28. Quinn
QUINN
MAX CLAIMS THE LOUNGING PAD
By the time the magical authorities arrived, Dimitris had put on a robe, accepted a blanket he didn’t need, and begun referring to the attempted heist as “an awakening.”
A woman from Olden Folk Crimes took his statement while three uniformed officers watched the smoking black mark on the gallery floor as if it might start answering questions.
Luke Gildstein was gone, which had made one officer pale and another one quietly ask whether they needed a dustpan or a containment vessel.
Nobody laughed.
Except Dimitris, who laughed once and said, “Both, perhaps.”
Rafe stood beside me with one hand on my back. His shirt was ruined. Blood had dried along one shoulder and beneath his jaw. His hair was a mess from shifting back, and his face had settled into a calm mask.
“I’m fine,” he said for the third time. The paramedic who was assessing him glanced at me.
“He’s lying,” I said.
Rafe looked down at me. “You’re the one with a cut on your collarbone.”
“I have a decorative scratch. You got shot.”
“The bullet didn’t penetrate.”
“That’s a horrifying sentence that doesn’t help nearly as much as you seem to think.”
Dimitris drifted closer, robe belted loosely, face newly young and painfully pleased with itself. The fire had left him looking brighter, somehow. Less polished. More alive. It was deeply irritating that almost dying had improved his skin.
“My dear Ms. Bradley,” he said, “you are wasted on litigation.”
“I’m just an intern.”
“A crime against talent.”
Rafe’s gaze sharpened. “Don’t try to recruit her.”
“I was merely complimenting her.”
“You were circling.”
Dimitris touched a hand to his chest. “Rafael, I have been reborn today. I am considering growth.”
“You killed a man twenty minutes ago.”
“I said considering.”
The Olden Folk Crimes investigator paused for one long second, then kept writing.
Dimitris looked at Max, who sat at my side covered in dust and absolutely convinced all of this could have been avoided if everyone had listened to him earlier.
“And you,” Dimitris said warmly. “Brave beast. Excellent teeth.”
Max sneezed.
“He’s humble,” I said.
“No, he isn’t,” Rafe said. “He knows his worth.”
My heart, the traitor, did something awful and hopeful.
Dimitris noticed because he was apparently immortal and nosy. His smile turned sly. “Ah.”
“No,” I said.
Dimitris lifted both hands. “Very well. I will leave the dragon and his terrifying woman to their medical care.”
The authorities kept us there another hour.
Statements. Questions. A careful accounting of what had been stolen, what had been damaged, and which items had been recovered from crates near the service entrance.
The incense burner was placed in a padded transport case and handed to Rafe under the supervision of three separate officials and one extremely offended phoenix.
Dimitris surprised me by not making a joke when Rafe took it. He only inclined his head. “I had no right to it.”
Rafe held the case against his side, his expression unreadable. “No,” he said. “You didn’t.”
Dimitris accepted that without flinching, which was the first thing he had done all day that made me like him for more than four seconds.
“I may travel for a while. See what remains of my kind. Perhaps find other phoenixes who have not spent the last century nesting in beautiful rooms.”
“That sounds healthy,” I said.
“Are you going to return stolen objects while you’re self-actualizing?” Rafe asked.
Dimitris’s mouth curved. “Let us not make the journey unpleasant before it begins.”
Max barked.
“Fine! Some,” he said. “Perhaps many. I reserve the right to be irritating about it.”
“That is the most realistic promise you’ve made.”
He laughed and waved us away.
When we finally stepped outside, dusk had settled over the estate. Emergency lights flashed against the pale stone. The ruined east wing smoked faintly behind us. Max leaned against my leg, exhausted now that his work was done.
“You’re coming home with me,” Rafe said. “Our family doctors are there.”
“I was checked by paramedics.”
“You were grazed by a knife, almost crushed beneath a display case, exposed to smoke, and recently recovering from illness.”
“I also had a very big day emotionally, but nobody is making a chart for that.”
“They can start one.” His jaw worked once. He looked away toward the lawn, then back at me, and the part of me braced for command softened when I saw the effort it cost him to choose a different shape.
“Please,” he said. “Come to my estate. Let my doctors examine you and Max. After that, if you want to leave, I will take you home.”
There it was.
The offer. The choice.
Care without the cage.
I looked down at Max. “What do you think?”
Max sat on Rafe’s shoe.
Rafe looked at him.
I sighed. “The motion carries.”
Rafe’s estate was nothing like Dimitris’s.
That was the first thing I noticed.
It was enormous, because rich, magical families didn’t believe in manageable square footage, but it didn’t feel like a showroom for one man’s ego.
