A Dragon and a Spinster | Newsletter Exclusive Unlocked

Looking for a light-hearted book about a dragon? Perhaps this one can scratch that itch. Please enjoy the opening chapter of YES, YOUR SERPENTINE EXCELLENCY.

Chapter 1: That Thieving Scoundrel

Deep down, Joanna always knew Matthew Wortham was a scoundrel. He smiled too quickly, spoke too gently, helped too readily. To an ordinary person, these might have been positive traits, but no one showed kindness to her without an underlying motive. She should have sent him packing at the first sign of flirtation. Alas, she was lonely and morbidly curious, and he had a nice face.

And now, months later, the benevolent Mr. Wortham was skulking down a back alley while she flitted from shadow to shadow on his trail.

He paused where the alley met the adjoining street, his figure an inky silhouette against the lantern light beyond. Joanna held very still as he checked over his shoulder. His handsome profile reminded her of a wall hanging in her Aunt Augusta’s antiquated parlor. He had no exceptional night vision and was too skittish to use the glow-stone he’d stolen. He wouldn’t see her in the puddling gloom, not with how well she blended in.

Sure enough, he resumed his path. Lantern light illuminated his golden hair and the attractive scruff along his jawline. Inwardly Joanna mourned her own cynicism: not its existence but its accuracy. On an intake of breath, she flicked from her shadowed nook to the building’s end, a mere yard away from where he had been standing.

A glimpse around the corner showed him striding across the street, long coat billowing behind him in the faint evening haze.

Like a hero on a mission, confident and self-assured. Only he was headed to one of the most notorious gaming houses in the city rather than a hero’s destination.

Of course he was a gambler. The handsome ones always were.

As she frowned at his back, a light form dropped into the space beside her, no louder than a whisper. “What is that scoundrel doing?”

Joanna grunted and spared her new companion a sidelong glance. They were dressed remarkably similar to one another, in charcoal-colored shirts and overcoats, with the legs of their loose trousers tucked into their boots. Sneaking attire, as it were. “I thought he was looking for a pawn shop on Alcaena Road, but he bypassed that twenty minutes ago. What are you doing here, Charity? More government work?”

Laughter, faint and derisive, issued from the woman’s lips. She tucked a lock of pale hair behind one ear, beneath her dark cowl. “You might call it that.”

For the moment more intrigued by her friend than her treacherous suitor, Joanna arched one brow in silent prodding.

Charity blew a puff of air. “A noble scion has disappeared. The doting parents have offered a handsome sum for his safe return, and I was roosting here to see whether the Penns might have any clues to his whereabouts.”

“You think he’s holed up in their gaming house?” Joanna asked, glancing toward that establishment. In the distance, Wortham mounted its front steps and rapped a jaunty knock against the door. An immaculate butler opened it, nose in the air. Wortham extended his hand—proffering her glow-stone for his entry fee—and subsequently slipped inside.

Charity, watching this interplay, curled her mouth into a sneer. “It wouldn’t be the first time one of these bucks went off on a lark. But he’d be an idiot if he did. He’s a shifter.”

The statement jarred Joanna from her brooding observation. “A noble shifter? Which line of his family carried that auspicious bit of magic?”

“Oh, neither, of course. It’s a fluke. Mumsy and Daddums have no idea how widdle Tommy-kins received such a boon, but they fully plan on telling the prince. One of these days.”

Joanna’s cynical laugh punctured the air. Magicians in Elsidor had mandatory government registration, followed by military service.

Most magicians, anyway.

With that fate in mind, the noble houses rigorously bred magic from their ranks or hid it when it manifested. The crime syndicates simply ignored the law.

“So you’re here on a private job, then,” she said.

Charity hummed. “Sort of. I locate him, bring him back to his parents for the reward, then I report him to the crown inspectors for a finder’s fee. I hate when these blue-bloods dodge their patriotic duty. You want a cut?”

“Even though I dodged my patriotic duty?”

The blonde shot her a knowing look. “You registered. He didn’t. There’s a difference. Besides, you’re hardly a blue-blood.”

Joanna tipped her head, wry as she accepted this distinction. “No, I’m disgustingly middle-class. And I know I’ll regret asking, but how do you expect me to earn a cut of your double-profits?”

A mischievous smile danced across Charity’s face. “Well, I can’t go into the Penn house—shifter, and all that—but you…”

“No. I can’t go in either.”

“You can.”

“Only if I wanted to land myself in the Penns’ crosshairs and on a government list.”

“You’re already on a government list.”

She waved aside this statement. “Marlows are always watched, but never confronted. If the crown suspects I’m consorting with the criminal underground, though, they’ll hassle everyone I know in retaliation. You included.”

