A Boy and His Dragon (20 page)

Arthur smiled at the thought, a smile that he caught sight of in the shiny side of the toaster and quickly wiped from his face. All he needed was Bertie to see that and say something about it, probably something else about
dimples
.

Kate saw that same smile on his face last night, and her eyes almost popped out of her skull before she made a tiny sound and looked away. She eyed him for most of the rest of the night and flipped through the books he’d brought home to read.

“You shouldn’t change yourself for a guy, Arthur,” she warned him. She still seemed too young to be warning him about anything.

But Arthur took her as seriously as he could. She’d been in high school when she met her asshole boyfriend, and confused and hurting. Arthur wasn’t any of those things.

Not that Bertie was his boyfriend. Anyway, Arthur would never say “boyfriend” because it would never compare to “treasure” in an introduction.

“I’m not,” Arthur answered her but followed her stare to the book on the Welsh language he’d been picking through. “The spellings are killing me.” The explanation happened to be the truth—he’d wanted to get a better handle on the language before he typed up anything for Bertie. But the way she then pointed to the other book, a translated
Tales of the Dragon Kings
, said more than one of her sarcastic comebacks.

He put down the language guide and tried to put his feelings into words that wouldn’t freak her out. He couldn’t say she’d understand if she met Bertie, though he felt she would. Everyone had to see how fascinating he was, how amazing. It was unbelievable that his cell phone wasn’t constantly ringing with people asking him out. Arthur was sure that if Bertie had chosen to A Boy and His Dragon

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teach he would have had grad students and TAs throwing themselves at him.

Arthur finally settled for extending one hand and looking directly back at his sister. His face felt hot, but that didn’t matter, not between them with everything they’d been through.

“I just want to know more. I want to know everything,” he whispered, because it was true; he wanted discover everything—

about dragons, but also about this one dragon. His….

His boss, Arthur reminded himself sternly at the memory and crumpled up the towel as he headed into the main room and the collection of Bertie’s tchotchkes.

He knelt in front of the pieces he’d left sheltered under an end table and pulled out one of the heavier ones. He wiped with his finger across the surface of the dust, looking for anything that the water on the towel might damage more than at the thing itself. He was going to need a good polish for the silver and some soft gloves and natural oils for any of the older wood items he found.

Arthur made another mental note to pick up what he needed either tonight or tomorrow and then froze and stared hard at what was in his hands and saw, really saw, what it was he was holding.

After several minutes, he put it carefully back down, though it was still caked in dust, and picked up something else.

He flicked a dust bunny from one corner and pursed his lips to blow away the dust down one side. The color struck him first, what he could see of it, and then the intricacies of the carvings. He realized what it was and what it was made of, and his heart stopped as he almost dropped it.

Shock made him clumsy, and he didn’t trust himself. Arthur got it back to the floor in one piece, something he was grateful for only distantly because his mind was racing. He peered at the other things he’d set aside to clean while he was focused on the books, and then glanced up toward the second floor and the treasure he hadn’t let himself imagine in any kind of detail.

“… believe in eternity through the accumulation of beauty and knowledge….” That’s what Bertie had said. Arthur looked over at R. Cooper

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the growing selection of antique books and thought about how just the other day he’d joked that he expected to find a stack of scrolls like in the ancient library at Alexandria, and how Bertie had given him a blank look and then a puzzled frown, almost as if he was surprised Arthur
hadn’t
found a collection of scrolls in the kitchen alongside the first edition
Mastering the Art of French Cooking
or among all the back issues of
National Geographic
in the bathroom.

Arthur jumped to his feet at the thought, leaving the towel behind as he moved around the table and stalked past the kitchen to the downstairs bathroom. Once inside he ignored the magazines, shoving them aside until he found the heavy piece of stone he noticed in there the other day.

He pushed out a breath before he picked it up to set it on the sink, and then he watched his shaking fingers wipe away cobwebs, though he already knew what he’d see carved into it. It was what he’d seen before, he just hadn’t been paying attention, hadn’t thought it was real.

