James dreamed that a man with a towering shadow drove him into an empty black corner, and every time James tried to hit him an invisible, impossible force deflected him. The man never stopped smiling. James was draca but shrunken, a dragon the size of a boy. His dragon jaws snipped together like a housedog’s.

You’re small, the man said, so James opened up his housedog teeth and tore the man’s throat out, right where the eliat scar had been.

He dreamed the man was Halcyon. It was a good dream.

For reasons unforeseen, Black Dragon is starting to come off as the origin story for an anti-hero with the publicity of a villain. I have no idea why that’s happening. This story was supposed to be fun and adventurous, damn it. Oh, well. Serious implications, broken families, and thinly-veiled metaphors may not have been what I thought my novel needed, but I’m proud to say Camp Nano proved me wrong.