Charity’s eyes widened, the picture of childlike innocence. “I won’t tell.”

“But the dozen government bureaucrats gambling away their pensions tonight might. It’s not worth the risk.” Even as these words left her tongue, disappointment lodged in her chest. That was her great-great-grandmother’s glow-stone, brought from the old country when she emigrated over a hundred years ago.

And now Worthless Wortham was gambling it. If he’d sold it to a pawn shop, she could’ve easily retrieved it. Had she known he was headed for a Penn house, she’d have confronted him before he arrived.

Much as she loathed confrontation.

Charity, as if reading her thoughts, said, “Didn’t your lovely swain just use an artifact to gain his entrance? I assume it was one of yours.”

A tight sigh left Joanna’s lungs. “It’s gone now.”

“It doesn’t have to be. We both know you can be discreet, hop in, snatch your item, hop back out. And if you happen to notice the Earl of Wembley’s son losing a round of cards while you’re there…”

“I don’t even know what he looks like.”

“Oh, just like every other horse-faced noble—dashingly strong jawline with something of an underbite, clothes that would cost either of us a year’s wages to afford, and a general air of entitlement hanging on him like a stale perfume. If he’s there you’ll recognize him.”

“Unless they’ve realized he’s a shifter,” Joanna said.

“Yes, then they’ll have him caged in a back room, if they haven’t already shipped him elsewhere.”

Three main crime syndicates operated in the capital city of Wesbridge, and all of them collected shifters, for some mysterious reason. The Bellamys and the Leaches were currently locked in a feud, though, interfering with each other’s networks. Thus, the Penns were the most active. But if they’d kidnapped the son of a nobleman, they’d soon have the crown’s agents breathing down their necks.

If the Earl and Countess of Wembley dared report it. Did they have additional heirs, that they could cast this one aside? “What’s his second form?”

Charity grunted. “The earl wouldn’t tell me. So, it’s either fantastic or embarrassing. You’re looking for the Honorable Thomas Crawford, by the way.”

“I’m not looking for anyone,” said Joanna, though she spared a wistful glance toward the house. The lost glow-stone was a family relic.

That thieving scoundrel.

Her friend bumped her shoulder. “Get your stuff back, Jo. Wortham’s a fool and you’re better off without him. The Penns can’t stop you from reclaiming what’s yours, and if they decide to retaliate, it’ll be against him, not you. They don’t want you for an enemy.”

“Did you know he was a gambler?” Joanna asked, a hitch of desperation in her voice.

Charity snorted. “Aren’t they all?” Then, with a hop and a puff of magic, she shifted to her second form: a falcon that surged upward to land on its rooftop perch.

Which was, no doubt, where she’d been when she spied Joanna trailing Wortham in the first place. Bird shifters had such beautiful advantages in life.

A wiser person would let the stone go. It was an artifact and an heirloom, true, but objects only possessed the sentimental value one bestowed. It was insured. She could report the theft and receive recompense.

Or maybe Wortham might win at cards and return it the next time he visited.

A growl rumbled in her throat. She didn’t want him under her roof again. His betrayal had burned every particle of infatuation from her blood.

On a huff, she blinked. The street flickered and became the interior of the Penn house instead.

She occupied a corner thick with smoke and the stench of sour alcohol. Two dozen conversations scraped against her ears, men chattering as they gambled or observed, hurrahs for a toss of dice, groans for a lost round of cards. A scan of the room showed no sign of Wortham but plenty of noble patrons—most too old to be the Honorable Mr. Crawford—surrounded tables piled with the Penns’ in-house gaming vouchers. Women in calf-length skirts and shoulder-baring tops carried trays of drinks from room to room while guards manned every exit and passageway.

And directly across from her, the gaming house manager stared, scowling.

A seeker. Of course.

As he pushed between a pair of tables, heading straight for her, she blinked herself into the opposite corner, behind him.

The man whirled, tracing the flicker of magic to its destination. His scowl deepened. He glanced toward the nearest door, a discreet signal to the hulking guard, who stiffened. Squaring his shoulders, the seeker stepped directly in front of Joanna, blocking her view of the rest of the room.

As if he could actually confine her.

He knew better, by the strain around his eyes. Still, his lips pressed thin and his voice graveled low. “No shadow-skips allowed here.”

“I’m chasing my stolen property,” she said. “I’ll be out of your hair as soon as I’ve recovered it.”

“We don’t deal with stolen goods. This is a respectable establishment.”

A scoff clicked in her throat. “I watched the thief walk through your front door with my heirloom glow-stone.”

“Then your quarrel is with him when he walks back out the door, Miss…” He arched his brows in a question.

“Marlow,” she supplied.

