He patted her hand. “Business is booming. How kind of you to ask, considering my success is due to your father having to shutter his doors.”
“It’s not kindness. I’m genuinely curious. I never shared my father’s politics, and I’m just happy to be able to continue to live in Paragon after what he did. Still, it’s been difficult for him. He’s a talented man, and although his punishment fit the crime, it is such a waste of a good doormaker, wouldn’t you say?”
“True. Darium was talented. It was a waste, especially when the three of you were forced to move from the Firedrake district. Where are you living now?”
She looked down at her hands. As embarrassing as it was to admit, there was no use in denying it. Everyone knew they’d lost their fortune. Her parents had always been horrible with money and hadn’t saved a thing during their centuries of wealth. “West of town.”
He screwed up his face as if he smelled something bad. “You can’t mean Swilton? How do you stand it? The smell alone…”
Swilton was the slums of Paragon. Property was cheap there because it neighbored a vilt farm. A pit nearby processed the creatures’ waste and ensured the entire district always reeked of sewage. She couldn’t help but draw the connection between his suit, the finest vilt, and the stink that likely clung loosely to her clothing.
“We get by.” She raised her chin. “It’s not what I was expecting, but a dragon of grace makes the most of it. I am thankful for a roof over our heads. I’ve adapted.”
He scoffed. “I am truly sorry for you, Harlow. None of this was your doing. If there’s anything I can do…”
“Actually, there is.”
He turned his full attention to her. “What’s that?”
She gave him her brightest smile. “You could speak with my father. As you said yourself, he’s extremely talented. The palace took away his business license but not his right to work for someone else. It seems obvious to me that you could help each other. If you hired him, he could bring you his contacts and his talent. And I’m sure he’d take anything you’d be willing to offer.” It was humiliating to ask, but she didn’t care. She’d humiliate herself every day of the week if it would help them rise even slightly above their current circumstances.
He scowled. “Your father is two centuries my senior. He never took me seriously before the revolution. He is talented, but what makes you think he’d even want to answer to me? Has he suggested to you this is something he wants to do?”
“No, not exactly,” she admitted. “But he needs something to do with his time, and working for you makes the most sense. If you would just speak to him…”
The announcer’s voice rang out, and the crowd got to their feet and clapped as Validar and Mayhem entered the pit at the center of the coliseum below. She stood and clapped with Adradys. When she sat back down, his shoulder brushed hers, and she had to stop herself from shrinking from his touch.
She stared down at his hand resting on his knee. Doormaking required strength and manual dexterity, but you’d never guess it by the softness of his hands or his perfect manicure. Even dragons developed calluses over time. His hands spoke volumes about his priorities, the first of which must be his appearance. Was he wearing makeup? She couldn’t see a single pore as she perused his face.
“I’m going to help you, Harlow,” he said, and it came out exactly as if he’d meant I’ve decided to save you, damsel, to prove to you the hero that I am. “I’ve always held you in the highest regard.”
She smiled just as the horn went off and the two warriors below them started to fight. She turned her attention toward the ring and the two shirtless dragons, wings out, circling each other below.
“Oh, it’s time,” she said excitedly, scooting to the edge of her chair to get a better view.
“Excellent. Now, as I mentioned earlier, Validar was a terrible bet on your part because—”
With perfect balance, Validar snatched Mayhem’s punching hand out of the air, twisted it behind his back, then used a low stance to set the other dragon off-balance. Mayhem attempted to roll to his feet, but Validar was there, his agility better than it ever was. His right wing snapped toward the ground and ripped through Mayhem’s torso from left shoulder to right hip. Mayhem howled and didn’t even attempt to get back up. The matchkeeper counted down from ten.
Jumping down from his platform, the matchkeeper took Validar’s hand and raised it toward the sky. “And we have a winner!”
Harlow leaped from her seat and clapped her hands. “Ooh, I guess I won? Goddess, I must be lucky today.”
Adradys stared at her open-mouthed.
“It must have been your company, my dear friend,” Harlow said to Adradys in the sweetest tone she could muster. “And to think, you didn’t even have time to explain the game to me.” She grabbed his hand, pumped it twice, then kissed him on his cheek. “We absolutely must do this again.”
“Yes,” he drawled.
“I’m off to collect my winnings.” She gave him a lighthearted wave over her shoulder as she slipped from his box and headed for the bookie.
Hours later, winnings in hand, Harlow trudged to her new home in Swilton on the west side of Hobble Glen. Exhausted as she was, relief flooded her when she saw the simple cottage. The only indication that a former socialite family lived there was the front door. It had been designed by her father and was still one of the finest in Paragon.
Doors told a family’s story. No family in Paragon would purposely go without the heirloom. The pattern of gems inlaid into the wood represented her heritage. She ran her fingers over the spiral of square rubies that symbolized her father and the interconnected spiral of oval aquamarines that matched her mother’s ring. Harlow’s amethyst rectangles decorated the door in a spray between and below her parents’ jewels. Other stones spiraled out from theirs, tens of thousands of years of ancestors, most lost to wars or battles unknown. Her grandparents and great-grandparents had been killed in a battle with Nochtbend before the time of Eleanor, thousands of years before her birth. But here they were, remembered in emerald, diamond, citrine, and jade.
The door represented their history. The door was their legacy.
At one time, her father Darium was the premier doormaker in all of Paragon. No one of any means would have chosen Adradys’s craftsmanship over his if they could afford it. Back then, Adradys was known for mass-produced, cut-rate doors for those who couldn’t afford her father’s quality or chose not to invest in a high-end door. How things had changed. Adradys had a monopoly on the trade now, and new families had no choice but to go with his repetitive designs.
