Page 33 of House of the Iron Reaper

“So I have heard,” Deimos chuckles. “But I thank you for coming. I did not know if you would.”

I think about being offended, but I know there is truth to what he says. I hold my hands up instead.

“A fair expectation,” I say. “I did not know myself if I would come.”

In truth, I had been planning to send a Baidu to him regardless. The same idea had been planted in my mind but admitting that feels like flaying myself and presenting my insides for inspection.

Deimos begins work on a swollen, red pepper.

“Why did you come?” he asks carefully, his tone light.

I turn and lean back against the counter, arms crossed.

Deimos’s Baidu had told me what I already knew but had never truly considered before—the dragons of Iron and Coal survive off rations. The Houses have been stretched thin since the Iron Grief, with not enough food between them. In his message, he had asked if I would help him cook for them. Just a few meals, so they may find their strength.

After talking to Lysandra, and after watching Deyanara devour Meris’s food, it became apparent I do not know what true hunger looks like. An immovable guilt lodges itself in my chest like a blade. More than guilt, I feel like a fool.

“What was it Meris said? Food is the foundation of true strength.” I shrug with practiced nonchalance. “Deyanara is my rival—if she is weak with hunger, she poses no challenge at all.”

“Ah, yes.” Deimos smiles knowingly. “Your rival. Ronan mentioned that.”

My eyes narrow.

“Mentioned what?”

“Your…” He pauses, casting his eyes skyward. “‘Obsession’ is too strong a word, perhaps.”

“O-Obsession?” I splutter, turning to him, ready to fight.

Deimos waves me off, even as that damn smug smile remains glued to his face. I huff and turn back around.

“Ronan does not know of what he speaks,” I grumble.

“Of course,” Deimos says lightly.

“And neither do you.”

“Indeed.”

“It is she who is obsessed with me, if anything,” I declare. “You saw the way she pointed to me at the opening ceremony. And she is always looking at me with that… that expression.”

“And how would you know,” Deimos says. “Unless you were looking back?”

I snap my mouth shut, silently fuming. Wretched dragon. Deimos returns to his humming as the crowd of House Copper slowly seeps out, starting their work before the day grows too hot.

Copper, although plentiful in the mines just beyond the city walls, is not in high demand within Coalsburgh. Frostalm, however, has a great interest in the copper trade. Their engineers often use it quicker than they can buy it, and so the dragons stockpile it throughout the year, knowing the sirens will buy it all during Saints Day and the Embercall Festival.

I glance at Deimos. Like most fashionable male dragons, he wears colourful clothes and glittering jewellery. His hair is tied back with a glistening pin and his usual earrings dangle hypnotically down the conch of his ears, tinkling as he moves. For the first time, I consider money is not the reason House Copper does not mingle with the upper Houses, but rather they just do not like us.

I swallow past the lump in my throat.

“Yes?” Deimos asks, eyes still on his pepper.

“I…” It feels terribly embarrassing all of a sudden to be part of House Glass. I clear my throat and choose something else to talk about. “I noticed you do not mine, and you do not wish to Ascend.”

Deimos stays quiet, waiting for me to continue.

“What is it you wish to do?” I ask.