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He hadn’t; I’d done my best to present myself as a goody-goody abider of the law prior to my flight from Miami. “My mother made me buy a wedding dress, Chester.”
“Having met your mother, I’m not surprised. I bet we could find someone to marry the two of you. Dragon Heights doesn’t have any restrictions or delays on marriage, nor does Wyoming. You could elope before playing your games.”
“I am going to pass on an invitation to my execution. My mother and father already helped pick out the wedding dress. If they don’t get to witness me wearing that dress, my head rolls.” I made a gesture of having my neck sliced right off. “And anyway, I think therapy will be required before marriage. I literally left him over our work.”
“You left for a good cause. Dad was shocked, but when he stopped to think about it, he thought your actions were as true of a sacrifice as it gets. Sure, you haven’t met our family at Erik’s request, but everyone knows about you. Mom loved you all the more because of it. You both had dreams. You’d gotten a chance to have yours. He hadn’t. You made sure he had a chance to get a full taste of it. And he has. Dad’ll even think about promoting him up to captaincy once a spot opens. He’s being integrated into the most likely post for there to be a position.”
“Which ward?”
“Diamond.”
That would cause more than a few problems. “They’re looking at making him a captain in the Diamond Ward?”
“The other captains have already offered their vote of approval for it; his time in Miami proved his mettle, and the fact he refused to toss you to the curb when you resigned over the necromancy accusations helped a lot. He did his due diligence and pursued justice. He could have let it slide and kept the job he’d wanted. Instead, he cleared your name despite knowing it might ruin his chances of staying a captain.” Chester took a few more photos of Garnet before crouching in front of Garnet’s stone collection. “These are hers?”
“Yeah, those are hers. Garnet, baby? Why don’t you show Chester your rocks?”
My kitten squeaked, abandoned her wheel, and bounded over to the yellow dragon. As always, she went straight for her smoky quartz, chirping and rubbing her face against it.
“I see she likes that one a lot.”
“She does. I bought it for her from Mr. Acri when he was at his shrine. He gave me a good deal on it.”
“May I?” Garnet squeaked but backed away from her stone. Chester picked it up and held it up so he could view it in better lighting. “How much did you pay for it?”
“He sold it to me for two hundred.”
“He must have liked how she looked with you. This is not a two hundred dollar stone.”
Damned dragons. “He low-balled me?”
“Rather significantly, actually.” Chester placed the stone in front of Garnet, picked up his phone, and tapped on the screen. “Most smoky quartz isn’t all that valuable. It’s common. Where this stone is valuable is due to where it was mined, its symmetry, and overall quality. Each spear is symmetrical. The color is an excellent jet black. It is not from one of the common mines. A similar stone from the same mine, but of lower quality and size, recently sold for five thousand dollars.”
I bowed my head and heaved a sigh. “I got suckered because I don’t know anything about rocks.”
“That is not what being suckered is, Kinsley. Being suckered would be paying five thousand for a two hundred dollar stone. You can’t even say you suckered that black dragon because he made the offer. You probably knew nothing of its value.”
“I didn’t know a chunk of uncut stone could even sell for that much,” I admitted. I joined them, petted my kitten, and pulled out the blue garnet. “Was I suckered when I bought the blue garnet?”
“No. The cyans price their wares fairly. You would have paid market value for the stone.”
“Maybe I can give Mr. Acri a check to cover the difference,” I muttered. The stone would be a problem, and I’d find a way to give the black dragon what he was properly owed. “How much would it normally sell for?”
“Probably seven thousand for size, specimen quality, and prestige.”
I’d have to work my ass off on bounties and private investigations to pay for it—or do as my mother wanted and dip into my savings account. “I’ll make certain he receives appropriate payment for it. It’s her favorite stone, and he deserves to be paid fairly for it.”
“What if he wanted it to be a gift for Garnet?”
“We can fight over the money. He seems like the kind of dragon who enjoys when someone gets in his face about something.”
Chester stared at me as though I’d lost my mind. “Were you aware he’s the leader of the black dragons?”
“I’m quite aware. He seems to be a nice enough dragon, even when I told him I belonged to my kitten and he needed to take his interest elsewhere.”
“You didn’t.”
“I absolutely did. Then he sold me the stone for two hundred.”