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Well, at least one dragon in the city was capable of accepting responsibility for the rains. “If it’s kittens, you’ll be dealing with me crying forever, Phillip. Forever, you hear me?”
“Kinsley, if the rains consists of kittens, everyone will be crying. Nobody wants rains of kittens and puppies. The animal lovers among us wouldn’t handle it well, and the people who aren’t animal lovers would have to deal with those of us who are.”
I stared at the titanium dragon. “There are people who don’t like kittens or puppies?”
“There are,” he informed me in a solemn tone.
“If we have a rain of people who hate kittens and puppies, I will solve the problem with copious amounts of fire.”
Cedrick snickered. “Go into the back, Kinsley. We’ll startle the butterflies off you in there. That way, we can get a count of what you’re owed. I’ll text you when your check is ready. There is no point in making you wait for us to figure this mess out.”
“It’ll take all day,” Cedrick’s father groused.
When offered salvation, the wise accepted without hesitation. “Thank you. I appreciate it. I don’t suppose one of you can tell me what to get a yellow dragon as a gift? I’m a pain in the ass, and I feel Erik needs a consolation prize.”
Cedrick raised a brow. His father shot me the sort of stare my mother used when I was being particularly stupid.
“Kinsley, you are the prize. He does not need additional prizes,” the titanium dragon informed me in an exasperated tone. “If you want to make things easier on him, go get booked for your exam. That way, he’ll relax because he will be back on equal ground with you. Those yellows in the Millson family love their equality, so that’s the best gift to give him.” Cedrick’s father continued to engage me in a staring contest. “Go buy his carbunclo some treats and things of her own. You’ll be enjoying more than double the trouble with two of them around. Treats might save you.”
“Or the acquisition of an entire potato farm,” I muttered.
“I wish you the best of luck with that. You’re going to need it.”
TWENTY-NINE
Yellows had a reputation for a good reason.
Sunday, May 10, 2167
The Diamond Ward
Dragon Heights, Wyoming
I waited for my test results in the lobby of a snazzy hotel not far from Erik’s work, and I wondered what the future would hold. In the days leading up to the testing, I’d found very little on the people the mercury dragons had made disappear. With no leads to follow, I did the mental equivalent of pace.
Where had the people gone? If I couldn’t find even a hint of their trail, I wouldn’t be able to find them. That much I understood. I’d gone back to Death Mile twice, and the spirits hadn’t made use of Cecilia’s Scrabble board. Yesterday, I’d returned it to the woman, planning to buy a copy for myself.
Erik liked the game.
I supposed I’d either been haunted and the spirit in Death Mile waited for a good time to take over or the dead had more faith in me than I did.
Then again, did the dead mind waiting a little longer? How did the dead view time? They’d already run out of it in the mortal sense. Perhaps they no longer endured urgency.
I worried for the living, wondering about their fate and what I might be able to do for them—assuming I could find even a trace of them. Outside the word of the dead and the scant clues left behind in the mercury mansion, the missing people didn’t exist, at least not in Dragon Heights.
Where had they come from? I could guess as to the kind of person the mercury dragons had targeted; people like me, transients hoping to make a better life for themselves under the shroud of secrecy. Better remained subjective. The shadows of my past had restrained me. While I somewhat remained anonymous, in that the entire city wasn’t aware my parents were scaled menaces, I’d been exposed as a future member of the Millson family, which cultivated a certain number of issues.
The yellows had a reputation, and if one more person asked me if we would be trying for singlets or entire clutches, I would scream. His family hadn’t asked us, but considering the number of nieces and nephews already romping around, they viewed procreation as an inevitability.
Yellows had a reputation for a good reason.
Unfortunately for them and fortunately for us, we’d mastered the art of preventing unexpected little ones, and we would continue that practice until we were ready for them.
I thought about digging out my phone and texting my parents to check in on Garnet and Tourmaline, who’d been banned from the hotel. I had no idea how the pair might help me cheat on the test, but the idea had been so absurd I’d laughed in the examiner’s face, called in my father, and dealt with the drama of the gold dragon trying not to piss himself from fear.
The terror that my father might level the entire hotel had kept me giggling throughout the entire test, much to the annoyance of the administrators.
All in all, I’d breezed through the exam. An hour in, I’d come to the conclusion I’d vastly overestimated the test’s difficulty. I’d been momentarily confused by one of the essay questions, which had dealt with ethics in a grocery shopping situation.