until both my arms were released, then lay back on the ground. Rain on my face, pooling in the corners of my eyes. If there were a few hot tears mingled in there, the pair of shadows leaning over me wouldn’t be able to tell.
“Jesse,” I said. “Are there any more dragons left on the planet besides me?”
“There’s bloody me,” Armand interjected. But he knew that wasn’t what I meant and shot a look at Jesse, as well, expectant.
Jesse came down into a squat at my side. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. Sorry to both of you. But I honestly don’t. If there are … I don’t feel them. Not like I did you.”
I swiped at my eyes and asked the question I’d never allowed past my lips before. “What about my parents?”
“No,” he answered, a single word with oceans of meaning.
No. Of course not. Because if they’d been alive, they would have found me by now, wouldn’t they? If Jesse could summon me, if Armand could awaken to his powers through me, then certainly the two beings who had given me life would have figured out how to claim me before now. They would not have left me in Blisshaven, abandoned me to Moor Gate, on purpose.
The logical side of me realized I wasn’t truly alone. But, oh, right then in the storm and the sludge, logic was useless. Lodged in my heart was a splinter, one that I knew was the death of my parents. The death of my hope for them. So alone wasn’t even the best word for how I felt.
Left behind. That was more like it.
My gaze landed on Armand. Like Jesse, he had given up standing to squat beside me. His hood had fallen away. His face dripped with rain.
“Remember that shark?” My lips barely moved. “From the boat?”
I didn’t have to explain what I meant. He looked down and away. Nodded.
“Don’t do this in front of anyone. Ever,” I said to him. “Don’t let them see.”
“For God’s sake, Eleanore, I seriously doubt that’s going to be an issue. I have no clue how you did … that. I don’t know how you spoke to me in my room at Tranquility. I don’t know how you go to smoke, or flash your eyes like that—”
“Flash my eyes?”
“When you’re angry sometimes,” Jesse jumped in. “Or emotional, if you’ll forgive the word. Your eyes luminesce. It’s very beautiful.”
“I just hear the songs,” Armand said quietly, silvery black raindrops spattering his head and back and shoulders. “And I feel things. That’s all.”
“That’s how it begins,” I countered. I struggled to get upright again, and once again both of them helped. We stood linked in a row awhile longer, none of us speaking, until Armand dropped my hand and turned away.
“I’ve got to get the motorcar back before anyone notices. Bribery only goes so far, and I’ve already used up this quarter’s allowance.”
Before either Jesse or I could say anything, he gave a hard shake of his shoulders, like a dog trying to dry its coat, pulled up his hood, and walked back into the blind of the trees.
“He’s good at that,” I said.
“Lonely.” Jesse raised his brows at my look. “I can’t help it. I feel him now, too.”
I didn’t know why Armand would feel lonely. At least he had his father, and a brother. And a real home. And probably uncles and aunts and cousins, not to mention all of high society eager to befriend him.
Except for the ones who thought him mad, I supposed. The ones his father had turned against him.
“You should go, too.” Jesse ran a hand down my arm; his palm came away covered with mud. “You’ll sleep well tonight, dragon-girl.”
As soon as he said it, I knew it’d be true, because the exhaustion hit me, drained what heat was left from my muscles, and sent me swaying again. But I held my ground.
“What about you?”
“I’ll sleep,” he said, coming close, shining with water. He was really, really drenched.
“No. I meant, what about if I sleep with you?”
It was already a night of firsts for me. Why not add another one to the pile? Actually, two: This was the first moment I’d acknowledged to myself that Jesse had been gradually putting a distance between us. Not physically, but in every other way, and I knew I wasn’t imagining it. He’d mentored me, he’d fed me, he’d encouraged me and shone the only true light upon my soul that anyone ever had. I