Page 17 of Nobody Told Me Thrift Shops Sell Stolen Dragon Heirlooms

“And I know he passed things and stories on as best he could,” I went on. “Mother has some of them still. Or had them. But so much was traded, sold, scattered, stolen, miscataloged, taken into collections by people who admired the craftsmanship and cared nothing for the family behind it.”

My throat tightened slightly, but I kept my tone even.

“I’m not under any illusion that finding a handful of heirlooms will somehow restore an erased bloodline,” I said. “But I’m tired of feeling as though my dragon side exists mostly in stories told to me by people who are dead or disappearing. I would like something of it to be solid. Something I can hold. Something that says we were here before we were reduced to rarity.”

I didn’t mention that my cleanest connection to the dragon side was through my mother, and it was slowly slipping in a way that made me feel incredibly alone.

My father was quiet for a long time.

When he finally spoke, there was no surprise on his face. “You should’ve said so sooner.”

I gave him a look. “I’m saying so now.”

“Yes.” He shifted the tray again. “In your famously relaxed, unguarded way.”

I exhaled through my nose, frustration creeping up in me.

He spared me a small smile, then let it fade. “You’ve always done this, Rafe.”

“Done what?”

“Waited until a thing mattered enough to wound you before admitting you wanted it.”

I didn’t answer.

He went on, more gently, “Your great-grandfather and great-grandmother survived the Winged War. Your grandfather survived what came after it. Your mother has carried what she could, even now. There is nothing frivolous in wanting to know where you come from.”

“I know that.”

He scoffed. “Do you?”

I looked away.

The truth was more complicated than that. Wanting the relics wasn’t the same as believing they would settle anything in me. I was still my father’s dragon son in a wolf pack that could scent the difference between belonging and resemblance, still my mother’s son in a lineage so reduced that even our survival could feel incidental. I was still the product of bloodlines that didn’t merge neatly. Dragon enough to carry the history, wolf enough, apparently, to be assured by very expensive doctors that I wouldn’t inherit the Fog of my dragon ancestry.

I didn’t fully trust those assurances.

Genetics might say one thing. Blood, in families, had a way of saying others.

My father looked at me more closely then, and I knew at once he’d followed the turn in my thoughts.

“You’re not going to get the Fog,” he said.

“I’m aware of the medical opinion.”

“Rafe.”

I met his warm, brown eyes. My own had too much of my mother in them for either of our comfort. That, at least, was one inherited trait visible without excavation.

“The specialists have explained it to you,” he said. “Repeatedly.”

“Just because they’re educated doesn’t mean they can see the future.”

His expression didn’t change, but something like sympathy moved over it. “No. It merely makes them people with more education than either of us in this one area.”

I almost said speak for yourself, but that would have been childish.

He stepped closer and lowered his voice, though there was no one near to overhear. “You’re allowed to be frightened by what is happening to her. But that isn’t the same thing as believing it must happen to you.”