Chapter 7
Davin watched Fearson’s car leave the parking lot entirely before he was willing to go back into the tea shop, so by the time we got inside, Amelia had finished her dishes, and Arthur had put together a plate for Cain, since like the rest of us, he was there for dinner.
It was nice to be able to see him without someone having to be murdered—or attempted-murdered?—first.
“So that guy was”—Cain paused and glanced at one of the tea shop employees, who had made an improvised sandwich of the roast, some horseradish sauce, and a dinner roll—“like Knight? Is that more common than I think?”
“It’s not,” Davin said, shaking his head.
The most adorably overprotective guy ever, he’d moved to the other side of me at the table, so he could be close to both me and Twist. She’d gone back to eating, but was still periodically looking at the door and growling, even as Davin petted her to calm her down.
He lowered his voice and whispered, just to her, “Not to worry, cat. I’ll see to it he crashes that car before I let him hit you with it again. ”
When Cain continued looking at Davin, clearly expecting more of an answer, I shrugged at him. “My family were the only ones we knew of before. And now, I guess, him.”
“It’s not the same,” Bannockburn insisted from his basket. “You smell stronger. Even that doaty cousin of yours smells more like a dragon. That one smells like he’s wearing dragon perfume. Like maybe he only wishes he was.”
Huh.
I glanced back to find everyone, including the guy with the roast sandwich, looking to me to interpret the dog.
I guessed I wasn’t very good at keeping secrets.
In my hands, everyone in the world was going to know about dragons in a minute, and I’d end up the next Sage McKinley, all over the morning shows talking about myself.
“He says the guy barely smells like it. I guess I stink more.”
Davin bumped me with his shoulder and rolled his eyes, all without taking his hand off Twist’s back.
“He did smell weaker. I don’t have a good way to explain it, but he smelled mostly human, but with a little .
. . a little smoke in the background somewhere.
Almost more like he’d once hugged a dragon than he is one. ”
So I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t good at keeping secrets.
Eh. People had dealt fine with learning arcane mages were real.
And sandwich guy—I really needed to learn his name—didn’t even blink.
“Maybe it’s because Flynn’s so much younger.
Maybe it gets weaker when you age?” He stopped and cocked his head, looking at me for a long time. “How long does a dragon even live?”
Okay, I really needed to learn his name. But asking would be rude, since it’d make it clear I hadn’t paid attention when we were introduced.
I thought about it, and pulled the picture Wu Mei had given me out of my pocket, holding it up. “I don’t know when this was taken, but it’s my father.”
Everyone was interested to see that, leaning over the table until I gave up and passed it around, even with the amount of food present that might end up ruining the delicate paper.
Sandwich guy demurred when offered it, but did lean over Grady’s back to take a look. “That’s a cheongsam she’s wearing,” he said. “They started getting popular in the nineteen-twenties. Photograph looks like the right era. So your dad was your age a hundred years ago?”
I considered, but then shook my head. “I don’t think so. I think . . . I think he was already a lot older than me then. There was this whole conversation about the French colonizing his land of origin, which . . . we kinda think was Ireland? So he’d have to have been at least eight hundred there.”
This, finally, made sandwich guy pause. “So wait. How the hell old was that asshole?” He jerked his head toward the door, where Fearson had left.
And that? That was a really good point.
“Maybe . . . my father just knew about the invasion of England, and we’re presuming he was alive for it?”
Arthur shook his head. “No. It’s not that.
” When everyone turned to look at him, like they were watching the world’s slowest tennis match, he held up the picture.
“Fearson wasn’t born when this picture was taken.
I’m sure of it. His company is moving their headquarters from London to here, and I interviewed for the job there.
They have a picture of him on the wall in that office, from the nineties, and he was much younger then.
He looked like he was in his prime in it.
” He paused, cocking his head and considering for a moment, then admitting, “A little bit like your father, actually. But regardless, Fearson is not aging like your father. Maybe a little slower than an average human, since he’s in his middle seventies and has no health troubles I know of, but this man looked in his twenties a hundred years ago, and managed to father you thirty years ago. That’s not the same.”
“Good point,” Grady said, nodding. “Even if we don’t include anything about the colonization, we’ve got proof your father was a minimum of ninety when you were born, and that’s pretty abnormal. Any pictures of him from the time?”
I shook my head. “No, but all my information says he basically looked the same as this then.”
“I want to know what moisturizer the man used,” Amelia muttered, staring at the tiny image of my father.
I shrugged. “I mean, you’ve all met Sexton, and he’s like fifty.”
The room went silent, and they all stared at me.
