The silence stretched on. I saw Grafton open his mouth, but I also caught Ferlis clutching his hand hard enough to draw blood. Hyel was watching me like a hawk. I idly found this a little ironic, since Yora was standing right next to him, still visibly grappling with the shock which the elf had already shucked off.

  “I… am afraid I do not understand your question,” Hyel said, at the very edge of timing that would be considered polite. Any longer, and his silence would have indicated either hostility or gross incompetence.

  “A lack of understanding might explain things, yes.” I smiled ‘cheerfully.’ “Shall we examine certain assumptions together? I have the perfect one to start with: the role of town elders out on the frontier.”

  Grafton bristled further. I could tell the other three, though better at holding back to various extents, shared the sentiment. This was probably compounded by the fact that I had neither invited them to sit nor moved to make such a thing possible.

  I spared a quick glance at my audience. Alys still maintained an air of aloof detachment. Kiri could have been carved from stone. Amara had something I thought was a proud glint in her eyes as she watched me, while Soren mostly looked amused.

  It was Nasha and Arandel who sent a tiny jolt of guilt through me. Nasha looked like the definition of a kicked puppy as her gaze darted between me and the elders. Arandel, whom I’d glimpsed in the corner of my vision as she lingered by a nearby table, had a sad, worried grimace gracing her features.

  Unfortunately, I was both a fae and a soon-to-be parent. And I was thoroughly done with the elders dragging their feet on certain issues.

  “Town elders,” I began, reciting the words like one of my tutors might have. “Individuals of impressive experience who have either retired from their original roles or can no longer perform them, assigned to various frontier towns in order to offer support, guidance, and wisdom.”

  “What’s your point, brat?” Grafton snarled, finally slipping his leash a little.

  I smiled a little wider, letting some of my teeth show. Kiri flinched, though I wasn’t sure if anyone else caught it.

  After all, fae are nature incarnate, with all its ugliness and beauty. No reasonable person ever wants a fae smiling at them the way I was doing.

  Interestingly, even though they didn’t know I was a full-blooded fae, both Grafton and Hyel shifted their stances a little in response. Making assumptions on the basis of my ‘bit’ of fae blood affecting me, perhaps?

  “My point, old thing, is that you have a role in this town like everyone else. Your assumed competence means that when you speak, people listen. However, none of you are the mayor. You are not kings. You are not figures of official authority. I owe you no respect, Grafton, and unless you start showing some to me, I see no reason to reciprocate any longer.”

  I snapped off the final sentence. Some of that pride I’d thought I possessed much more control of than most of my kin was coming out to play. The term I had almost used, instead of his name, was mortal. And this time, I would have meant it as an insult.

  Regardless of word choice, Grafton clearly felt the full weight of my contempt. He actually seemed speechless. I was almost certainly undoing some of the good I’d done him with the nutritional supplements. His face was so red, I briefly wondered if his heart might give out.

  As he and his colleagues reeled, I took a moment to gather myself. Everything I’d said was true, though I had understated their importance. People did trust the elders to lead in major decision-making. And the elders did have the power to turn away potential townsfolk, as demonstrated by my own negotiations with them when I first arrived. In order to secure a place in Swiftband, I had even agreed to use my alchemical skills, despite my initial desire to distance myself from my training.

  However, I was no longer some random person requesting a spot in the town. I was the local alchemist who had already contributed to the town’s prosperity in a real and appreciable way. I was on excellent terms with a large number of important townsfolk. Not to mention the fact that I was mated to the town’s lead builder, who, though now overseeing a team, still provided all necessary materials and knowledge for proper home construction.

  In other words, if we were to clash seriously, I could not be forced out of town or marginalized. I could become quite a thorn in their sides by simply denying them my services and letting everyone know exactly why that was happening.

  “May I ask what we have done to earn this?” Hyel asked quietly. “I believe we’ve had a cordial relationship thus far.”

  I looked at him for a moment, saying nothing.

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  “Have I asked much of you since I came here, Hyel? Have I caused any problems? Done anything to undermine the town?”

  “You have not.”

  His eyes were searching mine now, but he would find nothing there.

  “Have I done my best to assist wherever and however I could? Spending time and effort freely, when I could have done the bare minimum?”

  Another pause, this time a bit shorter. “You have.”

  “Then why have all the simple requests I’ve made of you been ignored, and your promises unkept?”

  I did not allow my nature to slip through. There was no crinkle of leaves or the building fury of a wind in my voice. No glow in my eyes. No pressure woven into the air.

  In spite of that, I was proud of how cutting my tone was. Had Grafton not been subtly silencing our voices past a certain point of distance, which I’d noticed him doing when the elders first approached our table, we would have everyone’s attention. People were glancing our way anyway, because the tension was clear enough, but the elders still had their petty pride intact.

  For now.

