Chaos Choreography (InCryptid, #5)(95)
Alice looked thoughtful. “You know, you may have something there.”
“I do not have the spare brain to have this conversation right now,” I said, and hurried after Brenna, accompanied by the faint cheers of the Aeslin mice riding in the hood of my sweatshirt.
We were taking Aeslin mice to visit a Nest. May the heavens have mercy on our souls.
The lobby of the motel was as small and shabby as the exterior. A lovely woman in her late twenties sat behind the desk, poking listlessly at a smartphone with tape on one corner to hold the screen in place. She didn’t look up as we entered, just said, “You’re late,” without any heat or rancor. I would’ve known she was a dragon even if Brenna hadn’t been the one to lead me here. There was something about her combination of perfect hair, perfect skin, and secondhand sweatshirt that screamed “secretly a princess, not here for you to save.”
“I had to help Verity with some things,” said Brenna sweetly.
The woman’s head snapped up, eyes suddenly wide. She scanned us all in a quick, economical gesture before settling on me. “Verity?” she asked. “Verity Price? Is she—I mean, are you Verity Price?”
“Yeah, I am,” I said. There was no point in stretching out the suspense of the moment. It would have been cruel, given the circumstances and the power imbalance between us. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
She put down her phone. “I—I mean, I—I mean—” She stopped. “I don’t know how to have this conversation.”
“That’s because we’re not having it yet, Chantelle. I’m sorry,” said Brenna, before her Nest-sister could embarrass herself—or me—any further. “Verity isn’t here because the dragons of New York have agreed to see us. She’s here because of problems on the show, and we need to talk to Osana.”
“Sorry,” I said, when Chantelle looked to me for confirmation. “I’m working on it, but I’ve been sort of busy appearing on national television for the last few weeks. I’ll let you know as soon as I have some sort of answer.”
“Please make them answer ‘yes,’” said Chantelle. The raw need in her voice was startling. It’s rare to hear a dragon beg for anything—not even mercy. Chantelle was begging. “Please. I want my daughters to have sons. I want to die knowing my species isn’t going extinct within my children’s lifetimes. Please make them understand why they should sell us a baby boy. We’ll be the best aunts any dragon ever grew up with. We’ll teach him everything he needs to know, and he’ll be loved. No one will ever be more loved than he will, because he’ll be our future. Everyone deserves a future.”
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence when she finished speaking, like none of us knew how to react. Even Brenna was quiet, maybe because she understood what Chantelle was saying a little too well. I was essentially in control of the future of their species, or at least the future of this Nest; without me to make their case and help them move the baby across the country, they’d have no more chance of getting a mate for their daughters than anyone else, and less chance than many. They needed me, and they didn’t know what to offer in exchange for a favor that could quite literally change their lives forever.
So I forced myself to smile, and I said, “I’ll do whatever I can to make the dragons of New York understand how good you’d be for their son, and why they should listen to your request. William’s a friend of mine. I’m sure he’ll pay attention when I speak.”
Chantelle clapped a hand over her mouth. “Thank you,” she squeaked, voice muffled by her fingers.
“Verity’s nice that way,” said Brenna. She put her hand on my shoulder, steering me toward the office door. “We’ll be back in a bit, all right? Keep watch on the register.”
“Yay, guard duty,” said Chantelle, dropping her hand—but she was smiling, and her eyes were bright with tears.
Alice waited until we were through the door to the manager’s office before she asked, “What was that all about?”
“We’ve asked Verity to help us purchase a husband from the dragons of New York,” said Brenna blithely, as she pulled a set of keys out of her pocket and walked to the door on the other side of the room. “They should be having sons about now, and we have only daughters, naturally enough. We’d like to get some new blood in.”
Alice said nothing.
Brenna must have interpreted her silence as a criticism, because she turned back and said, with great good cheer, “I know it’s not the human way, but it’s the way we have, and we need a husband for our little girls.”
“I wasn’t judging,” said Alice. “I was just thinking about the logistics, that’s all.”
“Baby dragons are small,” said Brenna. “They have to be. Females have human-esque hips, and we’re the ones who lay the eggs.” She unlocked the door and pushed it open, revealing a tunnel on the other side. “Come on, then. Osana will have seen the light go off on the security board, and she hates it when people dawdle in the tunnel.” With that, she started into the dark, leaving the rest of us with little choice but to follow her.
The tunnel ran the length of a football field, passing under the motel before beginning to slant up again. The walls were shored up with concrete and wood pilings, and looked similar in construction to the sub-layers of the Crier Theater. “How long has this been here?” I asked.