The words echoed through the dark without reply, and I scowled. Seeing a figure made of smoke was always hard in the dark, but even using my light, I didn’t see my dad sulking around the containers or anywhere else. I could feel the thread that connected us, so I knew he couldn’t have gone far—or died, still a possibility—but I had no idea where he’d run off to. I was about to just yank him over using the curse when I spotted a plume of smoke rising from the ancient stone chapel across the street.
Sighing deep in my chest, I walked out into the road to get a better view. Sure enough, I spotted my father lying on the slanted roof just below the steeple, staring at the emptiness above our heads as if he’d lost something precious up there in the dark. It was an absolutely pathetic sight, and I didn’t have the patience to deal with it.
“Get down here,” I ordered.
Naturally, he didn’t move. Furious, I grabbed our connection to give him a good tug when his voice floated down to me through the dark.
“Do you hate me that much?”
I stared up at him in disbelief. “You’re really going to do this now?”
“Just answer the question,” he said. Then, quietly, he added, “Please.”
It was the “please” that did it. I’d never actually heard my father use that word non-sarcastically. The shock alone was enough to make me let go of his leash. When I came back to myself, he’d slid down the slate roof to land on the ground, staring at me from across the empty street with the same lost expression he’d used on the sky.
“Don’t,” I said.
“Don’t what?”
I didn’t feel like explaining myself, so I answered his first question instead.
“I don’t hate you,” I said. “If I did, I wouldn’t have sold myself to save you, and we wouldn’t be here. At this point, I don’t think I’m capable of hating you, but I hate everything that you do. I hate how you talk to me and how you act.”
My father looked supremely displeased. “That makes no sense. How is hating everything about me different from hating me?”
“It just is,” I said with a shrug. “I can’t explain it. I guess it’s because you’re my dad. No matter how badly you treat me or how little you deserve it, part of me will always love you. I know it’s pathetic, but there it is.”
He stared at me in confusion. “How have I treated you badly?”
My jaw fell open. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am very serious,” he said angrily. “Everything I’ve ever done has been for your sake. Even the curse was an attempt to guide you. I never wanted you to suffer, but I couldn’t ignore that you were making terrible choices. I tried to help you, to give you advice, but you refused to listen, so I cursed your luck in an attempt to make things go so badly for you, you’d come home of your own accord. I can see how that might appear heavy-handed to you, but it was done with good intentions. I’ve only ever wanted what’s best for you, Opal.”
He sounded utterly sincere, which was the only reason I didn’t blow up. Once I realized I wasn’t getting mad, I fought to stay that way because I blew up every time we had this conversation, and it never helped. My father wasn’t stupid, but he was so backwards when it came to me, it felt like we were speaking different languages. I’d always thought that was because he was a cruel dragon who couldn’t understand human relationships, only ownership, but there was nothing cruel in his voice now. He sounded really hurt, as if he were just as confused by my reaction as I was by his. I didn’t know if that was good or bad, but it was a different path from the usual screaming rut we typically fell into, and after months of debts and curses and fighting and both of us nearly dying over this, I was just desperate enough to give it a shot.
“All right,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I’ll bite. You say you only want what’s best for me. What exactly do you think that is?”
“You coming back home to Korea,” he answered instantly. “I can provide everything you could want there, and you would be safe from my enemies. It is what’s best for both of us.”
“But what if what I want isn’t something you can give?”
My father frowned, clearly not comprehending the question, and I sighed. “You say you want what’s best for me,” I said again, trying a different angle. “But ‘best’ is subjective. You wouldn’t want to live what the Peacemaker considers your ‘best’ life, right?”
“That is completely unrelated. Stop sidetracking the issue.”
“I’m not,” I said, fighting to keep my voice calm and level so he wouldn’t stop listening like he usually did. “This is exactly the problem. You say if I come home, you’ll provide me with everything I want, but you can’t, because the life I want is here.” I waved my hand at the darkness above our heads. “I like living in the DFZ. I like Cleaning. Every day was a new surprise, a new treasure hunt, and I was good at it! Before your curse took me down, I was a rock star. You can’t give me that again if I go home.”
“I can give you something better,” Yong said stubbornly. “It is to your credit that you were able to make a life in this dog-pit of a city, but don’t confuse successful survival with actual happiness. I can give you so much more.”
“More of what?” I asked, looking him straight in his smoky eyes.
“Everything,” he replied. “Clothes, jewelry, food, security, comfort. Everything humans desire.”
It was a sign I’d spent way too much time around dragons that I almost laughed at that. “Not all humans
