Page 29 of Dragon Chaos Around

Alani closed her eyes. The cab lurched forward. Somewhere above her, forty-two stories up, a dragon king was reviewing convention logistics in his penthouse and had no idea that in forty-eight hours he would face the most comprehensive interpersonal evaluation of his very long life.

“No,” she said. “Let them do what they do. If he’s going to be in my life—” The words caught. She hadn’t said it out loud before. In my life. The implication spread through her ribcage. “—he needs to survive a Nores dinner. Consider it a stress test.”

“For him or for you?”

“Yes.”

Friday evening. The Nores townhouse. Upper East Side.

Alani arrived an hour early, which was a tactical error she recognized the moment she walked through the front door and smelled three kinds of lumpia.

Three. She made three kinds. The crepe wrappers are out. This is not a dinner. This is a tribunal.

The kitchen was in full operation. Marisol commanded the space—three decades of hosting had distilled into a conviction that bordered on religious: every significant life evaluation should be conducted over a properly set table with food made from scratch. She wore cream silk, gold earrings, her hair swept into the low chignon that meant she was operating at formal capacity. The kitchen smelled like garlic, vinegar, coconut milk, and the living heat of a home where love was expressed through volume and portion size.

“Anak.” Marisol kissed Alani’s cheek without breaking her stirring rhythm. The pot of arroz con gandules was already fragrant—the Puerto Rican side of the menu asserting itself beside the lumpia. “You’re early. Set the table. Eight places. The good china.”

“The good china? Mom, it’s a business dinner.”

“It’s a dinner in my home. We use the good china in my home.” Marisol’s smile was the gracious-steel version Alani had inherited and weaponized for convention negotiations. “Your father is in his study pretending to read the Journal. He’s been checking the window for the last thirty minutes. Royce and Crystal are on their way. And your sister⁠—”

“I’m HERE.” Isla burst through the kitchen doorway in a cloud of rose perfume and energy that made the overhead lights feel brighter. Twenty-seven years old, fresh off a press tour for her action franchise, and vibrating with the specific excitement of a younger sister who had been briefed on the situation and was treating the evening as live theater. She wore a fitted black dress that she’d clearly selected for maximum sophistication, which was undermined by the fact that she was also wearing fuzzy socks because the Nores household had a shoes-off policy that even A-list actresses respected.

“Tell me everything.” Isla grabbed Alani’s arm with both hands. “Royce said he’s seven hundred and ninety years old. Crystal said he left you a first-edition manga. Giselle sent me a spreadsheet. A SPREADSHEET, Alani, with a section labeled ‘courtship artifact timeline’ and a column for estimated retail value.”

“Giselle sent you the spreadsheet?”

“Giselle sent everyone the spreadsheet. Mom has it. Dad printed it out. He highlighted the financial data.”

Alani gripped the edge of the kitchen counter. “Dad highlighted the⁠—”

“In three colors. I think green means approval.”

“Oh my God.”

“He also ran a background check. Through the firm. He told Mom it was standard due diligence for the production deal, but we all know he was evaluating your dragon’s portfolio.”

“He’s not my dragon.”

Isla’s face achieved the expression she reserved for scenes where she knew the audience could see the truth the character was denying. Wide eyes. Gentle tilt of the head. The microscopic smile that had earned her a Screen Actors Guild nomination. “Ate.” The Tagalog term of respect for an older sister, wielded here as a weapon of devastating tenderness. “He left you an eighty-year-old film reel because you mentioned it in a meeting. He is absolutely your dragon.”

Marisol’s spoon paused over the pot. “Film reel?”

“A 1944 original print of The Woman in the Shadows,” Isla reported. “One of three playable copies in the world.”

“Dios mío.” Marisol set the spoon down. Her expression cycled through three distinct phases: maternal calculation, cultural assessment, and the pure, undiluted satisfaction of a mother whose matchmaking instincts were being validated in real time. “Gerri said he was serious. I didn’t realize she meant museum-grade serious.”

“Gerri? Mom—did Gerri Wilder⁠—”

“The china, anak. Eight places. And use the crystal water glasses.” Marisol returned to her stirring with the serene efficiency of a woman who had disclosed exactly as much as she intended and not a syllable more.

Alani stared at her mother’s back. The pieces rearranged themselves: Gerri’s matchmaker network, Marisol’s foundation board seat, the Silverscale Convention hire that had seemed like career advancement and was starting to look like the most elaborate setup since the Trojan Horse.

You have been managed. By your own mother. In collaboration with a professional matchmaker and a twelve-hundred-year-old dragon matriarch.

She opened the china cabinet. The good china—white porcelain with gold rims that Marisol had brought from a shop in Intramuros during their last family trip to Manila—waited in precise stacks. Eight settings. The gold rims caught the kitchen light.

Gold rims. For a dragon whose eyes turn gold.