Petunia

Petunia watched the session clock on the monitor that was the stable’s built-in connection to the ICDA’s event control team. Other stables were festooned with screens and tablets, and Tenebrae’s would be soon, but for now it was still just a big empty room waiting for Soot to return from his long second-practice run. Everything was working fine, Soot’s times were good, and they just had to wait for the new sponsorship deals to fall into place to secure the team’s future.

If she didn’t ask Phoebe about the Castelloro connection right now, the opportunity would probably be gone. If she did ask, then she might find herself without many other opportunities for anything else ever again. Phoebe couldn’t really have taken mob money, could she? She’d gone out on a limb for dragon racing before, but on this scale?

On the laptop screen on the table in front of her, the session times went final. Petunia reached up to tap her earpiece awake and paused. It was only a practice session, Phoebe wouldn’t be so desperate for the data that she couldn’t take a moment. Petunia thought back for a second on knocking on Ms. Dewmeadow’s office door to ask her to sponsor the team. She’d gone through with it then.

Maybe if she broached the topic now, while Soot was on his way back to the perch, it would be easier.

“How’d it look, Petunia?” Phoebe’s voice cut through her reverie.

“Phoebe, do you know a Mr. Castelloro?” In the end asking was easier than going through any more motions.

The dragon rider didn’t answer.

After a long moment, Petunia said, “Phoebe?”

Silence. Over by where the stable opened onto the perches, Adelie was fighting the heavy drinking hose into position for Soot. “Phoebe?” Petunia realised she hadn’t warned Adelie she was doing this now and started to get to her feet.

There was still no answer from out on the course. What if Phoebe didn’t come back to the stable at all, but just flew off into the closing Friday afternoon? There were instant alarms throughout the stadium building to warn of a dragon straying too far from the course, but maybe they were only enabled during race sessions. Other dragons, their colours muted by the drab sky, flapped lazily past where Adelie was standing.

Petunia walked up behind the vet, who looked round and almost jumped. The way her face turned grim, though, told Petunia she didn’t need to explain. Still no answer from Phoebe. Petunia started to step closer to the edge, peering out along the perch lane, but Adelie grabbed her sleeve and pulled her back, pointing wordlessly to the yellow safe line on the floor. That was fair.

“Phoebe?” Where was she? From where she stood, Petunia couldn’t see the time on the official screen to know how long it had been since she’d posed the question, whether Phoebe was taking longer than expected to get back to the stable or not. It felt like an age but there was still a steady stream of dragons flying in. Time was supposed to stretch in moments like this, Petunia remembered.

Finally the unmistakable dark shape of Soot appeared, last in line. He definitely hadn’t been the last dragon in the order when the session ended, Phoebe must have at least held him back. Petunia watched him beat tired wings a last couple of times, then duck and swoop to approach the perch. She took a few steps back as he alighted, caught off-guard by how fast and big and there he suddenly was. Normally this was Adelie’s territory alone.

Soot didn’t pay her any mind, immediately reaching his neck over towards Adelie and the hose as he lumbered from the perch to the solid floor. Then he hesitated, as Phoebe stayed up on his shoulders, instead of leaping down as she normally would. Petunia looked up into Phoebe’s goggles – she hadn’t even pushed them up her forehead. It was like looking up at a statue of a stranger carved in an unfamiliar style. What was Phoebe thinking?

Head frozen a foot or two from where Adelie was teetering under the hose, Soot huffed quietly. To Petunia, it sounded nervous, maybe a little plaintive. He’d just flown a bit over sixty miles of laps at race pace and needed the fluid, but he could sense something amiss. Phoebe didn’t move.

The dragon’s patience ran out just before Adelie’s strength, and he took the nozzle, making a noise like a leaky bellows full of jelly as he started to drink. As he did so – as he normally would - he began to shuffle deeper into the stable, towards the patch of heated floor where he’d be able to rest tired joints while Adelie checked him.

