Chapter Thirty-Three. When You Give Flying Lessons
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
WHEN YOU GIVE FLYING LESSONS
JAMES
Before we teach them to fly, we need to be watchful and pick our timing.
A Rimback and three newborns can’t be seen in the skies together.
And even more importantly, we need to understand my father’s next move.
Will he spread rumors of Farren’s advancement?
Will he try to tarnish Dr. Walsh’s business with lies?
Or will he stay quiet?
In order to make sure, Dr. Walsh systematically checks in on each of his clients and takes Farren and me with him.
He offers a free checkup, but our true intentions are to witness how we’re received, make sure rumors haven’t spread or quell those that have.
And while we do that, Mrs. Walsh soars out on her Sprinter each day to find us a good deserted island for hatchling flying lessons.
Two days into our mission, it’s clear where my father has drawn the line and who he felt needed to hear the lie of Walshes stealing silver.
Every client who owns a bronze or silver dragon declines a free checkup.
Some do it subtly while others flat out admit they won’t need anyone with the last name Walsh looking at their dragons from here on out.
Dr. Walsh hangs up the phone in the same way no matter the verdict—a click of the receiver.
“Mark the Brundy family as a no,” he’ll announce into the holding-your-breath quiet.
Farren will scratch out the note and then we all focus back as he spins the dial to hear his next answer.
A myriad of confused yeses, a few cryptic nos.
“Call the Ditters next,” I suggest after the fourth speculated rejection.
“He only rents his dragons. He’s not an official client,” Farren objects.
“But he wishes he was. If he doesn’t know, he’ll take you up on your offer. If he does, he’ll be belligerent. The Ditters have been trying to become silver-crafters for generations. They want the very best.” I tap at the phone. “Mr. Ditters next.”
Dr. Walsh looks impressed and nods his approval.
I hold my breath as Mr. Ditters answers.
The same introductory phrases and offer float breezily through the phone.
A pause settles over the line. Then disgust mars Mr. Ditters’s voice.
“I know what you and your family are, Mr. Walsh—silver-stealing scum. I don’t know why the Murphys aren’t pressing charges, but if you come to my home that will be a different story.
” The line dies. But the answer seems to glow to life around us.
My father has voiced his assumptions to every bronze-and silver-crafter he’s connected with, which is all of them. But he’s not pressing charges.
Hours later, the tally is in. The Walshes have lost seven clients, which doesn’t sound like many until Mrs. Walsh, pacing through the room, slumps in the chair with her own reports.
“Sixty-seven percent of our revenue lost,” she tells us.
“If last year’s receipts are anything to go off of.
But we always knew it was going to be bad.
Murphy’s tracks are thirty percent of our business.
And Hort’s recovery here was financing us until the end of the year. ”
Thirty percent? Until the end of the year? No wonder my father presumed he could buy out the sanctuary eventually. I almost curse. Farren does.
Dr. Walsh pats the table. “We still have forty-seven clients to take care of, twenty-six who agreed and are eager for a checkup. Let’s go.”
Farren and I are supposed to complete each dragon’s physical as Dr. Walsh asks the real questions to know exactly what rumors have been spread.
On the third farm, where three iron-plated Sprinters herd and protect the vast fields of sheep from other dragons, the owner, an elderly lady with crisp white hair, makes a joke about Dr. Walsh training up his replacements.
“Farren might not want to take over. A lot can change in college,” Dr. Walsh answers with sincerity before stepping away with the kind Mrs. Hattish.
“You wouldn’t take over the sanctuary?” I ask Farren as soon as her dad’s out of earshot.
I had assumed, unlike me, she wanted the family business.
That we shared the dream to be dragon veterinarians.
But maybe that was just me projecting. Maybe Farren wants something else.
Suddenly, this feels bigger than it should.
Like if I don’t know this one piece of her, I don’t know anything.
She turns to me, blonde hair falling in front of her face as she feels the Sprinter’s belly. I’m at the front end, finished checking teeth and his throat. The Sprinter takes that moment to nuzzle my ear, hot saliva dripping down my face.
Farren laughs. “Who wouldn’t look forward to this?”
I wipe the slobber off my face as gracefully as I can. “I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic.”
Her hands glide along the back legs, checking his joints. “I do want this.” Her brown eyes hook into mine. “You know, there used to be only one person in the way of that dream.”
