Page 8 of Always Say Yes to a Dragon

“This is a public office.” Diego’s face took on a familiar pinched expression.

“Exactly! Good decorations show others that I take good care of the city, respect its value, and that it’s become wealthy under my control.” I would be a complete failure of a dragon if my city didn’t prosper, and how would Elle trust me to take care of her if I couldn’t take care of her home?

“People don’t want their taxes to be spent on expensive decorations.” Diego’s words were measured.

I’d already had dozens of meetings with City Council about tax-funded projects that would be many, many times more expensive than adding some beauty to this ugly building.

Humans were so uptight about money. All these extra rules I could never figure out. Oh, our contract with the city was incredibly specific. Niemrin and I provided protection, negotiated contracts with new businesses, and generally acted in the city’s best interests in exchange for getting to include the city in our hoard, which raised our status among other dragons and made us more attractive to future mates.

Plus, there were a bunch of provisions that amounted to “don’t act like a dictator”—I had a good idea of wherethosecame from. We’d thought that was everything, but it had taken only a few hours after signing the contract for us to run into unspoken rules that boiled down to “don’t talk openly about money.” Totally the opposite of dragon rules, and extremely frustrating.

“Fine, I’ll bring some from home.” I had a few bars of gold, and some nice paintings. Oh, and those gold doubloons I’d snapped up a few months back would look nice piled in the corner next to Diego’s desk. He’d appreciate the view.

“If you like,” Diego said with a sigh. “Don’t forget, you have a meeting with Councilor Williams at eleven.”

“Remind me what she wants to talk about?” I asked, secretly hoping the meeting wouldn’t last too long. I wanted to see Elle at lunch again.

“Housing.”

I tilted my head. “We have lots of houses.” Nice ones, too.

“I left notes on your desk.” Diego turned back to his computer.

Right. Notes. A familiar frustration built in my chest.

I sighed and entered my office, settling into the chair I’d brought from home, with its special wing cutouts and high-quality leather upholstery.

Diego had left a bullet-pointed sheet of paper on my desk, outlining something about not having enough homes for everyone. But I’d collected my yearly tribute—er,taxes—earlier that month, so we should have had enough to build more homes. It should have been simple.

But Councilor Jasmine would be here at eleven, which meant itwasn’tsimple. I’d ask her a bunch of questions that I felt like I should know the answers to already, and at the end of our meeting, we wouldn’t be any closer to solving the problem becausethisother councilor objected, orthatbudget item needed the money instead, orthisgroup thought it would impact them badly.

I crumpled the paper into a ball. At least “tax season” had been uncomplicated fun, even if no one handed over real gold. Some of the richer humans had dragged their feet and tried to get out of paying entirely. They hadn’t expected a visit from an angry dragon to force them to pay tribute. I’d also “assessed” a few extra fines. They weren’t pleased, but what were they going to do, fight a dragon? The memory made me chuckle.

I smoothed the paper back out, careful not to snag it with my claws. Would Elle take me seriously if Kilinis didn’t have enough houses?

My parents constantly badgered me about Kilinis’s prosperity and howthey’ddone a much better job with their own city—I’d set their texts and calls to silent to get away from their constant offers to “help.” I’d been sure Niemrin and I could handle it, but how had I overlooked something as basic as housing?

The meeting with Councilor Jasmine was exactly as painful as I’d feared. She outlined in excruciating detail how many homes we needed, and how much money we needed to build them.

“We’d like to go forward with the new housing developments, Az’zael.” Councilor Jasmine pronounced my name perfectly. Her Bantu knots were neat, her suit a tailored wool blend. “But we simply don’t have the funding for everything you requested.” She looked at me like I could solve the problem with a flick of my wings.

When I’d fallen asleep in the third meeting in a row, City Council started sending Councilor Jasmine over to summarize their meetings instead of asking me to attend. It wasn’t that I didn’t care. It was that they spent so much time arguing back and forth, and somehow a decisionstilldidn’t get made. So why pay attention?

I blinked. “I just collected trib—taxes.”

She handed me a sheet of paper. Jasmine always did a thorough job with these summaries. I’d tried to compensate her for the extra time, as was proper, but she’d looked scandalized and said something about not accepting “bribes.”

I glanced through it. Niemrin and Ihadbegun a lot of projects, but Kilinis needed so much work. I could shift some of my personal hoard into Kilinis’s coffers, but that seemed inadequate somehow.

“Is it too soon to ask for more taxes?” I asked. That would give the people a stake in what was happening in their city.That’swhat I wanted. Not to dictate everything to everyone.

Jasmine shot me a familiar, exasperated look. “Yes. We have some alternative proposals here.”

I took the binder from her hand. It was neatly organized with tabs. I’d expect nothing less from the exacting councilor. Physical paper was easier for me to focus on than the digital files Jasmine had tried to send over the first few weeks I’d been in Kilinis.

“Thank you. I’ll look them over.” I’d never felt more like a fraud than I did when I forced a smile. As if I knew how to evaluate any of those pages.

What had I been thinking when I claimed Kilinis? I could sniff out treasures from miles away, but most of mine were neatly organized in display cases, not liquidated and repurposed.

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