northern horizon.

Dunsmere was nestled in a broad, fertile river valley, flanked to the south by gentle pasturelands and to the north by the jagged, ominous spine of the Brimstone Crags. The crags were old, volcanic, and perpetually shrouded in a veil of sulfurous haze. Towering above them all was Mount Brimstone, a flat-topped peak that had been quiet for three generations—save for the occasional puff of pale gray steam that drifted lazy circles into the blue sky.

It was not puffing lazily today.

A thick, roiling column of greasy black smoke was ascending from the summit, boiling up into the pristine morning air like an ink stain spreading through clean water. Even at this distance—several leagues away—Barnaby could feel the low, bone-deep thrum of a tremendous, rhythmic vibration. It wasn't an earthquake. Earthquakes were chaotic, sudden, and brief.

This had a cadence to it.

Thrum. Thrum. Thrum.

Like the pounding of an immense, furious heart against a stone cage.

"Great heavens," Gromwell whispered, having joined Barnaby at the window. The master surgeon's spectacles slipped down to the very tip of his nose, but for once he did not push them back up. "The beast is awake."

"He hasn't stirred like that since the King's grandfather was crowned," Arthur whimpered, hugging his jar of pickled onions against his chest. "My father told me about it. Said when Ignis the Terrible took a turn, the milk soured in the udders for ten miles around, and the hens laid eggs with bloody yokes."

"Don't talk superstitious nonsense, Arthur," Gromwell snapped, though Barnaby noticed the slight tremor in the master’s heavy jaw. "The dragon is bound by the Ancient Accord. The Crown provides four oxen every full moon, and the creature leaves the lowlands in peace. He has slept in that caldera since before the foundations of the cathedral were laid."

"Accord or no accord," Barnaby murmured, his gaze fixed on the billowing smoke, "he sounds... miserable."

There was another sound beneath the rhythmic thrumming—a low, howling screech that carried across the valley winds. It was not the majestic, terrifying roar of legend, the sound that was said to turn brave knights into quivering jelly upon their horses. It had an edge to it. A jagged, hollow, agonized pitch that scraped against the ears like a rusted iron hinge being forced shut.

Mistress Hobb, still strapped into the horsehide chair, let out a mournful wail of her own. "Oh, the end of days! The beast will come down and roast us in our beds! He’ll burn the wedding pavilions! He’ll melt the church bells!"

"Be quiet, Elspeth, you’re not helping," Gromwell barked, spinning round. "If the dragon comes down to roast us, having a rotten molar won't make you taste any better. Barnaby, the draught. We have an extraction to complete, and I’ll not have my surgery disrupted by a heap of overgrown lizard scales having a nightmare on a mountain."

Barnaby tore his eyes away from the darkening northern sky. Gromwell's bluster was an old defense mechanism, but there was practical wisdom in it. The affairs of mythical terrors living on fiery mountains were the business of the King's guard and the royal spell-wrights. The affairs of Mistress Hobb’s infected lower jaw belonged to them.

"Here, Mistress Hobb," Barnaby said gently, bringing the pewter cup to the trembling woman's lips. "Drink this down. All of it. It tastes of bitter swamp-root, but within five minutes you won't care if Mount Brimstone falls into the sea."

The woman drank, shuddering violently as the thick, dark liquid slid down her throat. She grimaced, coughing slightly, but Barnaby caught the spill with a clean cloth before it could stain her apron. He stepped back, watching her pupils. Within moments, the tension in her jaw began to slacken. Her eyelids fluttered, growing heavy and glassy, and her frantic breathing slowed to a soft, rhythmic snore.

"Right," Gromwell said, rolling up his sleeves to the elbow and revealing forearms as thick and hairy as ham hocks. "Hold her head, Tuggs. Firm against the headrest. If she thrashes when the elevator bites into the bone, I don't want her severing an artery on the iron."

Barnaby moved behind the chair, placing his hands firmly on either side of Mistress Hobb's temples. His fingers were cool and steady against her feverish skin. He had done this a hundred times, yet his heart still hammered in his ribs. The sheer, brutal mechanics of historical dentistry never ceased to horrify him. It was a trade of levers, fulcrums, and brute physical force, masquerading as a branch of medicine.