The house rose from the grounds in warm stone and dark wood, windows glowing in the blue-black evening.
The drive curved past old trees, low gardens, and terraces softened by age and use.
It was beautiful in a way that looked lived in.
And there, exactly where I remembered it from the night I had flown over the estate on Rafe’s back, was the landing terrace.
It was wider from the ground and no easier to be normal about.
The terrace curved beyond the east wing, broad enough for a dragon to take off and land, its edges softened by moss.
A man in a dark suit opened the door. A woman with silver hair and a tablet looked at the three of us and visibly recalculated her entire evening.
“Mr. Virelli,” she said. “Doctors Hoshino and Bell are on their way to the east sitting room. Your parents have been notified.”
“My mother?” Rafe asked.
“Awake and insistent.”
A brief, complicated warmth moved through his face. “Of course.”
The next twenty minutes happened in pieces.
A doctor cleaned the cut at my collarbone and confirmed it was shallow.
Another checked Max’s paws, ears, heart, breathing, and declared him “remarkably sound for a veteran gentleman,” which Max accepted as if he had expected no less.
Rafe submitted to the exam after one look from me, because apparently even dragons understood when a woman was done negotiating.
“You need stitches,” I said.
“I only need three.”
“That still qualifies as stitches.”
He looked at the doctor. “Do them.”
The doctor glanced at me, amused.
“Please don’t encourage this,” Rafe said.
“I’m being medically useful.”
He almost smiled, but then his parents arrived.
Rafael Virelli was tall, broad and silver at the temples.
His whole presence warmed the air. Next to him was Aoi, Rafe’s mother, holding his arm lightly.
She looked too young to be his mother if you didn’t know the truth, lovely and bright-eyed, with dark hair pinned loosely at the nape of her neck.
Her gaze moved over Rafe, then landed on me.
“Oh,” she said softly. “You brought the sunshine.”
My throat tightened before I could stop it.
Rafe went still beside me.
Aoi smiled at Max. “And the soldier.”
Max lifted his head.
Rafael’s expression gentled. “Aoi, this is Quinn Bradley. And Max.”
“I know,” she said, delighted. “He has old eyes.”
I stood. “It’s really nice to meet you.”
Aoi took both my hands in hers before I could decide whether to offer one. Her palms were warm and delicate, her eyes clear for that moment in a way that made Rafe’s attention sharpen.
“My son never brings girls home,” she said.
Rafe closed his eyes. “Mother.”
“What? It’s true.”
Rafael coughed into his hand.
I tried very hard not to smile. “He did mention doctors.”
“Doctors.” Aoi waved that away. “Men love a practical excuse for the thing they wanted anyway.”
Rafe looked like he might walk directly into the wall.
I had never adored anyone faster.
“Max wanted to come,” I said.
Aoi looked down at Max, who had risen to greet her with perfect gentleness. She offered her hand for him to sniff. “Of course he did. He knows where people need him.”
Rafe’s face changed.
We stayed for dinner because Rafael insisted, Aoi wanted to sit with “the brave ones,” and Max, after a full medical exam and venison treats from Dimitris’s doggy bag, had developed opinions about leaving before food.
We ate in a smaller dining room that still could have fit my entire apartment twice.
Soup, bread, roast chicken, vegetables, tea.
Nothing showy. Everything good. Aoi told a story about Rafe as a boy trying to learn to make smoke rings and accidentally singeing a gardener.
Rafe denied the details. Rafael corrected him.
I listened, trying not to look too hungry for every piece of him I hadn’t known.
Rafe watched me from across the table. Not in a way that made me feel examined, but in a way that made me feel kept, special.
It was everything.
After dinner, Max followed us into the sitting room attached to the dining room, moving with the confidence of a dog who had survived an explosion and now expected excellent accommodations.
He found an enormous padded oval cushion near the window, sniffed it, circled twice, and lowered himself onto it with deep satisfaction.
I froze. “Max.”
He sighed and shut his eyes.
“Maximus Decimus Aurelius Bradley, that is not yours.”
Rafe looked at the bed, then at my dog. His expression softened. “It was my mother’s.”
My stomach dropped. “Oh my god. I’m so sorry. Max, up.”
“No,” he said quickly. “It’s all right.”
Aoi, now sitting near the fire with a blanket over her knees, smiled at Max. “He may use it.”
I looked between them. “Are you sure?”
“It was my lounging pad,” she said. “When I could still shift.”
The room quieted around that. Max rested his chin on the raised edge and gave another exhausted sigh.
Rafe’s voice came gently beside me. “He looks very comfortable.”
“He looks like he’s just acquired generational wealth.”