Page 52

Chapter Thirty-Nine

F or those of you following along at home, this is the climax of Act Two, the part of the story where the clues are supposed to all come together and a revelation occurs.

The main and subplots merge, and you realize what was happening over there was part of what's happening over here all along.

Surprise! Here's the thing though: this is real life, and not a story.

So all the small, important clues? I wasn't fucking clocking them.

By the time Onatah parks the bike on St. Paul Street, Beanevolence is closed. The lights are still on, though, and Hadi lets us in when I bang on the glass.

Without so much as a hello, I make a bee-line for the bathroom.

Through the closed door and the rush of water in the sink, I can hear the murmur of voices but can't make out the words.

I strip off my shirt. In the harsh light of the bathroom, I look sallow.

Well, more sallow than usual. My hair is a wreck, my face smeared with tear tracks and road dust. The burst capillaries on my neck are a horror show.

There are fine red lines and prick-marks from Dav's teeth and claws all over my chest and belly.

I look savaged.

And it hurts.

Fuck, it all hurts .

I've been scratched up by lovers before, but this wasn't pleasurable. I didn't want it. Dav didn't want it either. He fought it, and he fought it hard, shuddering and telling me how to get away from him.

This isn't something Dav did to me.

This was…

This was bullshit.

I scrub every bit of skin I can reach—and I am angry now.

So angry I have to flex my fists to fight the urge to punch the mirror, which won't make me feel better and would mean I'd have to buy Hadi a new one.

I shove my way back into my shirt, seething, the scrape of fabric making it worse, and good, good, I want to feel it.

The anger. The pain. Because… how dare, how dare Simcoe do that to Dav?

I'm mad about what happened to me, too. I'm filled with terror at the memory of how effortlessly Dav proved he could overpower me, how quickly it had all happened and how… how helpless I'd been.

But worse is that Simcoe shook my hand and he knew what would come of it.

I hate the bastard so goddamned much right now.

I try to imagine the hate as a physical thing, a black sludge I can expel from my body.

Dr. Chen taught me this one, visualizing an emotion you want to purge.

I cough, hork up the hate, spit into the sink, imagine it swirling down the drain, gone.

It works, sort of. Leaves me feeling hollowed-out.

When I shut the taps, it's just in time to catch Onatah's "Got anything stronger?" through the door.

When I emerge, damp around the edges but feeling slightly more human, there are coffee cups, a carafe, and a bottle of whiskey on the table in the conversation area. The black leather sofas are occupied with Onatah, Hadi… and Pedra.

"Hi," she says softly, when I stop to glare at her.

"Colin," Hadi says, and it's not a scold so much as a warning.

"Hi," I say back, feeling small and shamed. "I'm an asshole and I'm sorry?"

"Is that a question?" Hadi hands me a mug and chivvies me into a chair.

"No. I'm really sorry."

"Emotions were high," Pedra says. "No one was thinking clearly."

"And we are now?" I take a gulp of what turns out to be more booze than bean juice. "Whoa, that burns."

"Yes," Pedra says darkly. She pulls a folder out of the bag at her feet, and hands it over.

I flip it open, skimming the text. Evolutionary Biology and Ensured Mutual Survival, jumps out at me.

Still just a theory pending a wide-scale investigation into the macronutrient breakdown of the enzymes in dragonsfire…

what saliva does to human blood cells… to cancerous cells…

Like an mRNA vaccine, dragonsfire provides human bodies with proteins to block genetic coding for common illnesses…

what if all of their bodily fluids… blood, saliva, semen—

I've swallowed. That's what I think first. I've sucked Dav off, and now I’m not allergic to chocolate. Jeez. This is a scientific study on the medicinal benefits of dragon-fucking.

"Have you read this?" I ask.

Hadi nods. Onatah holds out her hand. I don't know how legible the diagrams will be to her, don't know what kind of science education she has, but the way her eyebrows are slowly pulling down as she flips through, I'd bet the answer is 'pretty damn legible.'

Pedra is clearly proud of it. I don't have the heart to tell her that the dragons already know all this… and don't care.

"What do you plan to do with this?" I ask, trying to figure out how best to rain on her parade.

"You know about Onatah's controlled urbanization and food forests?" Pedra asks.

"No."

"Cultivated wilderness," Onatah explains. "Planting food-bearing plants that work harmoniously with wooded areas, instead of strip-clearing for farming, and ruining the topsoil."

