Page 82 of Dragon’s Ending

BEN

Mum texted when I was on my way to the records room. They’d been clearing out the attic and found a whole box of stuff I’d stored up there before I moved in with Will. Did I want any of it, she asked.

Can you hang onto it so I can go through it when I get back?

You’re just like your father. He never throws anything away.

It might come in useful one day, I pointed out, parroting Dad’s perennial defence, and practically saw her eye roll.

I slid my phone into my pocket and realised how much I’d taken for granted. I couldn’t imagine growing up in this house. It wasn’t only Dominic, and what had been done to him as a child. It was also the others—Dafydd, Megan and the rest of them. They seemed stuck in perpetual adolescence, not allowed to become truly independent. Not that any dragon ever was, not really. Our head of family was always the ultimate arbiter. But they never usually controlled life to the extent Rhodri did.

Rhodri… Dominic had mentioned how, only a few weeks ago, Rhodri had actually allowed Dominic to accompany him when he was conducting headship business. I’d stared at him, convinced at first I must have misunderstood. Surely, he meant he’d been given more responsibility, not his first responsibility.

Rhodri hadn’t thought he was ready. Rhodri had been protecting the family. That was how Dominic had explained it to me, as if it were the natural order of things. There’d been resentment in his voice, but that had mostly been swamped by resignation.

I was stunned by the revelation that Dominic, brought up in the expectation he’d one day lead the Bedwyrs, had been prevented from learning how. Every responsibility that should have prepared him for the headship had simply… never happened. All that intelligence, energy and restlessness, with nowhere to go. And Rhodri had been surprised that Dominic acted as he did?

I drew a slow breath and looked around the records room. Dwelling on everything Dominic had been denied wasn’t going to help either of us.

The room was warmer today, and I didn’t need the heater. I got stuck in straight away to the older records, the ones from the time Abimelech Mortimer was so interested in. Dominic had called our speculations conspiracy theories, but I still thought we’d hit on a plausible explanation. Damn, I’d forgotten to tell Evelyn our theory. But after yesterday’s confession, I wasn’t in any great hurry to contact her again. I’d let her know another time.

Once more, I focused on photographing the records rather than reading them. It swiftly grew tedious, because I needed to concentrate enough to ensure each picture captured the entire page clearly, but I didn’t have enough time to read anything. I missed Dominic’s lazy teasing, which would have made this more bearable.

And he was gone longer than I’d expected. I’d hit the hour mark and he still wasn’t back. I dumped the stack I’d photographed on a shelf, and picked up another pile. The night I’d come back here to read that damn piece of paper again, I’d ended up strewing papers around in my impatience to find it. As a result, I’d mucked up a few of the semi-sorted piles completely. I was now finding seventeenth century weather reports—really? I mean, I was all for keeping everything, but even I might draw the line at that—mixed in with records of eighth century heads of family.

The only reason I looked properly at it was because it was on blue paper, not the dingy cream or aged white of most of these records. Writing paper, I thought, remembering how Mum used to get us to write proper thank-you letters for birthday presents to various relatives, refusing our pleas that texts would say exactly the same and be less work to write.

My darling Rhodri, it began in flowing dark blue ink, and I almost choked. Not how I thought of Rhodri. Must be another one, an earlier family member. But then I looked at the date at the top of the letter, and… Oh God, I’d practically memorised those bloody awful records about Dominic, and I knew that date. It was just days before his mother had died.

And then it hit me, like a wave of cold water, that what I was holding was probably written by Mari.

I turned the paper over, but the letter stopped, apparently unfinished and unsigned—and there were some things no one ever needed to know about their boyfriend’s parents. I slammed my eyes closed and pretended I hadn’t just read what I had.

This was meant only for Rhodri’s eyes, that was very clear. I wondered how it had got here. Dominic’s mother used to spend time in the records room, but I didn’t understand why she’d write a letter to her husband when they lived in the same house.

I thought back to her cause of death, and all I knew about sepsis was how fast it happened. Had she been sitting here writing to Rhodri, felt unwell and set this aside to finish later? She’d have believed it would be safe in the room no one except she ever came to. And then later, when everything had been scooped up in a hurry because of the leak, this had become mixed in with all the other records.

I didn’t know. I never would, but I did know one thing. This shouldn’t be here. This should go to Rhodri. And in the absence of a messenger dragon or an in-house postal system, there was only one way it could get there.

I couldn’t involve Dominic in this. It would be beyond cruel to tell him I’d found an unexpected extra piece of his mother, so long after she was gone, but that he couldn’t read it. Because no one should read this except Rhodri.

Shoving my chair back, I stood, needing to get this to him before Dominic came back. That impulse carried me all the way down two flights of stairs with icy fluttering in my belly at the thought of bearding the dragon in his den, until I stood outside his study door. And then it took everything I had to raise my hand and knock.

“Come.” It was deep, it was terse, and it destroyed every hope I’d had that he wasn’t there and I could just sneak in and leave this on his desk. Preferably with an explanatory post-it so he didn’t think he had ghosts.

He was sitting behind the large desk, which somehow underlined his authority even further. Not that it needed any help—his presence filled this room. As I walked over to him, each step more difficult than the last, I thought he knew about the fight last night. He knew, and he was waiting to pounce.

He said absolutely nothing, which didn’t help at all.

“I found something in the records room that belongs to you,” I said. And then I held out the folded letter.

He looked at it, and his face… It changed into that same non-expression that Dominic had when things were too much to bear. When he reached out a hand to take the letter, his fingers were trembling.

He held it and simply stared at it for the longest time. But slowly, he drew himself together again, and then his eyes flicked to mine. There was an echo of shock in them, and something I had no hope of reading.

“The records room, you say.” His voice was low and rough.

“Yes. It was in amongst some older papers. I assume that it got swept up with everything when the emergency move happened.”