It was a depiction of a Dacian dragon, the weapon of war and intimidation used by the Dacian people before the Romans conquered them and took the symbol as their own. They had probably carved this stone. Romans,
ancient
Romans
, had probably carved this stone. It was probably a piece of some destroyed monument. It was…. Arthur didn’t know enough about stone to tell the age of the carvings just from looking at it, but it was old. More than antique. More than priceless. It
was
history.

He turned on his heel and stormed back into the main room, stopping to fall to his knees in front of the collection of what he’d thought were pretty, possibly expensive knickknacks. Things he’d been planning on wiping down with a
kitchen towel
.

The first was a trick dog piggy bank from the late 1880s. The second, the one he’d almost dropped, was a horse carved from chicken-blood jade, carved in a style Arthur was no expert on, but which looked Chinese and was smoothed and worn by time. A very long time. He was scared to touch the rest without gloves, but couldn’t resist running a fingertip over a brooch showing a smiling wolf, shiny and heavy enough for him to assume it was real gold.

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They had all been on the same shelf as two marbles and a painted, wooden top that, now that he thought about them, could have belonged to a child a few decades ago or a century ago.

He couldn’t look at anything else yet. He might actually faint.

Antiques and artifacts were collecting dust in Bertie’s living room.

Priceless pieces from history most likely forgotten about the way he forgot his notes. He could see the yellow globe Bertie liked to spin in his hands sometimes when he was thinking, and was suddenly certain that it had cost a fortune.

He twitched at the sound of padding footsteps behind him and the rattle of dishes as Bertie probably added his teacup to the coffee set next to Arthur’s empty cup.

“Good morning, Arthur,” he murmured in that pleasure-filled voice that made Arthur shiver even when he could barely see straight, he was so upset. “I thought I heard you.”

“You’re rich, oh my God, are you crazy?” Arthur demanded before turning around, clawing his way to his feet only to stay where he was and gesture at the room. He’d known Bertie had money, but he hadn’t
known.
Not even at his most comfortable during his childhood had Arthur thought to own anything like that horse statue alone. It had probably been in Bertie’s family for generations, and Bertie probably thought nothing of it. No wonder he left it on a shelf next to some pulp novels.

“This room isn’t even remotely temperature controlled enough to preserve any of these things!” Arthur added, his voice cracking dryly. Bertie looked stuck to the spot, his eyes round, his jaw slack, his attention entirely on Arthur and the breakdown Arthur was sure he was having.

“There’s a depiction of a
Dacian dragon
on that stone in your bathroom. Did the Romans carve that?” His voice kept rising. He might be slightly hysterical. But the bathroom was the last place he’d ever expected to find a piece of the ancient world.

“Really?” Bertie seemed taken aback, but not for the reasons Arthur thought. He made a face and glanced behind him. “How did that end up in the guest bathroom?” His tone of mild interest was not R. Cooper

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helping. Arthur huffed out a breath so hot he was surprised that
he
didn’t have smoke coming from his nostrils, and Bertie shut his mouth.

Arthur couldn’t break eye contact and Bertie didn’t seem to want to, but after a few seconds he furrowed his brow and somehow the one tiny motion made the air crackle.

“Arthur.” Arthur didn’t know that tone, but he knew it was dangerous; his pulse said it was dangerous, that something in his attitude was unwelcome. Bertie was standing tensely still, frowning imperiously, like a king, like a dragon king, like Arthur was the human peasant foolish enough to question him.

Arthur couldn’t see Bertie’s teeth but he could see black nails and shimmering skin, and with every second his pulse was roaring louder and louder in his ears. He didn’t have anything, not even a shield, not even the right to say what he was saying, but he scowled and heard himself talking anyway, his voice loud and rough and more than a match to Bertie’s rumble.

“You told me I could clean,” he said it plainly, meaning to be defensive and failing because if any room deserved to be cleaned, it was this one with these incredible things in it.

Bertie’s head went back as if that wasn’t what he’d been expecting to hear, and Arthur saw him draw in a breath and then relax a fraction as he exhaled.