"It's aspirational," Pedra goes on breathlessly, sounding like the biggest fangirl I've ever met, and Onatah shoots her a flattered look. "It's the way North America was before the European dragons started spreading their Empires, and hoarding as many people as they could."

"People they've never even met. People they've never even touched," Onatah growls.

The way she says that gives me a shiver and I set down my mug to wrap my arms around my stomach. My wrist throbs.

"I understand that the dragon-controlled territories to the West, in the Mexican Empire, are even more vibrant and natural. The trade route systems that colonization disrupted alone would—Let me put it this way," Pedra interrupts herself. "What's the average lifespan of a human in Canada?"

I shrug. "Eighty-something?"

"Eighty-three," Pedra plows ahead. "But the data’s skewed. It's eighty in British territories, and ninety-seven in Indigenous ones. And in Aotearoa and Nippon, it's around a hundred and twenty! I was right about the food allergies, and the beans. I put it out there—"

"And got Dav arrested because of it," I hiss. And whipped , I think, but don't add. I know better than to share that. I have no illusions about how long Lt. Gov. Sadist's arms are.

Pedra stutters to a stop. "I am sorry for that. It wasn't my intention. But there are people out there reading it, secretly, in the dark corners of the internet. It's growing. There's more than they're telling all of us."

I exchange a guilty glance with Onatah. Hadi, of course, catches it immediately.

Don't tell anyone, Simcoe had commanded us. Me.

But he hadn't explicitly told us to shut down anyone else, either. Or that I had to deny anything when directly confronted.

Malicious compliance it is, then.

"You already knew this," Hadi says.

"I just learned it like, fuck, twenty-four hours ago but… yeah."

"The dragons know?" Pedra gasps. "And they're not…?"

"Of course they’d hide that they’re the greatest pharmaceutical miracle in existence," I scoff. "Of course they'd make a big conspiracy out of it, make themselves feel important ."

"Makes sense," Hadi says. "Humans outnumber dragons. It could get ugly if there was a push to just take it, to kidnap dragons, strip them down to parts for medicine—"

Onatah makes one of the serpent-noises of disgust I'm used to hearing from Dav.

"This wouldn't be a problem if—uhg. European dragons are the speciesist jerks, and Simcoe is one of the worst." She holds up Pedra's paper.

"This isn't the way I do it. The way any of the rest of us do it.

This knowledge is shared freely everywhere but in the European kingdoms."

"The dragons don't have that much control over our lives," Pedra laughs. "They can’t censor the whole Internet!"

"Yes," I say softly. "They can."

Across from me, Hadi swallows hard. Pedra turns a queasy sort of gray.

"Explain how you do it, then," I say eventually, wheels grinding. "There's seven billion people on Earth, and maybe only about a million of them are dragons. You can't possibly cook for every single person every day."

Onatah rolls her eyes. "It's tune-ups, not daily sessions. It’s touchpoints. It’s barbeques and festivals, and making food that stores.

Smoked meats, or dehydrated fruit. My people are getting ready for one right now, which is why N?cimos isn't here.

It's a lot of hot, hard work, but it's worth it. "

Ha! N?cimos ! Finally got a name!

"I see," Pedra says slowly. "I assume the efforts are… appreciated?"

"Very much so. My people are happy. And very healthy."

"It must be lovely, to be able to gather everyone together to celebrate," I muse. "Dav must be envious."

Onatah gives me a meaningful look: Of course he is.

"And nobody around here knows about this?" Pedra says.

"Some have to," Hadi says. "Or humans wouldn't join hoards, right?"

"Only Favorites get The Gift," I say, which I probably shouldn't but… fuck it. Let Lt. Gov. Fuckface whip me too, if he wants. I'm not lying to my friends. "Dav doesn't cook the daily breakfast. He just pays for it."

"Then why would any of them stick around this many years later?"

"Their great-grandparents had special skills the dragons wanted, like winemaking, or they needed security, shelter, jobs and they were … annexed, for want of a better term. Then that's it," I say. "For you and for your descendants. You’re set for life, but you’re also Collected for life, too."

"So they're picked ," Hadi clarifies, nose wrinkling in disgust. "It has nothing to do with where you’re born?"

"You can apply, too," Onatah corrects. "But the ones who live and work with Dav now? They’re the children and grandchildren of the ‘right sort of people’ who were hand-picked for him when his territory was established."

