Chapter Thirty-eight
BEN
Having very thoroughly missed lunch, we grabbed some leftovers from the kitchen before heading back to the records room. There, I set Dominic to crafting a suitable reply to Teddy’s invitation while I got on with some work.
“I haven’t got any glitter,” he complained.
“Improvise,” I told him.
Grumbling, he settled down, and I got on with my papers. It was a full half hour before he announced he’d finished, and held out his creation for my inspection. He still had the lack of artistic ability he’d displayed as a child, but that didn’t matter—Teddy would love this.
Around the swirly letters in which he’d written our acceptance, he’d drawn a series of pictures.
Teddy, Laura, Dominic and me on a conker hunt, finding the best conker in the world, according to the title.
He’d drawn Teddy’s collection of pine cones.
And along the top, a dragon over a ruined castle breathed smoke that spelled out ‘Happy Birthday, Teddy’.
I smiled, drawing my finger along the edge of the paper. There we were, recorded together on the page. Dominic and me.
“We haven’t talked about what happens when I finish my work here.” I blurted it out as the thought struck me, and I could have kicked myself when I saw the fear in Dominic’s eyes.
“I mean, obviously, we’re together no matter what,” I said, and his look of dread drained away almost as quickly as it had come. “I’m just wondering. You’re going to be head of this family, but…”
I loved Dominic. I was beginning to love parts of this family too. But I couldn’t imagine spending the rest of my life somewhere people lowered their voices when Rhodri entered a room. Somewhere everyone watched themselves all the time.
I should have worded it better, but the truth spilled out. “I don’t want to live here, not the way it is.”
There was a long pause, with Dominic staring at the table in front of him. Then he lifted his head and met my eyes. “Neither do I.”
I hadn’t realised until that moment how afraid I’d been that he would ask me to accept it anyway. To endure it because Dragon’s Ending was his responsibility.
But he just looked at me, open and honest.
“It can’t stay like this,” he said quietly. “Not if I’m going to lead this family one day. And I’m not waiting until I take over to change things.”
“Okay,” I said. I knew he wasn’t making me a promise he hoped to keep. He was telling me what he was going to do.
For a while afterwards, neither of us spoke much. Dominic perched on the table and returned to his sorting, though his system appeared to consist largely of making wobbly piles while humming under his breath. I tried to work too, but found myself looking at him more often than my notes.
Watching him, a thought occurred to me.
“Wait,” I said.
Dominic stopped humming and looked up.
“If Mortimer’s forming this council, then our theory about Mordred doesn’t make sense.”
He leaned over and kissed me. “Most conspiracy theories don’t.”
“A conspiracy theory you bought into,” I reminded him. “But the point is, if he’s not searching for some kind of historical authority for his family, why’s he so interested in dragon history? Why’s he gone to the trouble of getting my family access to whatever records are left?”
Dominic was quiet for a moment. Then he shrugged.
“He must be about a hundred,” he said. “Maybe this is about his legacy. So that when future generations actually know dragon history, instead of the confusing myths and huge blank spots most families have now, they’ll get down on their knees and praise his name. ”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” I said. “And I guess this way, Evelyn owes him a favour, which is always helpful.”
“Or maybe,” Dominic said, swinging his leg in a most distracting way, “he just wants to know everyone’s secrets.”
That. That was the explanation that made most sense to me. I still shivered when I thought of Abimelech Mortimer, and there was no way he didn’t have ulterior motives for everything he did. Secrets meant leverage.
“I’d better let Evelyn know what’s going on,” I said.
Dominic listened shamelessly as I brought Evelyn up to date on what had happened with Mortimer and also told her that I was apparently forgiven and no longer at risk of being expelled from the house.
“And the castle? Made any progress there?”
“There hasn’t really been a good moment to suggest to Rhodri we knock down some walls,” I told her, “but I haven’t forgotten. In fact”—and despite myself I paused and swallowed nervously—“it might be easier now, because Dominic and I are together.”
She was silent. Probably only for seconds, but it felt like hours.
“Dominic,” she said at last. “The Bedwyr heir?”
