“I don’t know about that,” my father said skeptically, but I could see the wheels turning behind his smoky eyes. “Would you come back to Korea? Just for a little while?”
“If you buy my airfare, sure,” I said. Then I bit my lip. “It’ll have to wait until after I stop working for the DFZ, though. I don’t think her priests can leave the city.”
“That’s not a problem,” he said. “I can get you the money you need to buy your freedom as soon as I’m back in my body.”
My eyes narrowed. “I don’t know. Do I have to pay you back?”
“No,” Yong said, his shoulders slumping. “I am done trying to control you with money. It’s never worked, and only fools keep banging their heads against stone walls. Besides, you were willing to nearly kill both of us for a few hundred thousand. I don’t want to know what you’d do to settle a god’s debt.”
Couldn’t argue with that logic, but it was still…nice. I’d always intended to make him pay, but it was nice to hear my dad offer to do it of his own volition, no strings or wires or chains attached. I’d figured I’d have to withhold his physical body until he swore on his fire to pay my debts. Honestly, though, the money had always been my thing. Yong had never made me pay for anything before I’d broached the idea of paying him back for my schooling as part of my escape plan. This offer was much more like the generous father I remembered as a child. I was smiling about that when, suddenly and without warning, my father leaned in and wrapped his arms around my shoulders.
I jumped in surprise. I couldn’t even feel it since he was made of smoke, but not counting all the incidents where he’d yanked me around or shaken me, this was the first time my father had touched me kindly in years. I couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d given me a hug. Probably not since I was eight or nine. I didn’t know if this counted, but I took it anyway, leaning into his smoke as best I could without actually going through him since that probably felt weird.
The resulting position was super awkward for both of us, but I didn’t care. I was too relieved to not be black-out mad at my father for once to mind anything. I was sure I’d be pissed at him again soon enough, but there was no denying that something fundamental had changed between us. Hug notwithstanding, I couldn’t remember the last time my father and I had had a conversation without screaming, and we’d had two today! I was no expert on family therapy, but that felt like a breakthrough. Again, I wasn’t sure how long it would last, but I felt like I had my feet under me on this for the first time in, well, ever. I just hoped he remembered some of this humility when he stopped being smoke and got his power back. And speaking of…
“Come on,” I said, standing up and holding out my hand. “I’m feeling like I’ve got one more pumpkin’s worth of fire in me. Why don’t we go see if we can’t get you back into your body?”
“Yes, let’s,” my father said in a relieved voice, placing his hand in mine even though he was made of smoke and couldn’t actually take it. “I’m already tired of being like this. What kind of father is dependent upon his own daughter?”
I shrugged. “Everyone needs help sometimes.”
From the look on his face, it was clear that my dad had had enough words of affirmation for one night. But proving that he was, in fact, a wise old dragon, he kept his opinion to himself, following me as silently as the ghost he resembled back through the door and into my apartment.
Chapter 4
“Okay,” I said, kneeling down beside my dad’s body in the middle of my bedroom, which felt a lot bigger now that there wasn’t a dragon made of fire taking up all of it. “Ready?”
“I was ready six hours ago,” Yong replied, sitting down inside his own chest, which was both freaky and probably the exact right place for him to be. “Give me as much as you can. I can handle it.”
I’d given him as much as I could last time, but I was flattered he’d thought I’d held back. Since he was good to go, I went ahead and closed my eyes, reaching out to grab the city magic that floated all around us.
It was harder to get things started without the Spirit of Dragons to give me a light. My dad had a bit of his own fire now, though, and after some fumbling, I got the flames to spark again. My soul still ached from the last time I’d done this, more than it had since Dr. Kowalski had taught me how to stop backlashing myself, which was pretty scary. But I was a much better mage these days, or at least a more disciplined one, and I held it together, feeding careful handfuls of magic into the flame I’d created until I had another pumpkin-sized ball of dragon fire floating in front of me.
Now that I wasn’t in a panic or being watched by a dragon god, I realized I
