Page 72 of Dragon’s Ending

Yeah, me too.

BEN

There was no sign of Rhodri as we made our way through the kitchen, along the narrow passageway and into the hall. We’d taken to using the back staircase as our own, but I guessed Dominic didn’t want to look as if he were hiding. And I didn’t think either of us wanted to drag this out any longer if Rhodri was going to banish him.

Banish, exile—I wasn’t sure of the difference in the words that I’d thought applied to a different century. All I knew was that Dominic would never be able to go home again. Maybe this place had hurt him more than it had sheltered him, but it was still his home.

I was torn between helpless fury and sickness when I thought of Rhodri’s threat. He’d had a point that I hadn’t known Dominic that long, and from what I had seen, I had no problem believing he’d been… a handful, when he was younger. But for God’s sake, couldn’t his own father see why? Couldn’t he see the man behind all the swagger and recklessness? The one who loved without reservation and felt everything too deeply.

There was no sign of Rhodri in the hall. The dining room was open and empty, the door to Rhodri’s study firmly closed. With a shrug, Dominic picked up the conkers from the fireplace and headed upstairs.

In his room, he put the conkers next to the pine cone on the windowsill, and I wondered how long they’d get to stay there. Perhaps every trace of Dominic would be expunged from the house as ruthlessly as he would be.

I shook out of my depressing thoughts when Dominic handed me those three small conkers. A faint echo of his usual mischief showed in his eyes. “You promised Teddy,” he reminded me.

God help me, I had. His big grey eyes, his earnestness, had suckered me. Seemed as if I had a weakness for Bedwyr boys.

“Oh, shit,” I said as I realised. “I’d better warn Evelyn that I managed to upset my host.”

She was going to be furious. I’d done exactly what she’d warned me not to do, and in doing so, might well have lost us access to these records. But there was still no possible universe in which she would ever threaten to exile me, let alone do it.

“Call her here, if you want,” Dominic said, already moving towards the door. “No one’ll disturb you. I’ll get started on the records.”

It wasn’t right, how small and quiet he was.

“Thanks,” I said helplessly, because I didn’t know how else to reach him.

The call with Evelyn was mercifully short. She went very quiet after I explained that Rhodri and Dominic had argued and that I might possibly have involved myself.

“You involved yourself,” she repeated.

“In my defence, he was being awful.”

There was a long pause.

“Ben,” she said at last, in a tone that suggested my impending destruction, “please tell me you did not openly challenge the head of another dragon family on his own territory.”

“I mean, that would depend on how you define openly. And challenge,” I said.

I could practically hear the disappointment in her silence. And when she finally sighed and told me to do whatever I could to smooth things over and to keep her informed if the situation deteriorated further, I had the unnerving suspicion that she knew far more than I thought I’d revealed. Maybe she’d been able to sense the little part of me that, despite the fear and the worry, still glowed with one simple truth. Dominic loved me.

By the time I returned to the records room, Dominic had already started work. He was going through the earliest records we’d found so far, page by page, phone moving steadily as he photographed them. He looked up as I entered.

“Well? Are you going to be flamed at dawn?”

“Not yet.”

“Good.” His attention dropped back to the papers almost immediately as if there were no time to waste.

Suddenly the panic hit me. If I lost access now—No. Don’t think about it. Work.

We worked together in silence except for the sound of paper as we turned over pages. My gut squirmed with nerves. Each photo was something, but I wanted, I needed, so much more. I wanted to absorb every single record in this room to study again in years to come. I’d been so stupid, getting distracted, laughing and joking, and reading things that looked interesting rather than working with the single-minded, structured focus I was known for.

Hours seemed to blur strangely after that until, at some point, I became aware that Dominic had stopped moving. I looked up to see his phone held loosely in his hand while he stared at nothing, his expression drawn tight in what looked like exhaustion. He was stroking the emerald ring on his finger in a way that made my breath catch. I’d seen dragons admire their treasure before. I’d never seen one cling to it.

The sight hit me with sudden, awful clarity. Jesus Christ. What the hell was I doing?

Dominic had been threatened with permanent exile. And I was sitting here feeding pages into my phone like the fate of civilisation depended on medieval tenancy records.