Page 12 of Dragon’s Ending

“Laurie would have told you to start from the corner,” he said, surveying my progress.

I huffed out a breath and straightened. “Laurie would have told me a lot of things.” And he’d have been right about most of them.

John nodded. After marrying Rae, he’d taken over when Laurie had retired a few years ago. Like Laurie, he didn’t waste words, so as the silence continued, I turned my attention back to the wall. Sliding a larger, flat stone into place, I tested it and was pleased when it was solid.

“You’ll have me out of a job at this rate,” he said.

“You wish,” I said. Though when I thought about it, John wasn’t someone who’d cope well with enforced idleness.

He gave a small nod in recognition before changing the subject. “Teddy’s started a collection. Apparently you gave him some very important guidance.”

I stood up again and brushed my hands off on my jeans. “Everyone needs a hobby.”

John grinned. He didn’t smile often, but when he did, there was something that reminded me of Laurie. I was glad Teddy had him as his dad. “So I’m discovering. We’re going to be knee-deep in pine cones this time next week.”

“Could be worse,” I pointed out.

“Could be worms,” he comforted himself. “He went through a phase.”

I turned back to my wall as he walked off, and for a while, everything felt lighter. The satisfaction of lining up stones so the final one slid in just right, the cool, rough stone in my hands somehow grounding, then filling the gaps with small stones, solidifying it. Until the next time a dragon barged into it, anyway.

I stood up straight, hands to my back, stretching out the kinks from all that bending, and eyed the wall. It wasn’t quite as smooth as if Laurie had done it, but it was good enough. Not that anyone other than John would notice or care.

I breathed in the scent of coming rain, the hillside falling away from me into the valley below. Quiet, unchanging, and empty. The way it always was.

I glanced back towards the house, gloomy in the encroaching rain, and wondered if Rhodri had left for his meeting yet. The one with Abimelech Mortimer and some of the other Welsh dragon heads of family. I had no idea what it was about. I only knew it was even happening because I walked in on Rhodri telling Dylan about it. Yet again choosing his cousin over his son and heir.

Something was obviously stirring out there in the world, but because Rhodri only ever talked to his small circle of confidantes, I had no idea what. Like our visitor. A dragon from a family no one had ever heard of, coming and staying with us? And then being given the key to the records room, which no one cared about. Not since…

He was out of place, and his confident calm was like a piece of grit that had worked its way under one of my scales.

Dusting my hands off on my jeans, I headed to the house.

BEN

It had taken me a while, but the table was now clearer, with papers arranged into neater stacks. I had no idea what was in each stack, but they looked less disordered and gave me space to spread out as I worked.

The room had that musty smell of badly maintained old documents and dust, and I longed to fling open the window to air everything out. But one glance at the leaden sky changed my mind. I couldn’t risk the papers getting damp. In fact, I’d be much happier for this room to have a level of climate control if some of these papers were as old as they appeared.

But my priority was to gather the information they contained. I’d only talk to Rhodri Bedwyr about proper storage once I’d gleaned every last bit of information, because I had a feeling he’d interpret the suggestion as criticism. And I didn’t think he’d take that well.

My family would be happy to offer him part of our dedicated, purpose-built space for archive storage, but he’d never let these records out of his house. Not because he had any interest in them—the amount of dust made it very clear no one had been in here for a long time—but because they were his. It was dragon nature to hoard, and I shouldn’t judge him for it. I did, though, because hoarding was one thing, and letting priceless dragon history moulder into oblivion was something else entirely.

I’d already examined the scroll that had been balancing on top of the vase. Disappointingly, it looked like a Victorian creation designed to look older, presumably to lend weight to the family tree it contained. It was quite nicely done, with various coloured drawings of mythological creatures twining around some of the letters. The dragons were, of course, anatomically accurate. It was evidently an attempt to emulate an illustrated medieval book like the Rosea, on display at Oxford University.

I cleared one of the bookcases of all its papers, plus another vase and some porcelain figures. I’d start work on the papers that looked oldest and then I could begin to create some kind of order as I filed them on the empty shelves.

Sneezing yet again from the dust I’d swept off those shelves, I looked around at the quiet room, just waiting to give up its secrets, and I almost vibrated with joy. If Lucy or Rob had come with me, we’d have got this done so much more quickly, and it would be nice to share discoveries we made. Or to have someone to exchange horrified eye rolls with over the state of this place. But this way, it was all mine. My discoveries to make, my treasure to explore.

* * *

The door opened behind me. I registered it distantly though I kept reading. The Welsh course I’d taken during my first history degree was proving to be further in the past than I’d thought. I was concentrating hard, unwilling to lose the thread due to an interruption. Not unless it made itself unavoidable.

Silence settled again, but it wasn’t quite the same silence as before. I could feel someone’s presence. And then I heard footsteps, the scrape of something being picked up and the small thud of it being put down again.

I continued reading. Another sound came, closer this time. And, worryingly, it sounded like someone ruffling papers.

I looked up. Dominic Bedwyr was standing at the end of the table. As I watched, he picked up a piece of paper from the closest stack and looked at it with mild interest.