Gromwell took up the straight elevator—a heavy steel tool with a blunt, spear-shaped tip. "Pumice and water ready?"

"Ready, Master."

"Keep the basin under her chin."

Gromwell braced his left thumb against Mistress Hobb’s healthy teeth and wedged the tip of the steel elevator deep into the space between the rotten molar and the jawbone.

Mistress Hobb let out a muffled, dreamlike groan, her body tensing despite the heavy dose of poppy. Gromwell leaned his weight into the tool, using the adjacent tooth as a fulcrum.

Creeeeak.

The sound was sickeningly distinct—the fibrous periodontal ligaments tearing beneath the gum line like wet twine. Barnaby tightened his grip on her head, keeping her skull pinned securely against the padded leather while Gromwell twisted the tool with the ruthless precision of a cooper levering an iron hoop off a barrel.

"Almost... got the leverage..." Gromwell grunted, a bead of sweat forming on his brow and trembling perilously close to his spectacles. "Stubborn brute of a root. Deeply anchored. Come on, you villain..."

Outside, another low, reverberating boom rolled down from the mountains, vibrating through the surgery walls. At the exact same instant, with a sharp, wet pop, the tooth broke free from its bony socket.

Gromwell deftly swept the elevator away and snatched up the extraction forceps, clamping the serrated steel jaws around the loosened crown. With a final, practiced twist of his wrist, he hoisted the prize into the air.

It was a monstrous thing—split down the center, blackened with decay, and ending in two hooked, yellowed roots that trailed ragged bits of red tissue.

"There," Gromwell said, breathing heavily as he tossed the bloody horror into a copper dish, where it landed with a satisfying metallic ping. "Out with the rot."

Barnaby immediately pressed a pad of clean linen soaked in astringent tincture of myrrh firmly into the bleeding socket. "Bite down, Mistress Hobb. Gently now. Just hold it between your teeth."

The cheesemonger made a vague, sleepy humming sound, obeying instinctively. Her eyes were half-closed, her swollen face slack and remarkably peaceful. The terrible, throbbing agony that had tormented her for weeks had been replaced by the dull, numb shock of the extraction—a trade-off every dental patient made gladly once the ordeal was finished.

Arthur Hobb crept forward, looking pale. "Is... is it over?"

"Done and dusted," Gromwell said proudly, washing his hands in a basin of warm, carbolic-scented water. "Take her home, Arthur. Keep her in bed until nightfall. Broth only—no bread, no crusts, and keep her away from the hard cheeses for a week. If the bleeding doesn't cease by sundown, pack the socket with dried oak bark and bring her back."

"Bless you, Master Gromwell," Arthur said, fumbling in his coat pocket and producing a small pouch of silver groats. "Bless you both."

As the meek husband carefully guided his half-stupified wife out into the sunlight of the square, Barnaby began the grim work of cleaning the theater of operations. He wiped the leather chair with vinegar, gathered the bloody linen rags into the wash-tub, and took the instruments to the stone sink to be scrubbed with carbolic soap and pumice.

He looked down at the extracted molar sitting in the copper dish. It was tiny, really. No bigger than the tip of his thumb. Yet it had brought a grown woman to her knees, reduced a bustling household to tears, and clouded her entire world with agony.

How strange it is, Barnaby thought, scrubbing a streak of dried blood from the handle of the forceps, that something so small can wield so much power over a living creature.

The street outside had not returned to its usual mid-morning bustle. Instead, there was an uneasy, hushed clamor. People were gathering in knots along the center of the cobbles, pointing north toward the mountain. The sky was turning a strange, bruised shade of purple-gray, choked by the thick plume of smoke pouring from the Brimstone Crags.

A distant sound cut through the murmuring of the townsfolk.

It was the sharp, rhythmic clatter of shod hooves striking stone at a frantic gallop.

Barnaby paused, soap suds dripping from his hands into the sink. The sound was coming from the direction of the upper ward—from the palace. In Dunsmere, nobody rode at a gallop through the narrow, twisting streets of the lower market unless the river had burst its banks, the King had suffered an apoplexy, or war had been declared.