Phoebe stayed up on the dragon’s back, impassive. She’d ranted at length before about how she hated it when riders did that, how walking wasn’t great for dragons at the best of times and the weight of a rider could make the risks even worse. It was, she said, the sign of a callous, arrogant rider, one who treated their dragon as a beast of burden rather than a partner.

But right now, Petunia saw, if Phoebe got off Soot she might fear she would never get back on.

Shouting rather than using the microphone, but trying to sound kindly all the same, Petunia said, “Talk to us, Phoebe. What’s going on?”

Soot settled to his haunches. Phoebe slid down to stand on the other side of the dragon from Petunia and Adelie, one hand still on his scales, head bowed. Petunia felt her chest tighten in sympathy. Phoebe’s behaviour already answered her question. As soon as any of them spoke, they were going to have to deal with that.

Finally, Phoebe lifted a hand and pulled the goggles off her head, throwing them to the ground over towards the wall. Then she looked at Petunia. Her voice came out as croaky as Petunia had ever heard her. “Can we check Soot first?” There was a pained squeak on the last word.

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Soot needed care and checking after a long stint regardless of who owned him. They could all agree on that. Petunia nodded and turned to Adelie, who was sickly pale but shakily started to move closer to Soot’s shoulder. Phoebe joined her, and they inspected his joints steadily, probing with fingers and Adelie’s pocket thermometer. Petunia watched them work, noting how smoothly practiced they’d become.

No-one spoke. It was a more comfortable kind of silence than when Phoebe had first returned. Soot’s well-being was one thing the three friends could all agree on. And Petunia could see Phoebe recovering from whatever silent state she’d been in when Soot perched. They progressed down Soot’s flank, then legs, to every joint of his long, taloned feet.

Then Phoebe stood and turned to face Petunia again. “How were the times?”

“No, Phoebe.” Petunia found her voice and mind steady. “Tell us about Castelloro first.”

“What do you want me to say, Petunia? Yeah, I took a, a loan from Angelo Castelloro.” Phoebe hesitated as Adelie stood up next to her, ashen-faced and wide-eyed. Then she pressed on, “It’s, uh, it’s just the money to get us started.”

Phoebe never stammered that much when she believed in what she was saying, Adelie saw. She held her tongue and just looked at the dragon rider.

“Okay, yeah, I’m sorry, I was being stupid. I am stupid.” She didn’t say whether she meant the loan or the lie. “The farm is Angelo’s. He put up the money for the registrations, entry fees, operating costs, everything.”

“How much do we owe him?” Petunia fell into the voice she used when one of P.R.A.N.C.’s clients was being squirrely with money, then wished she hadn’t. The fresh million Royals Phoebe had produced out of nowhere the previous week to secure their continued operation, too…

For a moment, Phoebe looked about to quibble, then said. “I don’t know the exact amount but I guess like five and a half million.” Then tension got the better of her and she made a twitching, unintelligible gesture with both hands. “But it’s all on me, not you guys, he won’t, he shouldn’t touch you if anything goes wrong, and things are going great right now, he wants us to win, he hasn’t even asked for any of the money back yet at all or anything.”

“What about Soot?” Adelie’s quiet question cut through Phoebe’s babbling.

“Huh?” Phoebe stared at her, mouth open.

Voice low and monotone, Adelie said, “What about Soot? Did you really tame him from wild? Did Angelo or whatever his name is pay for that? Or does he own Soot outright? Is that why you’ve been so secretive about all this?”

Something turned in Petunia’s gut. She’d seen the full force of Phoebe’s anger only twice in her life. Once had been in the sad, desperate days after her family had announced they wouldn’t support her racing career as far as the Imperial League. The other had been the previous year, when a news story had broken about mob-bred dragons forced to compete in secret, unsanctioned races. Phoebe had ranted for days, to anyone who would listen, about the dangers those mobsters had subjected their dragons to.

