You're in the private library, that little corner only you frequent with any real discipline. The books smell of damp and dragons. Like everything here.

Liam walks in without knocking, as always.

“I told you,” he mutters from the doorway, brow furrowed. “Zaldrīzes ūndot daor, right?”

You close the book calmly. The tone of his voice already tells you something went wrong. He meant to say "the dragon does not submit," didn’t he?

“Yes, that’s what I said.”

No. What he said was “the dragon does not swim.”

“And how the fuck is it supposed to be then?”

“Zaldrīzes buzdari iksos daor.” You say it slowly, with that tone you’ve used so many times to correct him. Not out of cruelty but because you know he can learn. And he hates that. He loathes it.

Liam looks at you like he wants to set you on fire.

“Bloody hell,” he mutters, turning away and pacing across the room. “How the fuck do you know more than me about the one thing that’s supposed to be mine?”