" For him," I repeat with disgust. I bet I know who by, too.

"And what does that mean, exactly? The right sort of people," Hadi scoffs, looking around at everyone crowded around the coffee table, cataloging each face. "Wait, hold on. How many of Dav's staff are people of color?"

"What?" It takes me a second to figure out what she's driving at. This room, this group, this rainbow of faces… this is what Canada looks like. This is the Canada that Dav fought for, bled for. So why doesn't Dav's hoard reflect that?

"Oh, like maybe a third of them?" I guess. "Um, but, uh, now that I think about it, not many of the legacy families."

"But the settlers in this area, at the time his household was set up—"

"No, of course they weren't all White," Onatah says. "There were my people, before they were driven off by bullshit broken treaties, then a large community of Africans, who had escaped enslavement. Dav was told they weren't respectable."

"Told by who?" Pedra asks.

"Guess," I sneer.

Onatah scoffs. "This is new territory to them, at least. Your boy is the first Marquis, and he'd never established anything before, didn't have the benefit of family close by to help him make his selections.

John Simcoe, he… took Dav under his wing.

Fatherly. Bossy. Didn't sit well with Frank, when he found out that his dad had given a prime piece of real estate to an unrelated upstart who already had territory to inherit in Wales. "

I tuck my fouled hand under my armpit.

"What happened?" Hadi asks.

"The way Dav tells it, Frankie boy was supposed to be sent home from Wellington's regiment when the fighting got serious with the Americans, but he got shot before he could. They weren't sure if he would live, so Dav was recruited to take his place and…" she shrugs.

"He won the Battle of Lundy's Lane and burnt down the Presidential Mansion," I fill in. "And was gifted a march as a result."

Onatah snorts a plume of smoke at the inadequate description of the injustice done to her grandfather.

"And the people of color who are part of the hoard, who chose them?" Hadi presses.

"Dav did," Onatah says. "Later. When he had someone to help him make better decisions."

Charlotte, I realize. Oh, fuck. That'll be my job. Dav will expect me to help him… pick people to Collect. To entrap.

Hadi makes a frustrated noise and blurts: "So, what, the gift of long life and good health is just for white folks? After they took over half the world and killed all of our dragons? That's bullshit!" Hadi scowls. "Whites as a deliberately cultivated invasive species."

"Exactly," Pedra says, voice hitching. She's shaking. We're all shaking. Right down to our bones. "It's population control. It's selective breeding ."

Revulsion shakes up my spine, and my mug judders so hard I slosh all over my thighs.

That's what Simcoe meant.

That's what he…

Oh, god, I'm gonna puke.

I swallow more coffee instead to keep my gorge down. "And what, I'm supposed to go back there and help Dav with that? After… after what happened today? No way."

"No, you don't have to. Dav doesn't want—he's never wanted… fuck." Onatah shakes out her shoulders, releasing her frustration.

"What do you mean, what happened today ?" Hadi asks.

I lift my arm, turn it outwards, so everyone can see the horrible bruise I've been hiding. "Touching another dragon is a no-no."

"The fuck is that," Hadi snarls, jumping to her feet and grabbing my arm. "First he stabs you and now, what's this, did he try to eat you?"

"It wasn't his fault." I drag my arm back, tuck it against my pooch, skooch down in the chair, feeling exposed.

"If you make a single joke about walking into a doorknob I'm going to kick his ass myself."

"When another dragon touches a Favorite, leaves their scent on them, a dragon goes… feral," Onatah says. "Or, they do if they're touch-starved idiot settlers."

"So your favorite, N?cimos, they're not out of bounds?" I guess.

"Why would they be?" Onatah asks. "My beloved is an extension of me, and I of my beloved. And we are all Wahkohtowin. This—" she sneers, gesturing at the ruin of my neck. "—only happens when you lock a Favorite away like a jewel in a vault."

Hadi turns a horrified expression to Onatah. "Why would you touch him, then?"

"It wasn't me," Onatah says.

"It was that fucker Simcoe," I explain. "I shook his hand when he left the house—"

"Why was he at your house?"

"It's not mine . He came to try and talk Dav out of me, and then they fought and I made Simcoe leave and—"

"On purpose?" Hadi demands. "And he knew Dav would react like that?"

"He knew," Onatah says softly. "Because it's happened before."