Griffen frowned. "I haven't said yes yet."

"Yes, sir," Etienne said, dreamily, spreading his hands out as if plastering a vision on the air. "I can just see it now: parade windin' along St. Charles Avenue, jazz bands, dance troupes, clowns, fire-eaters, stilt-walkers, pretty ladies, and handsome gentlemen in traditional scaled costumes tossin' out t'rows to the crowd, the gold gleamin' on the floats . . ." Griffen found himself caught up in Etienne's vivid description. He started to picture himself standing on the lead float behind that massive dragon with a gold crown on his head, waving and smiling as confetti peppered him from the sky. He shook himself fiercely, refusing to fall into a reverie.

"When did you get all this started?" Griffen asked. "It sounds like it's a lot of work.

"Well, you gotta build all the floats by hand," Etienne said, rocking back on his heels with his thumbs hooked into his belt. "Magic's allowed, of course, or money--you can pay to have 'em built, but Fafnir always made deir own. Matter of pride. A little magic helps 'em hold together better. They can take months. Den dere's they costumes. A fancy beaded one might take a year. People like to make deir own. The permits take a long time, even if Fafnir's a historical krewe. The city government want to make sure it's a legitimate society. We really started in on it full force about two years ago."

"Wow," Griffen said. He watched a young woman standing on a skid-loader platform raised to eight feet above the ground, threading small lights onto the framework of a float that looked finished, to his untrained eye. "This all looks pretty expensive. How does the krewe pay for all this?"