The one she’d told me not to go near, the one she’d trusted me not to fall for because I was far too sensible to have my head turned.
“There’s only one Dominic,” I told her.
She sighed and was silent a moment longer. Then she asked softly, “Are you happy?”
“Very,” was all I said, but my smile was in my voice.
“I’m glad for you, Ben,” she said. “Don’t forget, we still need those records. I trust you’re getting some work done in between everything else you’re obviously up to.”
I buried my face in my hand in utter mortification. Dominic, meanwhile, was cackling.
“Yes,” I said meekly, and breathed a sigh of relief as she signed off.
“What could she possibly have meant by everything else?” Dominic wondered.
“Don’t,” I begged him. And then I realised I still had to let my parents know about Dominic.
I thought about taking him home to meet them, about the way Mum would keep feeding him, and Dad would quiz him about rugby simply because he was Welsh, and I wanted it.
I wanted him to spend time in my unexciting, normal, loving family.
I turned back to my papers eventually, though it took rather more effort than it should have done to drag my attention away from Dominic.
The records of those long gone waited patiently for me, full of love affairs, long-forgotten quarrels, and lives lived. But for once, I found myself thinking less about the past and more about the future.
DOMINIC
The buzz of conversation was louder than usual, with those seated around the supper table obviously not yet over the excitement of having had Abimelech Mortimer visit the family.
Although Ben and I had spent almost the entire day together, I found myself lingering by his chair as he sat down, not wanting to leave him.
It would be undiplomatic, to say the least, if I were to defy my father at this delicate point and sit next to Ben.
I wasn’t sure I liked this sudden need I felt to be diplomatic, but neither was I going to blow everything up again for no real reason.
“Flying tonight?” I asked, my voice low against his ear as I reached past him to shake out his napkin and place it over his lap. Like the world’s best waiter, if a little more handsy.
His eyes were alight with anticipation as he looked back at me. “Yes,” he said. Simple and definite.
Just like I’d thought he’d been at the start. The things that I so loved about him now—his straightforwardness, his certainty, his solidity—had all been reasons to write him off as dull, unimaginative, and unaware. God, I’d had him so wrong.
“Dominic, Ben.” Dafydd’s voice. “D’you want to fly with us tonight?”
I paused. I’d neglected them, I knew it, and they were not only my family but my friends. But tonight—that was for Ben.
“Tomorrow,” I told him. “Tonight, Ben and I have other plans.”
I hadn’t actually meant it to sound the way it did, but no one around the table looked surprised. I guessed my reputation wasn’t entirely unearned.
Silence fell as Rhodri walked in, and I realised I was still hovering, half-leaning over Ben, rather than in my seat the way I should be before his arrival. He took in the room with one swift glance, the way he always did, and his gaze paused on me.
I straightened slowly as he sat down.
“I suppose you may stay there, Dominic, if you’re really so worried that Ben can’t locate the salt cellar without you,” he said, then leaned over to speak to Dylan.
I didn’t need telling twice.
“Budge up,” I said to Ben and Phoebe.
She made a long-suffering sound as I went to retrieve my chair from the head of the table and brought it around to my new place. Next to Ben.
* * *
The castle stood against the night sky, its ruins shadows and silver in moonlight. Ben stepped closer to the edge of the hill, breath misting in the cold air.
“Race you?” he asked.
“You always cheat,” I informed him. “You distract me.”
He grinned at me, and then shifted.
I didn’t think I would ever become used to the beauty of it. The flash of pure white scales in the darkness, moonlight catching along the curve of his wings as his dragon emerged. He launched himself into the sky a heartbeat later, those powerful wings seeming to lift him without effort.
My dragon surged joyfully. I leapt after Ben, wings wide in the night air. Cold swept past me, clean and exhilarating, and below us Dragon’s Ending no longer felt like a prison waiting for my return. The house, the family, the future—all of it was still complicated, still uncertain.
But for the first time I could remember, I didn’t want to fly away from it.
Ben banked sharply beneath the moon, bright against the darkness, and I folded my wings to dive after him.