  “I do not believe we have broken your trust.” It was Yora who spoke this time. Hyel was once again staring at me in an odd, searching way.

  “Ha!” Alys snorted, some flame escaping her nostrils.

  Grafton’s head snapped towards my dragoness. “Something to say?”

  Then the eyes of both Amara and Soren locked onto him, and he paused.

  “Yes. Several things,” Alys rumbled. Her scales and eyes were glowing now. My heart soared at her support. “Let’s start with the mess you caused. You promised to handle the royal surveyors, and we still ended up having a chat with them, didn’t we? And then one of them sent soldiers to occupy the town.”

  Alys’ voice was a growl of pure violence, leashed with only the thinnest restraint. I hadn’t realized how much anger my dragoness still held over that episode, both the attack and being forced into that meeting. Yet she had been the one who’d thwarted the elders’ attempt to involve us from the start, and they had promised to handle things.

  “And how is that our fault?” Grafton shot back, causing Hyel to cringe and look away.

  “How? How?” With an effort, I reigned in my mana to prevent making even slight contact with me… hazardous. Alys would be fine, but I didn’t want to give myself away by leaving clear marks of damage on the furniture. “You have placed yourselves in the roles of representatives for our town. Thus, it is your responsibility to gauge threats. To preempt them. To have enough sense and political acumen to realize when a noble is going to send a small army to oppress and occupy the people you clearly see yourselves as leading. We never should have been summoned to meet with the surveyors, let alone had to deal with soldiers sent after us specifically!”

  To his credit, Hyel merely looked sour, rather than asking how the elders could have prevented such a thing. If he could contact The Molten Expanse, then he could contact relevant authorities about a suspicious royal surveyor. And while I had no proof he hadn’t, the look on his face was enough for me.

  “Let us set that aside for a moment,” I continued. “Were that your only failing, perhaps we would be willing to overlook things.”

  I had been careful not to use ‘we’ before. My anger with the elders aside, I hadn’t wanted to drag my dragoness into the clash any more than she was forced to participate. Now, however, Alys’ stance was clear enough.

  “As I implied before, I never asked for much. What I did ask for was help with promoting my shop. Something Alys built, and I decided to run, solely for the betterment of the town. So people could acquire products they need, rather than having to endure without or beg you for town stock. Why, then, was your effort there so lacking? Do you enjoy forcing people to come to you?”

  “No!” Yora answered immediately, a genuine touch of horror in her voice at the insinuation. “Why would you even ask that? And we have done plenty already to —”

  “One.” I cut her off, though her clearly emotional response did made me feel a tiny bit better. A very, very tiny bit. “One person. That is how many individuals have visited my shop thus far, and that one person was sent by Nasha.”

  The beagle startled like someone was about to strike her, which again sent a jolt of regret through me. I had thoroughly shifted the mood of our conversation from jolly to uncomfortably tense.

  “That… shouldn’t be…” Ferlis trailed off weakly when I levied an unamused look her way.

  “Are you calling me a liar, then? Perhaps I should have The Molten Expanse corroborate my words? She has taken an interest in a few of my projects, and has recently spent most of her time with me in my lab. Even if I had somehow missed a visitor, she would not have.”

  Perhaps emphasizing my new relationship with Grandmother was excessive. Regardless, I enjoyed the effect it had on the elders. They were certainly looking far more wary now.

  “You can’t expect people to visit your home willingly after a dragon shows up there!” Grafton spat. This was fair enough, though it amused me how much more of my family’s ire he earned with that comment, and the chagrined look he immediately sported afterwards.

  “And before her arrival? The weeks when nothing happened? What were you doing then in fulfillment of my request to ‘help me make sure the town thrives’?”

  “We put the word out. We let people know.” Hyel sighed, looking tired. “We cannot force them to go to you, Thorn.”

  “Excellent point. Or it would be, if not for my one customer’s report. Lucinda personally told me that her only knowledge of my shop was a collection of vague rumors, considered by everyone to be false. Again, I ask: what did you do to ‘spread word’ about my shop?”

  That gave them pause. Hyel, in particular, suddenly looked pale.

  Deciding there was no such thing as ‘excessive’, I went for the throat once again. “Not that this is the only reason we have begun losing trust in you, mind. It might seem minor to you, but the mere fact that you withheld the knowledge of your association with Alys’ grandmother, and then decided to contact her without ever speaking with my mate about doing so, is not something either of us will forget in a hurry.”

  My snarl could have matched Alys’ in that moment. The rumble that followed my words certainly confirmed that my mate shared my opinion on the matter.

  Hyel was now looking green. Ferlis and Yora matched his stance. Grafton, of course, was Grafton. But frankly, if he died out of sheer anger and embarrassment in that moment (which he looked close to), my work load would only decrease.

  I chose to stare down the elf as I awaited their response.

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