"Tuggs," Gromwell said from the front window, his voice uncharacteristically quiet. "Come here."

Barnaby dried his hands on a clean cloth and stepped up beside his master.

The horseman was clad in the unmistakable scarlet-and-gold livery of the Royal Household. His mount was lathered with white sweat, its nostrils flaring wide as the rider pulled the beast up hard directly outside the shop. The brass sign swinging above their door—carved in the shape of an oversized golden molar—creaked gently in the wind.

The rider was not a common herald. He was an officer of the Royal Guard, his breastplate polished to a mirror shine, though smeared now with a thin film of pale gray ash that was beginning to drift down from the upper atmosphere like a mockery of snow.

The officer vaulted from the saddle before the horse had even come to a full stop. He did not look at the gathering crowd of curious burghers and tradesmen. He drew a heavy, parchment scroll from the leather dispatch case at his hip—a scroll bound with thick violet ribbon and sealed with the massive, stamped wax insignia of the High Chamberlain.

He marched straight toward the door of the surgery, his heavy boots ringing with absolute, terrifying authority.

Master Tobias Gromwell swallowed hard, his throat making a distinct clicking sound. He reached up with a trembling hand to straighten his spectacles.

"Barnaby," the master whispered, not taking his eyes off the approaching guard. "Tell me the floor is swept."

"It isn't, Master," Barnaby said, his heart dropping like a stone into the pit of his belly.

The door flew open without a knock, and the scent of cloves, pumice, and carbolic was instantly overwhelmed by the smell of hot iron, sweat, and sulfur.

The officer filled the entryway with the sheer, unyielding presence that only expensive armor and total disregard for other people’s thresholds could bestow. His cloak was heavy velvet, the hem dusted with that strange, powdery gray soot that was beginning to settle over Dunsmere’s slate roofs. He paused just inside the room, eyes narrowing as he took in the horsehide chair, the copper basin that still held the unfortunate evidence of Mistress Hobb’s morning, and the two practitioners standing behind the worktable.

"Master Tobias Gromwell?" the officer demanded. His voice sounded like gravel shifting in an iron bucket.

Gromwell instantly dropped into a bow so deep his nose nearly brushed the chalk dust on the table. "The very same, Captain. Surgeon-dentist to the respectable folk of Dunsmere, humble servant to the Crown, and freeman of the Worshipful Company of Barber-Surgeons." He bobbed back up, his spectacles askew. "If someone in the royal stables has an abscess, or perhaps one of the footmen bit into a stone in the bridal pastry, we are at your utmost service."

The officer did not bow in return. He broke the heavy purple wax seal of the scroll with a callous flick of a gauntleted thumb, unrolling the parchment with a sharp snap that made Barnaby flinch behind the carbolic basin.

"I am Captain Vane of the High Chamberlain’s personal guard," the officer stated, consulting the script before looking up to fix Gromwell with a cold, pale eye. "By decree of Lord Chamberlain Ravenscroft, under authority of the Crown of Dunsmere, you are commanded to attend the Sovereign's presence in the High Council Chamber immediately. You, your primary instruments, and your senior assistant."

Gromwell blinked. His muttonchops puffed out slightly as he processed the words. "The High Council Chamber? For... for a tooth?"

"You are not required to question the summons, Master Gromwell," Captain Vane said flatly. "You are required to obey it. The carriage is waiting at the end of the alley. You have five minutes to secure your shop and collect whatever ironmongery you require to treat a case of extreme oral malady."

"Of course, of course!" Gromwell fluttered, turning in an anxious circle that achieved nothing beyond knocking a bundle of dried sage off a drying rack. "Barnaby, the velvet case! The brass-bound rosewood kit with the silver-plated scrapers! No, not the cow-horn handles, you fool, the pearl-inlaid ones from the Antwerp guild! Move your legs, boy!"

