It was a sign of how far we’d come that I didn’t even get mad at that. “I’m just glad you’re getting better, and that I didn’t actually kill you with currency markets,” I said. “If we can get through this Gameskeeper business alive, you’ll probably be good enough to go home.”
I’d thought he’d be excited about that. My dad loved Korea more than anything, but the moment I said the word ‘home,’ the smile slipped off his face.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Not until I’m stronger.”
“That might be a while,” I warned. “I’ve been dumping magic into you for days, and it’s barely a drop in the bucket. There’s no way we’re getting you back up to your old power anytime soon, and we’re running out of time. The other dragon clans are dividing Korea between themselves as we speak, and we’re about to free White Snake. Just because we’re pretty sure she’ll choose running over killing you this time doesn’t mean she won’t come back to finish the job later. She’ll talk if nothing else, which means the whole world’s about to know that you’re alive for sure, not just rumors.”
“I am aware of the situation, but I’m not going home until I can defend it. If I go back to Korea now, all it will do is invite war to our shores. If I stay here, though, any battles I fight will be on the Peacemaker’s lands. It’s bad hospitality, but I’d rather risk the Dragon of Detroit’s anger than my people’s lives. The farther away I stay, the safer they’ll be. That’s all I can do for them in my current weakness.”
I supposed that made a certain sort of proud-dragon sense, but, “Can you at least call Mom? You don’t have to tell her where you are, but you should at least call and let her know that you’re not dead in person. It’s important. Trust me, I know from experience.”
“I’m sure you do, but your mother is the last person on Earth I’d call.”
“Why not?” I asked angrily. “Isn’t she your First Mortal?”
“That’s precisely why I can’t tell her. I’m her dragon. She’s dedicated her life to me. I’m stronger than I was, but I can’t appear before her like this. Weak and dependent.” He shuddered. “I’d rather be eaten by White Snake.”
I rolled my eyes so hard I hurt something. All this time I’d thought my mom was the crazy one, but I saw now that Dad was just as bad. He’d rather be eaten than risk losing the admiration of his consort. It would have been cute if it hadn’t been so obnoxious, not to mention totally wrong.
“Dad,” I said with an exasperated huff. “Mom loves you with cultish devotion. You could get turned into a turtle and she’d still coo over you and hand-feed you lettuce for the rest of her life. She’s not going to care about your fire.”
“But I care about keeping her safe,” Yong replied stubbornly. “Mortals are fragile, and my affection for your mother is well-known. She’s got enough of a target on her back as it is without me limping back to make things worse.”
There was undoubtedly some truth to that, but it still sounded like an excuse to me. The more time I spent with my father as an adult rather than as a child, the more I realized that, while Yong of Korea was definitely not your typical dragon, he still had the idiot parts of draconic pride in spades. But as much as I wanted to tell him he was a fool for thinking Mom wouldn’t die for him no matter what shape he was in—or that being separated from him wasn’t killing her with worry—it didn’t matter. There was no one on the planet more single-minded about anything than my mother was about her dragon. Whether he called or not, she’d track him down eventually. Given all the times we’d been outside this last week, she was probably already closing in. She’d find him soon enough, and then they could work out their problems on their own time. Meanwhile, we had bigger things to worry about.
“I have to get back to practice,” I said, crawling back to my feet. “Can I leave White Snake and the rest of the dragon stuff to you?”
“Of course,” Yong said, rising much more gracefully. “I wouldn’t have suggested freeing her if I didn’t think I could handle it. Leave the management of my cowardly sister to me, and when this is over and the DFZ is in our debt, we’ll see about increasing the rate of my recovery.”
This was the first I’d heard about a debt, but I should have expected he’d come up with something like that. Dragons never did anything for free, and honestly, I didn’t think the DFZ would mind. She was the city of nothing-for-free. If my dad demanded payment for his part in our operation, she’d probably just whip out a boiler-plate contract and start negotiations right then and there.
I didn’t quite know how I’d ended up in a life where cities bargaining with dragons over fair payment for a hit job on a god counted as normal, but here we were. I was far more surprised that I’d somehow ended up being the least mercenary person around. Truly, wonders never ceased.
Shaking my head at the strangeness of it all, I walked out into the garden to find Dr. Kowalski, who, sure enough, had my next exercise already lined up.
***
Since all this training would be for nothing if I was too exhausted to use it, I was given the daylight part of Saturday off to sleep and prepare. That was the idea, anyway, but I actually spent most of the time lying in bed checking on
