Under Evelyn's suspicious gaze, Annan answered frankly, "I'm just curious. Can flames formed by Fire Elementals really have genders?"
"I don't know. That's just what the Bard said before..."
With the war against the Mad Dog Duke begun and ended, word of Free City should have spread across Middle Earth. Yet the Bard had never appeared, and no one had seen "Andy"... Had something happened? Or was the Bard no longer in Middle Earth?
“When are we going to recreate the Elemental Legion?” Evelyn asked.
Annan didn't want to turn their friendship into a calculated favor. It would be better to spend more time with her first. "Making a request right after giving a gift would put her off."
"Free City's City Lord Makes Excessive Demands of Fire Elemental Queen After Professing His Love"... Evelyn's professional instincts had already supplied a headline.
"Who taught you that?"
Annan accompanied Evelyn to the Newspaper Office. Between new issues, only a fifth of its machines were running, steadily producing the previous two issues of the Magic Newspaper for sale in Siltovis, Montreal Mountain, and elsewhere.
Dusk was approaching when Annan left the Newspaper Office and headed back to the City Lord's Mansion.
He failed to notice a shadow silently following him...
Illymoyas neither wanted to apologize in her Blue Dragon form nor wanted to transform into a human as Betty had taught her. She had an idea of her own.
An invisible shadow enveloped Annan, and she whispered, "My prince, why are you so cruel to the one you love?"
Annan, who had ducked into an empty alley to take a shortcut, looked around in surprise. But Illymoyas had already hidden herself.
"My prince, why are you so cruel to the one you love? My prince, why are you so cruel to the