In the weeks after the dragons plunged back into the seas, developers, those eternal optimists, bought up derelict properties, attended auctions for the air rights. It was a seller’s market again, despite the soot and unscrubbable yellow scum, the one-eyed park dwellers, the Bird Ladies and Say-Somethings, the gutted husks of buildings that loomed in the middle of every block and the wrecking balls that rolled in noisily to dispatch them.
Without dragons to distract them or a single kingpin in control, the torchies got wise. Their scouts peeked from below manhole covers—stood with telescopes on the few unscorched roofs of Torchtown, ignoring constellations. Rival factions consolidated power, revved chain saws in their streets. Fresh tattoos spelled KEEP OUT and SQUATTERS RITES in blood and ink. The underbelly is always the most vulnerable part of the creature. They knew the walls were coming down. They wanted to be ready.
In the months after the dragons plunged back into the seas, we leveled Torchtown and commenced rebuilding our skyline from the ground up. Reported casualties were few, though we heard gunshots for days after the Outer Walls’ demolition, out in the streets past our deadbolts and blackout curtains. Cage-wagons full of feral orphans and grizzled chaw-worn youths rumbled over the bridges, never to return. It filled us with regret but relief also, a monstrous birth we had survived with only minor hemorrhaging. Now, we reminded ourselves, was the time to heal.
And heal we did. How could we not? In the first year after the dragons plunged back into the seas, we broke ground on dozens of new building projects, whimsical and ambitious, daydream spire-domes like the shells of snails who feed at the secret hot vents of the sea, digital clock towers that chimed the names of corporations. Soil experts excavated the park. Shops opened to sell Powdered Zip, Sin Buns, drain cleaner—were joined by new stores selling vintage furs and candied seahorses and gleaming wearable technology from the East. Young girls dressed as if for bed in iridescent slips and silvery anklets. A gilded, many-piped gongflugel rose skyward on creaking ropes; windows opened to receive it. The neighborhoods were vibrant and emerging. The city had character.
It was as good a time as any to come into one’s inheritance.