guv’nor, she was there and then she turned into bloomin’ smoke, I swears it! Only three pints of ale tonight at supper, guv, I swears!
But I didn’t want to sneak all the way out to Tranquility, so I said nothing.
Armand and I sat across from each other at Jesse’s table. A stack of letters and a diary had been placed in the middle between us. The diary was mostly jaunty and newer, but the letters were very old, combed with very old, spidery writing. Combined, they’d spelled out a message that was nothing short of electrifying.
When I’d finished reading the last page, my fingers were trembling.
Jesse, of course, had noticed. He’d said we could discuss everything after eating and was now moving about in the tidy little kitchen, slicing bread, finding jam. Stoking the coals in the oven into brightness for a kettle and tea. He’d muted his music again and so these small, comforting sounds were the only noises to be heard; thankfully, tonight had a brilliant moon, so the Germans weren’t bombing. Even the crickets were quiet.
It jarred me to see Armand in Jesse’s setting. His dark hair, his intense blue eyes. His posh tailored shirt and high starched collar and clean fingernails. He seemed to just gleam more than either of us. Perhaps that’s what being born into a fortune could do. Polish you up to a shine, light up the world, no matter where you wandered. I expected this was as informal as he ever got, but compared to schoolmiss me and hired-hand Jesse Holms, he was done to the nines.
Even in the half-light of the candles, Lord Armand looked ill-suited to this rustic place, a foreigner discovering himself in a foreign land.
The kettle began to steam. The berry-ripe scent of the jam caught in the vapor, wafted over to me in long, draping coils.
Do you even know how to do that? I wondered, watching Armand from beneath my lashes. Have you ever even had to boil your own water for tea?
I should try to be kinder. He’d had more than a shock today, I knew, and it wasn’t as if I didn’t understand how it felt. But a mean little part of me still smarted over being derided as that sort of girl. If he was uneasy, that part of me was glad.
The brittle cold ice that had frosted inside him, that had connected us in the grotto, had melted. In its place was … I wasn’t sure what. Something new. Something that felt like swords and power. Gleaming, like him.
“What is it?” he muttered, his eyes moving to me. “Why are you staring?”
“I’m not,” I replied. But I felt the blood rise in my cheeks.
Jesse thwacked a plate piled with bread between us, followed by half a brick of butter and a crock of raspberry jam. A knife—the long skinny kind that looked like it should be used for poking things, for digging insects out from tree bark—stuck up from the middle of the red goo.
Armand regarded it all without moving. I reached for the bread.
“How can you eat? After everything, how can you be hungry?”
“I’m always hungry.” I used the knife to smear butter across the bread, and then jam. It was brown bread, sour to the jam’s sweet, but I didn’t care. It tasted superb.
Jesse served the tea, then took the chair beside me. As soon as I was done with the bread, he laced his fingers through mine and brought our joined hands to rest atop the table, in plain sight. Happiness began its tingling spread up my arm.
It wasn’t subtle, but it was clear. Armand leaned back from the light, staring disdainfully at a fixed point beyond us both.
“How long have you known about him?” I asked Jesse, using my free hand to gesture toward his guest.
“Forever. Nearly as long as I did about you.”
“God, Jesse. Why didn’t you say anything?”
“He was a shadow of you.” Jesse shrugged. “His background is diluted, his dragon blood less strong. Even with you in his proximity, I wasn’t certain any of his drákon traits would emerge. He hasn’t anywhere near your potential.”
“Pardon me,” Armand said, freezingly polite, “but he is still right here with you in this room.”
“Do you mean … I did it?” I asked. “I made him figure it out? What he is?”
Jesse gave me an assessing look. “Like is drawn to like. We’re all three of us thick with magic now, even if it’s different kinds. It’s inevitable that we’ll