“You were cleaning…,” Bertie went on slowly, not asking, but easing his posture to put a hand on the table. He looked wary. Arthur couldn’t tell why, but he pointed to the items at his feet anyway and then his voice went right back up.

“These are real, aren’t they? You can’t just leave them lying around,” he jumped in before Bertie could get a word out. “They should be cleaned and displayed and safeguarded.”

“Don’t talk to me about money, Arthur.” There was no “pet” or “darling”, just his name, bitten out. But even the way those dark eyes narrowed couldn’t make Arthur stop.

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“Money?” Arthur asked in confusion then shook it off. “The only money should go into their care. They should be
revered
. These things
are
history. Do you even know what you have here?” The barked laugh from Bertie startled him and almost made him fall back, but Arthur concentrated on Bertie and the relieved, huge grin on his face that shouldn’t be there when Arthur was mad at him. Arthur hadn’t said anything to calm Bertie down.

He itched with sweat he was only beginning to notice, nerves and fear leaving his clothes damp, but Bertie was languid again and shaking his head gently, as if Arthur was precious and anything he did now was more than fine with Bertie.

Arthur didn’t want any scales tipped in his favor. He didn’t want any scales. He wanted Bertie to take this seriously. But the man was waving a hand at him.

“Of course I do!” Bertie insisted with dignity, then peered behind Arthur. “What is that?” Arthur didn’t turn to see what he was staring at, but it didn’t matter, Bertie figured it out. “Oh yes, right, I remember. I haven’t seen that in ages. Did I leave it downstairs? No matter.”

“Is this your treasure?” Arthur’s voice was shaking and he curled his hands into fists at his side. Bertie gave him another considering look and slow frown before shaking his head in a way that explained
nothing
. Arthur’s irritation must have been on his face. Bertie stopped to lick the corner of his mouth before narrowing his eyes again.

“It’s mine, yes,” he answered at last, and Arthur realized he was clenching his hands, too, but Bertie was doing it over and over again, as if he wanted to grab the items in question and was barely restraining himself.

“But is it your treasure?” Nobody should treat their treasure like this. Then it wouldn’t be special, it would just be
stuff
.

Bertie opened and shut his mouth and then spread his hands wide.

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“My treasure?” His voice rumbled and then he moved, coming forward with a determined expression on his face but stopping abruptly just in front of Arthur.

That close, Arthur could feel all that heat and uncertainty in front of him, the silent stare, the hunger at the talk of treasure, and he dropped his gaze before he got caught staring.

“Is it all like that?” He imagined rooms full of paintings left exposed to the elements and chipped marble and shuddered.

“Because that… that stone piece alone should be in a museum. You can’t deny the world that.”

“The world?” Hoarse disbelief brought Arthur’s eyes back up.

Bertie’s jaw was stuck out in a petulant, stubborn expression. He crossed his arms. “I don’t like to share, Arthur. Not what’s mine.” Arthur’s heart kicked hard against his ribs as his face flushed with heat.

“Dragons don’t or you don’t?” Arthur had never been this demanding before or so out of breath. Arthur felt like he’d been riding uphill for miles and miles. He got a huff for an answer, a huff he could only describe as pissy. “Well you should,” he insisted over the rush in his ears and his spinning thoughts and the tiny sparks bolting down his spine. “Think of who it would benefit. Think of what other historians might learn by examining a collection of items, gathered by dragons over the centuries, that have never been seen before.” Bertie had looked at other collections for his books, been to museums, seen other treasures. He ought to understand.

“No, Arthur. It’s mine.”

“I didn’t think a dragon of your blood line would be so pouty.” Arthur didn’t even know where the words came from, but instead of roasting him or tearing his head off, Bertie gasped in outrage and flung his hands wide.

“It’s
mine
.” He said it like the word alone explained everything. “I can’t have strangers around it. They’ll touch it.

They’ll try to steal it.” He fixed his eyes right on Arthur. “I don’t want to lose it to greedy, stupid people who won’t know what it is they have.”