Unfortunately, he didn’t recognize the surname. Joanna, whose sole purpose in life was to pass unnoticed and unremarked, fought against annoyance. The one time she needed the clout of her family’s reputation—!

“Miss Marlow, a gaming club is no place for well-bred women. Kindly leave and don’t come back. Otherwise my pyromancer will flood this whole house with light, and you’ll be left to the mercy of fifty agitated souls who’ve had their evening’s entertainment disrupted.”

“Don’t be stupid. Your patrons will think it’s a crown raid.”

“Not when I present them with a pesky little shadow-skip.”

She stared him down. True, it would be easy for her to flick to another room, but as a seeker he would sense her magic still within the house. She’d already engaged in the retrieval, though, and she hated giving up halfway. “I’m not leaving until I’ve recovered what’s mine.”

“Whatever’s under this roof belongs to the Penn family. That’s about to include you.”

A glimpse of golden hair flashed through her periphery: Wortham in the adjacent room, joining a card table.

He wouldn’t have the stone anymore. He’d have traded it for vouchers already.

“Bother,” she muttered under her breath.

“You have to the count of three,” said the seeker.

“I didn’t catch your name,” said Joanna.

“One.”

Fine. He could stay anonymous. She locked gazes with him, vexation simmering in her blood.

“Two,” he said. Behind him, the hulking guard—the pyromancer, she presumed—cracked his knuckles.

Her heart calcified. “You’ll regret this.”

The seeker, steely-eyed, snapped his fingers as he said, “Three.”

Light pulsed through the room. Lanterns blazed as bright as the noonday sun, chasing shadows into oblivion. Conversations clipped short.

Then, pandemonium. Cards hit the table, and chairs scraped against the floor as gamblers lunged for their closest exits.

The seeker grunted, but when he snatched at Joanna’s arm, she blinked herself to the second story, to a room still swathed in dimness. Moonlight and street lanterns spilled faint ochre-colored light through a wall of windows, illuminating plants and ornate vases. She’d landed in a conservatory overlooking the back gardens.

Below, voices howled and wood splintered.

“Idiots,” Joanna said.

“I beg your pardon?”

She whirled. A pair of eyes gleamed from atop a velvet chaise longue beside her. A split-second later, she discerned the reptilian body sprawled upon the furniture, near enough to touch, if she dared extend her fingers.

A dragon. She’d never seen one this close. Prince Roland’s menagerie had three specimens, but they always hid in the shrubbery of their enclosure on public visiting days. They certainly never deigned to speak, though the prince insisted they could.

The reptile blinked and flicked its forked tongue into the air. “What brings such a delectable morsel here?”

Dragons—even smaller species like this one—were dangerous. Although she could flash from the room as quickly as she’d arrived, it would behoove her not to offend such a mystical creature.

So, she inclined in a half-bow, careful of the space between them. “Forgive my intrusion. There’s been a misunderstanding.”

The scaled head tilted, slitted amber eyes studying her. “A misunderstanding brings a shadow-skip into my presence?”

Faint laughter escaped. “Something like that.”

The eyes narrowed in consideration. “Have you come to consult my august, auguring self?”

“No, thank you. I was attempting to retrieve some lost property. The house manager below simply refused to see reason.” After a breath, as though she could not help herself, she added, “Do people consult you for augury?”

“Of course,” said the dragon, “for a pretty sum. That’s why the Penns keep me. What property did you lose?”

“A glow-stone, a family heirloom. Someone used it for an entry fee, and now the manager’s destroyed everyone’s evening because he was too stubborn to return it.”

The dragon tutted. “If you were polite enough to ask, he should have given it back.”

“That’s what I thought.” Footsteps pounded on stairs somewhere beyond the conservatory, along with a distant command to search the whole house. Joanna glanced toward the door, toward the ribbon of dim-but-brightening light at its base. She sighed. “I don’t suppose there’s anything here I can take of equal value before I skip away again.”

“I’ll go with you. I’m at least worth a glow-stone.”

She jerked but caught an instinctive denial before it could leap from her tongue. “Though I appreciate the offer, I have no conservatory to house you.” Dragons, especially in this congested city, needed plants and warmth and sunlight.

“I’ll manage.” A rustling of scales and a flex of bat-like wings spiked her alarm. The creature alit from its cushioned perch, and she instinctively stepped backward.

Could she skip away without offending it? Would it be able to track her? “I’m certain you would find my house far less accommodating than this. And my neighbors are atrocious. And there’s no one at all to augur for.”

“No matter. I’m not very good at it anyway.” The dragon, the size of a large bloodhound, craned its elegant neck to peer up at her, spikes along its head catching flecks of dim moonlight from the bay of windows. Its black scales had an iridescent sheen, like the rainbow on a puddle of grease. Joanna, fascinated, fought an urge to run her finger up the creature’s long snout.