Barnaby did not need to be told twice, though his fingers were clumsy as he reached for the highest shelf behind the poison cabinet. The velvet-lined presentation kit was Gromwell’s pride and joy—an ostentatious set of elevators, forceps, picks, and bone-chisels that were rarely used because they were far too difficult to clean properly after a messy extraction. Barnaby hauled the heavy rosewood box down, blowing a thin layer of dust off the polished lid before setting it on the counter.

Beside it, he instinctively grabbed his own small, canvas roll of daily tools: his favorite slender probe with the tempered steel tip, a small pair of curved nippers he had ground down himself to fit tight corners, and three jars of concentrated clove oil blended with honey. Barnaby was a great believer in honey; it kept the wounds clean and didn't taste like swamp mud, which was more than could be said for Gromwell's favorite vinegar washes.

"Are we to treat His Majesty?" Gromwell whispered hoarsely to the captain as he wrestled his heavy woolen walking cloak over his shoulders. "Is it the King's wisdom tooth again? I told the royal apothecary three winters ago that the royal lower left was crowding the royal jaw—"

"You will be briefed by the Chamberlain," Captain Vane cut in, his posture rigid as he watched Barnaby rapidly tuck glass vials into the pockets of his canvas vest. "And you, boy. Bring plenty of strong cord and your largest bone-saws."

Barnaby paused, a jar of styptic powder halfway to his satchel. "Bone-saws, sir? For an oral procedure?"

"Did I stutter, apprentice?" Vane’s eyes bore into him. "Whatever you use when bone is thick and temper is short. Pack it."

Barnaby swallowed the dry knot in his throat and hastily shoved a broad-bladed tenon saw and two heavy iron rasps into the bottom of the leather satchel. Whatever was happening at the palace, it did not sound like an elderly monarch complaining of a sweet-tart ache after eating candied plums.

Within four minutes, the shop was locked, the brass bolt thrown, and the two dental practitioners were being hurried down the cobbled alleyway. The air outside was distinctly cooler than it had been an hour prior, but it carried an acrid, metallic tang that tasted like sucking on a copper penny. Above the timbered roofs, the dark plume from Mount Brimstone was widening into an ominous anvil-shaped cloud, blotting out the noon sun and casting the town in a sickly, amber-tinted twilight.

A black-lacquered carriage bearing the royal crest was wedged between the narrow walls of the alley, its team of two black geldings tossing their heads in agitation. The horses’ eyes were wide, their ears pinned flat against their skulls, shying away from every slight puff of wind that drifted down from the north.

Captain Vane shoved Gromwell into the carriage with very little regard for the master surgeon’s dignity, and Barnaby scrambled in after him, clutching the rosewood case to his chest like a shield. Vane slammed the door, jumped up beside the coachman, and with a vicious crack of the whip, the carriage surged forward over the rough stones.

The ride up through Dunsmere was a chaotic blur seen through the narrow, glass-paned windows.

Usually, the streets of the lower town were a cheerful bedlam of fishmongers shouting their morning catch, draymen arguing over right-of-way, and weavers hauling bolts of linen to the cloth hall. Today, the marketplace was frozen in a kind of frantic stupor. Handcarts had been abandoned in the middle of the thoroughfares; shopkeepers were hurriedly boarding up their shutters; and at the corner of the butter market, a street preacher stood atop a barrel, waving an iron crucifix and screaming about the wrath of ancient lizards and the sins of the royal tax collectors.

As the carriage climbed the steep, winding incline toward the upper ward, the modest half-timbered houses gave way to the sprawling, whitewashed stone mansions of the nobility. Here, too, the impending wedding had left its mark. Bunting of royal azure and gold hung from the balconies, though it was already streaked with dark lines of volcanic ash. Great wooden scaffolding stood outside the cathedral, erected to hold spectator seating for the grand procession, but the carpenters had dropped their hammers and were staring mutely toward the smoking peak in the distance.

The low, rhythmic thrumming that Barnaby had felt in the surgery was much louder up here on the high ridge. It set the glass panes of the carriage rattling violently in their frames. Every few seconds, the deep, agonizing wail echoed down from Mount Brimstone—a sound so full of raw, vibrating fury that Barnaby felt the hair on his arms stand straight up.