Petunia watched Phoebe slowly decide not to tell another lie. It was a strange, cold, hanging feeling, to see it all laid out so clearly on the other woman’s face in twitches and silent false starts at speech. Emptiness pooled in Petunia, the rising realisation that whatever truth Phoebe was about to reveal had to be worse than the rejected lie.

The black shoulders of the race suit rose and fell with a long, deep breath. When she spoke, Phoebe didn’t meet Petunia’s eyes. “I learned about an illegal dragon ranch. Up in Norda. Breeding lunar dragons for the Nosa Costra. Spent months figuring out how to free the dragons, working out who I could get to back the operation, everything.”

“And that’s where Soot came from?” Petunia whispered.

“Yeah. I freed the others and rode him home.”

“But he’s chipped and registered.” Adelie was looking down at her hands, frowning in what looked incongruously like intense concentration.

“Yeah, they put them in the civilian registry.” Phoebe rolled her shoulders. “I think it’s so that they can get specialist surgical coverage. They operate their own vets, of course, but they probably can’t cover every specialism.”

“Mhm.” Adelie didn’t look up.

“Wait, is that all?” Words tore out of Petunia as she watched Adelie’s response. “Aren’t you mad about this?”

Adelie’s head turned, but not far enough to meet Petunia’s glare.

“Say something!” Petunia took a step towards the vet.

Phoebe grabbed her by the sleeve. “Stop. If you want to yell at someone, yell at me. I-“ and then her composure broke as Petunia turned to face her. The dragon rider shrank back, face tensing, shoulders hunched. “If you want to leave-“

“What good would that do? I’d just spend the rest of my life being hunted by the mob!”

“They should leave you alone if you step away from the team, if you’re not involved anymore.”

“Yes, I’m sure it’ll be fine, the mafia are famous for never going after people’s friends and families! How could you do this to us? What are you going to do when men with big suits and guns and stuff kick in the door and start shooting?”

Phoebe started to answer and then gave up, head drooping.

“Oh my god you don’t have any plan at all, do you?”

“I thought, I just thought, if I could win in the IL,” Phoebe said, so low that Petunia could barely hear, “If I could show dad that I can really do it…”

Blood froze in Petunia’s limbs.

Piece by glass-sharp piece, she put it together in her head.

The Hyperio family probably was powerful enough that even the mafia would balk at murdering a child of the duke.

Duke Hyperio would protect Phoebe, at least against threats to her life.

Phoebe’s newfound status in the Imperial League would force the Duke to recognise – maybe even adopt – Tenebrae. The split between Phoebe and her family was public knowledge at this point, but it wasn’t official, and if the Duke was shielding Phoebe he wouldn’t be able to disavow her business ventures.

It was the most Phoebe idea possible. If it worked, it would be a brilliant, grandiose triumph. But it relied on so many unknowables – would Duke Hyperio really back his daughter? Could they win enough races? Did the mafia still fear the old draconic aristocracy enough? Normally Phoebe let herself be talked out of these grand schemes. Petunia had helped talk her out of several plots to get into the IL without her father’s blessing, eighteen months previously when the Duke had first made the limits of his support clear.

Maybe this time, Phoebe had finally learned to keep her schemes to herself.

And it was hard to look at the way she’d shrunk back towards Soot, her crownfeathers curled tightly around her head, and not think, too, that Duke Hyperio was her father. Their personalities might have clashed since Phoebe was a preschooler, but family was family.

Petunia looked her friend up and down again, and then Soot. What would become of him if the mob came and took him back? And there certainly wasn’t anyone in Petunia’s own life that she could appeal to for protection.

“Okay, Phoebe.” She folded her arms as Soot’s rider finally met her eye. “Before I agree to this plan of yours, are there any other uncomfortable secrets I should know about?”

Incredibly, Phoebe had the audacity to glance away, side to side, before answering. “Uh. There’s this girl. An idol. Um. That’s got nothing to do with this, though, I promise. I can tell you about that some other time, I don’t know how I feel yet.”

Petunia took a deep breath and rolled her eyes. “Oh my god, Phoebe, you’d better not drag her into this too.”