Me. Competing for the scholarship. Damn it. With everything that had changed between us, I’d quite literally forgotten our rivalry. But who could blame me? Farren Walsh kisses me now. Even with my father’s threats a lingering fear, life has been joyous with that one new development.
“What kind of vile jerk would get in the way of your dreams?” I balk.
“You probably haven’t heard of him. But he’s as awful as you’re imagining,” she teases.
“Ouch, Walsh. I have a good imagination.” A lie. I couldn’t have even imagined joking with her like this weeks ago.
She chuckles before getting serious again. “I do want to take over. I just can’t fathom my father retiring.” She stares up at me. “Right now, it’s hard to fathom a future at all.”
Ice hits my veins. As much as I’m happy right now, the truth is I’m wrapped up in that uncertainty. Our relationship too.
“Not until we can somehow clear our names,” Farren adds. “And we can’t do that until we know they’ll be safe.” I don’t need to ask who she means by they.
I think back to our timeline, the hope that Nity would nest in that cave over and over again. “We might never be able to guarantee that.”
She turns back to the dragon’s leg. “I know.”
I’ve spent the last few days trying to reassure all the Walshes that my father is a coward who cares far too much about his reputation and business to come poking around.
But how many times had I heard him talking of buying out the Walsh Sanctuary, using it to create breeding facilities and more open training grounds?
He’s always complained how the Walshes aren’t ambitious, aren’t business-oriented enough to take his obscene offers.
So if he assumes they have become social climbers like so many of his clients, he might think he has a chance to gain a foothold.
And if he suspected for even a moment a golden dragon nested on this coast, he’d fly in within an hour.
I’ve let those worries remain my own, though.
“Your father won’t retire before you finish at Revers,” I reassure.
In part that is why we are here making house visits to every dragon under Dr. Walsh’s care.
Not only to field rumors so we are safe enough to teach the hatchlings to fly, but to gather support.
From what I’ve seen attending to thirty-four dragons in the past week, his remaining clients are fiercely loyal, and of course they would be.
How do you drag someone’s name through the mud when they are the kind of man to dive into the mud to help you?
“If I go to Revers,” Farren clarifies, placing way too much emphasis on the if.
“You will. Of course you will.”
She stands and runs her hands down the dragon’s back. “I meant more if I can afford it.”
I am a complete jerk. Her fight for the scholarship wasn’t led by ambition and trying to prove herself. With the sanctuary and how much her family gives back to the dragon community, they don’t have the funds. Even these checkups are pro bono. “Take it,” I blurt.
She jerks and holds out her hand, ready to take whatever I’m trying to throw at her. “What? Take what?”
“The scholarship. It’s yours.”
She drops her hand slowly and stares me down. “No.”
“What?”
“You aren’t going to give it to me.”
“But—” But it’s rightfully hers. She’s better than me, deserving.
“We fight fair. You need that scholarship just as much as I do. Worst-case scenario I’m stuck here interning with my dad, doing what I already love until I can make enough money to pay my way. But you? You need to get out of that house.”
“I thought you said you couldn’t think of the future?”
“Yeah, well. I guess I’ve thought of your future,” she admits, a blush dusting her face.
I stutter on two emotions. First, a warm attraction to her looking at me like that, as proof she cares about me. Then coolness thinking of going off to Revers without her there by my side. Of not being with her through it all.
Farren moves to the next stall, toward the next dragon. I follow on her heels. “But you deserve it more than I’ll ever—”
She whirls on me before we enter the stall. “The truth is I don’t deserve it. I probably shouldn’t go to Revers at all.”
That’s the most perplexing thing she’s said so far. Farren Walsh, who knows more about dragons than anyone, who’s beyond curious and passionate, shouldn’t go to school to learn more? “What? Why?”
She adjusts her glasses, not meeting my eye. “It’s not important anymore.”
She’s nuts if she thinks I’m dropping this. “You mean your future? Of course it’s important, Walsh.” I step forward. “Tell me.”
She glances around the humble stone barn. “I wanted to go to Revers to become a licensed veterinarian, but I also wanted to get funding for a research excursion.” Before I even open my mouth to ask, she continues. “I wanted to get funding to see if I could find them, Nity’s colony.”
My thoughts dull to a whisper. “You think there’s a whole colony?”