"It’s not His Majesty," Barnaby murmured, bracing his boots against the carriage floor as they rounded a sharp turn through the Palace Gates.

Gromwell was pale, his hands clutching his knees so tightly his knuckles were white. "Quiet, Tuggs. Don't borrow trouble. We are simple tradesmen. We pull teeth, we lance gums, we collect our fee. Whatever political nonsense the Chamberlain is brewing, we stick to what we know."

"Master," Barnaby said, looking out the window as they passed under the portcullis of Dunsmere Castle, "people don't summon barber-surgeons to the High Council Chamber for simple tradesman work. And they don't ask for bone-saws unless something very large is broken."

The carriage lurched to a halt in the inner courtyard. Before the wheels had even finished their final revolution, the door was wrenched open by a footman in powdered wig and velvet livery, whose face was completely devoid of its customary haughtiness. He looked terrified.

"This way! Quickly!" the footman squeaked, gesturing wildly toward the great arched doors of the keep.

Captain Vane took Gromwell by the elbow with an iron grip, steering the stumbling surgeon across the courtyard stones. Barnaby followed closely behind, hauling the heavy rosewood case and his leather satchel, his boots slipping slightly on the thin layer of grit that now covered the flagstones.

The interior of Dunsmere Castle was an overwhelming expanse of vaulted ceilings, gilded sconces, and immense tapestries depicting famous battles where kings in improbable armor slew various varieties of uncooperative wildlife. Normally, an apprentice like Barnaby would never have been permitted past the servant's entrance in the scullery; now, he was being hurried straight through the Grand Gallery, past petrified courtiers whispering behind silk fans, and toward the heavy, iron-studded doors of the High Council Chamber.

Two guards in full plate armor hauled the double doors outward.

The chamber beyond was vast, circular, and dominated by a massive table of dark, polished mahogany shaped like an open ring. High above, narrow lancet windows let in the dim, ash-choked light of the midday sky. The air in the room was stiflingly hot, smelling strongly of burning wax, spilled ink, and expensive lavender water that was failing miserably to mask the scent of cold sweat.

Around the table sat the rulers of Dunsmere.

At the head sat Lord Chamberlain Ravenscroft, a rail-thin man with cheekbones like paring knives, clad in a robe of midnight-blue velvet trimmed with silver ermine. Beside him was the Grand Marshal of the Army, covered in medals and looking furiously frustrated; the Chief Chancellor, drowning in tax ledgers; and a tall, severe-looking woman with silver-white hair bound in an intricate gold net, whom Barnaby recognized immediately as Court Artificer Vaelis, the kingdom's foremost scholar of natural magic and ancient relics.

Standing by the high window, looking out toward the smoking mountain, was a young man in an embroidered tunic of deep green. Prince Valen. The groom-to-be looked scarcely older than Barnaby himself, but the customary royal composure was entirely absent from his posture. His hands were clenched behind his back, his broad shoulders hunched as though bracing for an impact.

"They are here, My Lord," Captain Vane announced, coming to a sharp salute and shoving Gromwell and Barnaby forward into the center of the chamber.

Lord Chamberlain Ravenscroft looked up from a sprawling parchment map of the valley. He adjusted a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles and fixed Gromwell with a gaze that could have stripped the enamel off a walrus tusk.

"Tobias Gromwell," Ravenscroft said, his voice clipped and precise. "Senior practitioner of the Barber-Surgeon Guild of Dunsmere. Master of extractions, scaler of nobility, author of the pamphlet On the Proper Alignment of the Human Canine."

"The... the very same, Your Excellency," Gromwell stammered, bowing so quickly he almost dropped his hat. "At the Crown’s service. Always."

"Good," Ravenscroft said smoothly, leaning forward and resting his thin, ringed fingers on the table. "Because the Crown requires an extraction. An immediate, discreet, and entirely non-negotiable extraction."

Gromwell beamed, visibly relaxing as he assumed his familiar professional confidence. "Ah! I knew it! Which of the noble lords is suffering? Is it an impacted third molar? A dead root? My apprentice and I have brought the Antwerp tools, Your Lordship. Silver-plated, entirely hygienic. We can have the offending tooth drawn and the gum cauterized before the evening bells."

