He slung his coat over a shoulder and smiled at me, but it was a dire smile, as deathly as his voice.
“How charming,” he said, “to hear you say my nickname at last.”
“Please.”
From behind us, Jesse sighed. “It’s no use. It’s time to enlighten him.”
“Oh, are we going for enlightenment now?” Armand’s eyes narrowed; he pushed again at the chestnut hair plastered against his forehead. “Excellent. Here’s some for you both. I’ll have you sacked, Holms, and I might have you expelled, Jones, but I’ve not quite made up my mind about that yet. After he’s gone you might be more in a mood for a toss with me, since it’s clear you’re that sort of girl. All it’s going to take is one quick discussion with my father to end your liaison forever, as no doubt you both know.”
I walked forward. My hand lifted. Before I had realized it happened, I’d struck him, a ladylike slap that would have gotten me mostly jeers back at the orphanage, but I was angry enough to put some force behind it. His head whipped to the side.
Time stopped. None of us moved.
A slow, spiky throbbing began to flood my palm.
Just as slowly, Armand brought his face back to mine. There was my handprint upon him, red on white, just like the scratches along my body.
“You have no idea what you’re set to destroy,” I bit out. “You’re not thinking. You’re acting like a child.”
“Actually,” murmured Jesse, wry, “he’s acting like a drákon.”
We both shifted to stare at him.
“What?” Armand said, a stifled sound.
“What?” I said, much louder.
“Show him, Lora.” Jesse placed a hand on my shoulder. “Show him what you can do.”
I shook my head. Of course I wouldn’t. Of course not. Going to smoke was one of the very best secrets that lived between us. I wasn’t going to add Armand to that.
“Lora. It’s important.”
“He won’t tell on us. I’m sure he won’t—”
“Dragons do not exist,” Armand interrupted, still so white.
“You’ve got to show him.” Jesse held my eyes, sober and determined, love and light behind his gaze. “He must see to know.”
“But—”
“He said dragon, and I said drákon. Didn’t you hear it? In his bones and in his heart, he already grasps the truth. His mind needs to see.”
Armand clenched his fists. He looked from me to Jesse, back to me, and the fear that enveloped him now was strong as stink. “You’re barking mad. Both of you. I won’t listen to this.”
“Oh,” I said, hushed. “Oh.”
Because in that moment, that heavy and wild moment there in the cool moon grotto, with the sea and the rocks and the sparkling walls, I understood what Jesse was telling me but what he had not actually said. I took in Armand’s sharp, unhappy face and saw my handprint again, saw myself.
And everything clicked. Everything sorted out into big, obvious truths. I understood the connection I’d always felt with this reckless son of a duke. I understood his stifling fear. Without me even speaking to him of it, Jesse was confirming that all I’d suspected of Armand and his mother last night was, in fact, real.
… the true nature of our world is for matters to arrange themselves along the simplest of paths.…
What could be simpler than grouping us all together?
“You don’t have to be afraid,” I said, looking past Jesse to Armand. I tried to smile at him, but my lips felt numb and I don’t know how successful I was; he glared back at me like a cornered animal, desperate to bolt.
Jesse’s fingers tightened on my shoulder, a silent message of reassurance.
“I’m sorry I hit you,” I said, and meant it, right before I went to smoke.
Jesse, I noticed, caught the peacoat before it reached the ground.
• • •
We met that night in Jesse’s cottage. Armand had wanted us all to go to Tranquility, but Jesse pointed out, correctly, that it was far less risky for Armand and me to steal away to the cottage than it would be for Jesse and me to steal into the manor house.
“You’ve got a staff of—what?—thirty? Thirty-five these days?” Jesse asked. “Lora can’t be found alone with either of us at Tranquility. Her forced departure from the school would be an inconvenience to all of us. But the only person who cleans my home is me.”
I thought personally that if I was able to evaporate quickly enough, it wouldn’t matter who caught me where or what they said. It might even prove amusing.