Voices ricocheted in the hall, with shoe-shadows pausing in the slit of light beneath the door. A tap-tap-tap sounded and a hesitant voice called, “Mr. Erastus Green is now entering the room.”

The dragon hissed as the door opened. Brightness flooded the conservatory, the seeker crossing the threshold with the hulking pyromancer at his back. He halted, though, two steps in. Beady eyes flitted from the dragon to Joanna, who arched one brow despite her quickening pulse.

“You didn’t ruin your evening enough already?” she asked.

The seeker—Mr. Green—sneered. “I see. This was your true objective, Miss Marlow.”

The dragon jerked its head. “Marlow?”

Oh, so the Penns’ henchman didn’t recognize her surname, but their beastly soothsayer did. It defied logic and expectation. Why would any dragons know about the Marlow family?

Despite this inner unrest, outwardly she maintained her aloofness. “My true objective is and always was my heirloom glow-stone. Are you returning it, or do I need to escalate matters?”

Mr. Green scoffed. “Bold words for a shadow-skip bathed in full light.”

Perhaps his parents had dropped him on his head as an infant. Multiple times. Feigning pity, she asked, “Did you learn nothing downstairs? Or maybe you thought your eyes deceived you?”

A muscle rippled along his jaw. He tipped his head toward the pyromancer and the other minions in the hall. The glint of a blade flashed in the guard’s meaty hand.

Joanna pursed her lips. “In the time it takes you to throw that knife, I can be at your back shoving a different one between your ribs. Is that what you want?”

“You’re bluffing,” said Mr. Green. “Shadow-skips can’t jump in this degree of brightness.”

“Unfortunately for you, I’m not a shadow-skip.” In a blink, she flitted into the hallway and back to her original position, pausing only long enough to swipe a blade from one of the Penn henchmen out there. Once within the conservatory again, she tossed the knife up and caught the hilt, staring down Erastus Green. “Just a plain skip, no shadows necessary.”

His face paled.

“Perfection,” said the dragon, a note of awe in the word. She spared him a perturbed glance, only to discover him gazing at her like a dog fixated on a marrow bone.

Few things in life unnerved Joanna Marlow, but that open longing jolted her. Did dragons eat skips? She didn’t want to find out. Much as it rankled her, withdrawal was her best option.

But not without a final warning. “You have twenty-four hours, Mr. Green. You can return my glow-stone, or I’ll collect something of equal value, along with a service fee for the trouble. I’m sure the Penns will be ecstatic when you tell them a Marlow was here tonight, and that you antagonized instead of placating.”

As a farewell, she threw the knife at the floor between them. The blade stuck upright in the wood.

“Wait—!” cried the dragon, but Joanna blinked from the conservatory, from the house itself, to a back neighbor’s rooftop.

Her vantage point allowed her a clear view of the gaming house’s wide conservatory windows. Within, the obsidian-colored dragon unfurled its leathery wings and lunged at the crowd on its threshold. Mr. Green and his henchmen scrambled into the hall, shutting the door and cutting the brightness from the room.

The lower level still blazed with artificial sunlight, windows open but no movement within. She skipped again, to a roof that overlooked the front aspect. As expected, the gamblers had fled. A Penn henchman guarded the entrance, cudgel in hand as he surveyed the street.

Fluttering in her periphery preceded a second person joining her. Charity grunted a laugh. “Didn’t go as planned?”

“No. Did you see your Honorable Mr. Crawford when all the rats fled the sinking ship?”

“No, but I did see your Mr. Wortham. He bolted between those two houses.” She pointed to the right, to a pair of gabled roofs with no fence between their front yards. “If you hurry, maybe you can catch him skulking in the bushes.”

Joanna slid her a wry glance. “I’m going home, thanks. Happy hunting, Miss Hawthorne.”

“Oh, but—!”

For the second time, she flitted away before someone could finish their protest. Disappointment and dismay sat heavy in her chest. Not only had she lost an heirloom relic, but she’d picked a fight with a crime family in the process. What if they didn’t obey her ultimatum? What could she even collect as recompense?

Certainly not their pet dragon. The creature had been far too eager to change its residence.

Author’s Note

Welcome to the city of Wesbridge, Elsidor, where shifters and skips, pyromancers and mages mingle beneath the austere regulations of the High Crown. This secondary-world fantasy chronicles the misadventures of Joanna Marlow and the dragon who follows her home. Together they’ll take on cats, crime families, a spoiled heiress, an inbred aristocracy, and a whole tribe of meddling relatives.

YES, YOUR SERPENTINE EXCELLENCY releases on February 26, 2026!