Prince Valen turned away from the window. His expression was grim, his eyes shadowed with exhaustion. "It is not a lord, Master Gromwell. Nor is it a lady."

Gromwell paused, his smile freezing in place. "The... the royal hounds, perhaps? I once treated an Irish wolfhound for the Duke of Westfall—"

"It is not a hound," Artificer Vaelis said coldly, speaking for the first time. Her voice had the crisp, resonant ring of struck glass. She tapped a long fingernail against a massive, leather-bound tome that lay open before her. The page showed a detailed, horrifying anatomical drawing of a creature with wings, talons, and a maw that could swallow a hay-wain whole. "It is Ignis."

Silence descended upon the High Council Chamber, thick and heavy as a burial shroud.

The only sound was the distant, muffled thrum-thrum-thrum vibrating through the castle’s deep stone foundations.

Gromwell’s jaw dropped open. His spectacles slipped, tumbled down his velvet waistcoat, and bounced across the polished mahogany floor, coming to rest against the Chief Chancellor's velvet slipper. He made no move to retrieve them.

"Ignis..." Gromwell squeaked, his voice rising by two full octaves. "Ignis the... the Terrible? The Dragon of Mount Brimstone?"

"The very one," Ravenscroft said calmly, as though discussing the repair of a courtyard gutter. "He is experiencing a dental emergency."

"A... a dragon," Gromwell repeated, the color entirely draining from his face until his muttonchops looked like two dark patches of lichen on a lump of lard. "A winged, fire-breathing, five-hundred-year-old engine of slaughter and ancient brimstone... has a toothache?"

"A catastrophic one," Prince Valen said, stepping away from the window and walking toward the center of the room. The young prince looked haunted. "Two hours ago, the mountain began to shake. A dispatch was sent via the caldera mirror-array—the emergency signaling system established under the Third Accord. The Dragon Keeper at the mountain base relayed the beast's condition. Ignis has not left his nest. He is thrashing in agony, tearing the stone walls of the caldera apart, and spewing soot that will smother this entire valley by tomorrow evening."

"Then send the Royal Spell-wrights!" Gromwell cried, waving his thick hands in the air. "Send the Arch-Mages! Cast a sleeping glamour over the mountain! Sing him a magical lullaby!"

"Magic cannot touch a dragon's internal physiology," Artificer Vaelis said, shaking her head sharply. "Their scales and marrow are dense with primordial fire. Any spell strong enough to numb a dragon’s nervous system would disrupt his internal furnace and cause him to detonate, taking half the province with him. The Accord specifically forbids the casting of high enchantments within the caldera."

"Then send a knight!" Gromwell pleaded, looking wildly around the room for any sign of reason. "Send a brave champion with a lance of blessed starmetal to... to put the beast out of our misery!"

"Are you completely mad?" Ravenscroft snapped, slamming a fist onto the table. The sound echoed like a pistol shot through the room. "The Royal Nuptials are in twenty-one days! Princess Aurelia's bridal barge enters the river basin in two weeks! The western lords are coming here to sign a treaty of perpetual union! If Mount Brimstone erupts, or if the ancient dragon bound by the kingdom's founding treaty is slain, the western alliance collapses! They will see it as an omen of doom, an act of divine disfavor, and an absolute breach of regional security!"

"The Chamberlain is correct," Prince Valen said softly. "The wedding cannot happen under an ash cloud, Master Gromwell. And if Ignis dies, the ancient wards that protect Dunsmere from the northern barbarian clans will fail. The dragon must live. The dragon must be calmed. And the dragon's tooth must be drawn."

Barnaby, who had remained silent and trembling near the back of the chamber, looked down at his small satchel. He thought of the straight elevator, the curved nippers, and the little jar of clove oil. The sheer, preposterous scale of the problem began to dawn on him.

"My Lord," Barnaby spoke up, his voice cracking slightly before he cleared his throat.

Ravenscroft turned a frosty gaze upon him. "Who is this urchin?"

