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TWENTY-FIVE
Yellows did love building things.
Wednesday, April 29, 2167
The Tower Ward
Dragon Heights, Wyoming
As one of the wards skirting the Diamond Ward, the Tower Ward boasted a certain amount of prestige while clinging to some semblance of practicality. Like much of the city, I hadn’t been to the place before, but I could understand why Erik had selected it to be his roost.
Houses could be acquired by those willing to work hard, and the home Erik worked on making for himself had a long way to go before it counted as nice. I eyed the place, which needed a great deal of tender, loving care, and questioned how the stone and wood had gotten into such a sorry state. Once repaired, it would be a wattle and daub with a stone foundation, a nod back to past times and distant lands.
For the moment, it came closer to being a hovel. The foundation would need to be shored, and the gouges in the daub made it clear the building had gotten into a fight with a dragon and had lost.
The only way it could have gotten worse was if the dragon had breathed on it. Then again, if a dragon breathed on it, the whole thing would come tumbling down. I heaved numerous sighs to inform Erik he tested my patience.
“I don’t actually live here yet,” he replied to my many unasked questions. “It’s a rescue, a lot like the Bentley.” Erik pointed at the neighboring building. That one had lost whatever dispute it had with a dragon, crumbling down without hope of salvation. “I own that one, too.”
The rubble on the other side worried me. If he owned the one that’d mostly survived the damage and the one destined for demolition, I could see him having grabbed the trashed property, too.
Yellows did love building things.
“How many did you buy?”
Erik pointed at the empty lot beside the wattle and daub. “That was rubble, too. Honestly, I don’t know how this place survived. A red and an iron got into a bit of a fight here. The red owned the empty lot. The iron owned the one on the end.” Heaving the kind of pained sigh that warned me something had gone wrong in his life recently, he gestured at the building that could be restored with time, effort, and money. “When I had bought this, it had not been damaged. I got unlucky. I’m being paid damages from both the dragons, and our neighbors decided to bail. I offered their mortgage value for the place so they wouldn’t get a slow screw. I had to ask Dad for help with that, because the red and the iron are still working at paying me.”
I read between the lines: Erik might get paid eventually.
Crossing to the other side of the street, I joined my parents, who’d offered to serve as transportation. Garnet napped in my father’s arms while Tourmaline visited every nearby flower. I considered the street and the wattle and daub, determining the place could be expanded into a nice little manor appropriate for a pair of dragons setting off into the world without their parents hovering. “I’m still testing in.”
My mother laughed. “I expected nothing less. I did have to confess to Enzo that you’re our hatchling, but he’s promised to keep your dirty little secret while you test in. It was part of updating your registry as a hatchling. I asked that your color remain anonymous for now. Some things you have to discover on your own, and it’s better that you grow into your scales properly. And don’t feel like you’re getting special treatment. Hatchlings from mixed color heritages get the same treatment. It better helps the hatchling define their own color. And while you shifted, it was induced from injury and stress, so you still have a great deal of growing left to do. When you figure out the knack of it on your own, you will learn your color. Until then, you will simply need to stew in the mystery of it.”
“Everyone knows I’m a dragon now?”
With a smile, my mother leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Don’t worry. We’re taking the blame for it. After all, we cruelly dragged you to every single shrine on Shrine Hill—and having to put up with us is considered to be a most noble sacrifice. At this stage, anyone too blind to figure out that you’re your father’s daughter can only blame themselves for not figuring it out.”
I snickered. “Your thoughts on this place?”
“Having seen the before pictures, I know how crushed Erik was when his new house barely held its ground against a pair of rampaging dragons. The place isn’t habitable quite yet, but between the two of you, I’m sure you can change that readily enough.”
It would take a lot more than some elbow grease to get the home to a state anyone could live in it. “Has he hired contractors yet?”
“He’s waiting on the settlement. He didn’t want to mooch off his parents.”
Of course he didn’t. Like me, Erik had more pride than he knew what to do with. “And how long for you two to make the place habitable if I tie the yellow up, claim him as part of my hoard, and demand a suitable home for my carbunclo and hummingbird?”
“Three weeks,” my mother replied, and the immediacy of her answer indicated she’d already looked into the situation.
“Price?”
After making a thoughtful sound in his throat, my father said, “Take on the mercury case. The force will pay you decently, although you’d make more if you weren’t working as a private investigator. But if you’re working on the case, then I’ll be confident the truth will be exposed. I know the ethics are going to bother you, but you don’t have something like this happen without every dragon in the city being involved in some form or another. And if this does tie with the murdered pilgrims, then it truly does involve every dragon clan in the city. Taking care of repairing your new home is suitable penance for having made a mess of your plans.”
“I’m pretty sure those mercury dragons were involved. That crazy woman questioned me about being a pilgrim. She had some form of crystal that changed colors when someone told lies and the truth.”
“We’re aware. What we’d like to know is how you managed to get out of that hellhole without getting caught. The place was absolutely crawling with mercury-crazed dragons.”
I recognized trouble when it crossed my path, and I identified a significant problem.