“Yeah, maybe that Fearson guy is like, half dragon,” sandwich guy said, shaking his head. “No way your cousin is that close to his age and looks that much better. And he does. He’s a weird little dude, but he’s a hottie. Love those sweater vests.”
Considering my mother was not a dragon at all, I didn’t think there was such a thing as a “half dragon,” but there was no reason to point that out.
What mattered was that the guy, Fearson, was not right.
If he smelled like a dragon, and I trusted Davin’s nose enough to say he did, then it was for some sinister reason that somehow made me trust him even less.
Not that one trusted an ableist bastard who hit kittens with his car in his free time to begin with. But I still trusted him even less knowing he smelled of dragon.
Davin was staring off into space, still petting Twist, his other hand on my thigh, when he startled. “You smell more like dragon than your cousin. And he smells more like dragon than Fearson.”
Me?
But I had only known I was a dragon for a few months, so that . . .
No, it did make sense. Because unlike Sexton, I had actually turned into a dragon.
Twice. Okay, yeah, three times. I’d done it again, partially to show my mother, and partially just to prove to myself I could do it.
Then I’d basically turned into Twist and eaten an entire roast salmon in addition to my dinner.
“Did it get worse after . . . the island?”
“Ooooh,” sandwich guy said, sounding like a school kid who was about to start singing the K-I-S-S-I-N-G song. “The island. Sounds kinky.”
Davin ignored him and continued to focus on me.
He paused and considered, cocking his head one way, then the other, before answering.
“Yes and no. It’s been getting stronger since we met, but it didn’t get especially stronger that day.
” Then he looked at sandwich guy and rolled his eyes.
“And no, Josh, it’s nothing like you’re thinking, you little pervert.
I’m saying that turning into an actual dragon didn’t make him smell any more like dragon.
It’s just been getting stronger all along.
Also, it’s fecking strange you think Sexton is attractive.
I didn’t think even the tide would take his arse out. ”
“Aha!” I said, then realized that I shouldn’t have said that out loud. I didn’t have something important to share, I was just pleased that sandwich guy had a name. But everyone was looking at me.
Davin, the asshole, was smirking.
He knew.
Fuck, I loved him.
I blinked at that, and did not accidentally share that particular revelation out loud. So I reached into my brain, rooted around, and offered up the first thing I laid a brain cell on in there. “I, um, the only thing I’ve been doing since the day we met was making more friends.”
“You think making friends makes you more of a dragon?” Josh asked.
The weird thing about that was that he didn’t sound dubious, or even suspicious that I was trying to dodge anything.
I turned and looked at him, wary because why wasn’t he mocking me? He looked entirely in earnest, though.
“They did this study that said water mages who live near big bodies of water are stronger, even if they’re directly related.
You know, like, full siblings who live apart.
They usually have the same power level even if they have different specialties, but not in this case.
The people next to big bodies of water are stronger, and the ones who don’t are kind of .
. . more agile? Like, they can catch raindrops, because it’s what they had access to.
It sort of implies that magic is a muscle you can flex and make stronger.
Maybe being a dragon is like that, sort of. ”
“But the thing that changes power level is friends?” Grady asked. “What was that TV show way back in the day? Something something, sharing is caring. Seems a little after school special, doesn’t it?”
Josh shook his head vehemently. “No. I mean, maybe, but isn’t that just a really old lesson most societies have always taught kids?
We suck at it, sure, but it’s a thing. Support your neighbor.
Care about other people. Give a damn about grandpa, even if he’s kind of a stodgy jerk.
Bring cookies to the widow next door and check if she’s lonely.
It’s how you form a healthy society. People relying on each other. Making everyone stronger.”
“Community,” Amelia concluded as she held the picture back out to me. “Your father was a very handsome man, regardless of how old he was, or how dragony he was. I’m terribly sorry for your loss.”
I just ducked my head at her as I took the picture and pulled out my wallet, carefully putting it across from the only other picture already in there, one I had of my mother. Seemed appropriate for them to be together, even if it was just in my wallet.
“I don’t know if being around people makes me a stronger dragon,” I told the assembled people at the table as I tucked the wallet into my pocket. “But I know it makes me a happier person, and frankly, that’s more important to me.”
I thought it was just as likely that meeting Davin had been the thing to change me, but my father had fallen in love with my mother, and he still hadn’t turned into a strong enough dragon to fight off the bad guy when they came for him.
Besides, that was just as much like a kid’s cartoon as the power of friendship, wasn’t it? True love conquers all?
Or what they called it online, magical healing cock.
Now that, I would not complain about. I glanced over at Davin, who once again seemed to read my mind, and rolled his eyes at me. But he was smiling.
He always seemed to be smiling when he was looking at me.
It was kind of nice.