"My apprentice, Barnaby Tuggs," Gromwell said weakly, leaning against the back of an empty council chair as though his legs might give out at any second. "A good lad, very clever with chalk paste, but entirely unqualified to be roasted alive."

"Speak, apprentice," Prince Valen commanded, looking at Barnaby with genuine curiosity.

Barnaby took a deep, steadying breath. He felt the familiar, soothing rhythm of anatomical logic returning to his mind, pushing back the cold terror. "If the dragon is in such agony that he is shaking the crags, Your Highness, it means the decay or trauma has breached the inner pulp chamber. Dragon teeth are composed of dense, fire-hardened enamel, are they not?"

Artificer Vaelis nodded slowly, her sharp eyes assessing Barnaby with newfound interest. "The outer layer is calcified basalt and diamond-grain silicate. The inner core contains a direct branch of the creature’s primary thermal nerve."

"Then the pain must be incomprehensible," Barnaby said plainly. "A human being with an exposed root will weep and strike their own head against a stone wall to make it stop. A creature of that size, with that much heat in its jaw... he isn't being malicious. He is simply going mad from the pressure. If there is an infection, the gases from the decay are trapped beneath the enamel, heated by his own breath. It’s like a sealed boiler with the fire banked."

The chamber fell dead silent again. The Grand Marshal blinked; the Chief Chancellor leaned forward; and even Ravenscroft seemed momentarily disarmed by the simple, mechanical clarity of the diagnosis.

"A sealed boiler," Prince Valen murmured, his eyes widening. "That explains why the smoke is black. He cannot properly vent his inner fire without screaming from the pain."

"Precisely," Barnaby said, feeling a sudden rush of heat to his cheeks as he realized every powerful person in the kingdom was staring directly at him. "You don't need an army, My Lord. You need someone to release the pressure."

Gromwell turned a horrified, betrayed look upon his apprentice. "Barnaby! Shut your foolish mouth! What are you doing? Have you lost the few wits God gave you?"

"It seems your apprentice has more courage—and more sense—than the Master," Ravenscroft remarked coldly. The Chamberlain stood up, his blue velvet robes sweeping back from the table. "The decision is made. Master Gromwell, you and your apprentice are hereby appointed Royal Dental Surgeons Extraordinary to the Crown."

"I decline!" Gromwell shrieked, falling to his knees. "I have gout! I have a weak heart! I am entirely unsuited for mountain climbing! My guild charter explicitly states that I am only insured for bipeds and domestic quadrupeds!"

"You cannot decline a royal commission during a state of sovereign crisis, Master Gromwell," Ravenscroft said with a chilling smile. "If you refuse, you will be stripped of your guild license, your shop will be confiscated, and you will spend the bridal week in the deepest, dampest oubliette beneath the river tower. If you go, and you succeed, you will receive five thousand gold sovereigns, a permanent royal pension, and the deed to the finest townhouse on High Street."

Gromwell groaned, burying his face in his hands. "We are going to die. We are going to be baked like pasties in a brick oven."

"You leave at dawn," Ravenscroft continued, ignoring the weeping surgeon entirely. "You will be escorted to the base of Mount Brimstone by Captain Vane and a detachment of the guard. The Artificer has prepared detailed anatomical scrolls and whatever tools you require from the royal foundry. You have eighteen days until the bridal party arrives at the valley gates. The dragon must be cured, the smoke must clear, and the skies above Dunsmere must be blue."

Prince Valen walked over to Barnaby. The young royal reached out, placing a firm, surprisingly warm hand on Barnaby’s thin shoulder.

"You understand what is at stake, Barnaby Tuggs," the Prince said quietly. "If this fails, my marriage fails, and this valley burns. Can it be done?"

Barnaby looked at the Prince, then down at his worn leather boots, and finally out the lancet window toward the roaring, black-choked summit of Mount Brimstone. The terrifying, jagged cadence of the dragon’s wail rolled down across the slate roofs, rattling the leaded glass in its frame.

It’s just an extraction, Barnaby told himself, though his stomach felt as though it were dropping through the stone floor into the dungeons below. A very, very large extraction.

"We’ll need bigger pliers, Your Highness," Barnaby whispered. "Much bigger pliers."