by Shana Abe
“Well. He did not.”
The monster seemed to retreat into the shadows of his longue. In this shifting dark he seemed closer to what he’d once been. But for the taloned glint of metal where his hands should be—but for the dim streaks of dragon silk in his hair—he might have been Lord Rhys again. Thinner, yes, more watchful, but still he.
“Perhaps he will later.”
“Why? Do you suppose time is measured differently in death?”
He didn’t rise to her baited tone. “I don’t know. Perhaps.”
“Perhaps.” She smiled and lifted her arms to tug her sleeves straight. She’d taken the trouble in the back room to drag on the cook’s gown again, and the material clung heavy and damp. “Everything perhaps,” she said to the sleeves. “Perhaps he’ll come to me. Perhaps he’ll speak. Perhaps he’ll haunt me as you once did. Would you ever even know? Perhaps, perhaps.” She skimmed her nails along the surface of the chest. “Perhaps he’ll even forgive me.”
“Forgive you? For what?”
She let out a laugh. “I don’t know. Any of it. All of it. The entire bloody fiasco.”
“Zoe. None of this was your fault.”
“Aren’t you the gentleman still.”
“No,” he said. “I’m really not. And none of this falls to you.”
She tipped her head to rest against the mahogany frame of the entrance. “I like you better when you don’t lie.”
“I’m not lying.
“Then you’re in worse condition than I’d thought. Have they robbed you of your wits along with your fine looks?”
“Supposing I ever had any, then no.”
Her lips began to quiver; she pressed them tight, and when they were back in her control, spoke again. “The very last thing he saw of me was our kiss. Do you realize that? The last time he looked at me, and I was kissing you.”
“Ah,” Rhys said quietly. “Yes. I admit those first few moments of rejoining the living are a bit fuzzy to me now, but I do recall that. I was kissing you, Zee. Not the other way around.”
“And it’s so easy to perceive the difference from a distance. In the dark.”
“Of course it is. James wasn’t stupid. You’d never have betrayed him, no matter whom you loved. He knew that.”
Despite her best efforts, a tear leaked from the corner of her eye. She ducked her face and swiped it away.
The monster’s ruined voice turned acerbic. “Does this amuse you? This self-imposed flagellation?”
“Oh, certainly.”
“It does not me. Pathos does not become you.”
Zoe slid a menacing step into the firelight. “Say that once more.”
“Pathos. Does not. Become you.”
Her words thinned to a breath. “Why you self-besotted, small-minded little boy. How dare you judge me? How dare you imply all this—all my feelings—his death—is an act?”
There it was—that smile, that damnable arrogant smile, and it sharpened his face just as it always had. It made her fingers itch to slap him.
“Yes,” he whispered. “I’m to blame. Come over here, Zoe. Come over here and show me what you’d like to do to me.”
She trembled at the edge of her intentions. She stood there and trembled, her hands balled into fists. He only smiled at her.
She took a step back into the safety of the night. She loosened her hands, expanded her lungs, and slipped into the striped chair closest to her. The one she’d sat in before, only days past, when she’d been reciting to Hayden the story of how she’d tossed her life upside down and come to France.
“Listen,” she said, crossing her ankles. “Do you hear it?”
The monster tensed. “What?”
“The music, of course.” She fished into the pocket of the apron, withdrew the bundle she’d taken from Sandu’s room.
He’d stuffed it beneath his pillow. It might have made a difference had he not slept so deeply; it might not have. Either way, she was getting what she wanted. Removing the manacles from him had been as easy as slipping her hand beneath his cheek. He’d sighed and lifted an arm to his head but by then she was finished. Prince Sandu had returned to his dreams before she’d even tiptoed back to his door.
Foolish child. Had the cook the slightest degree more valor, she might have stolen the manacles instead.
But they were still tied snug in their sheet, firmly in her possession. She worked at the knot, let the corners fall across her lap in great folds of wrinkled cotton.
“Here they are. The secret to your internment.” She lifted her eyes. “Tell me. What do they sing for you now?”
Rhys gazed back at her, unblinking. “Opera. German. Dreadfully overwrought.”
“How nice.”
“Clearly you haven’t been to many operas.”
She regarded the torn iron cuffs in her hands. “No, you’re right. Like most of our kind, I’ve lived my life according to rules imposed by others. Rules to keep me where I am, rules I must abide without question. Opera never figured very prominently in any of it.”
He never moved; the parlor seemed clinched in an absolute stillness. Even the fire dimmed. “I can take you there, Zee. London. Edinburgh. Even Vienna. Opera and theatre, street festivals, games, whatever you like. I can show you all you’ve missed.”
“Hmmm. I suppose you could. Or … I could simply ignore all those rules and take myself.”
She lifted up both manacles. The rolling sparkle of blue diamonds seemed blinding against the rest of the tame darkened room.
“Listen,” she said again.
The monster made a slight, serious curve of his lips. His eyes locked to hers. “I swear I am.”
She opened her mouth and spoke the words she’d practiced all the long walk back through the rain. “You will never again fall prey to this spell. Should Draumr sing to you, any fraction of it sing to you, should anyone who holds it charge you, you will ignore it all. Never, never again will you hear its song or give yourself to its commands. From this moment on, I will it. Let it be.”
For a good while, nothing else happened. The ravaged, glinting creature upon the chaise longue still only stared at her.
“Did you think I meant to do you harm?” Zoe asked, lifting her chin.
“Not for an instant.”
She stood, crossed to him, and dropped both manacles into his lap. “In that case, you’re more naive than I ever imagined. Congratulations. You’re free.”
No, beloved, Rhys thought, watching her walk away. Not nearly.
Chapter Twenty-One
“It’s no longer secure here. I think you must both come with me.”
The dragon-boy clasped his hands to his elbows and leaned across the table with an ease Rhys envied: such a simple move, the fingers compressed, the stretched spine and the working jaw. He’d wager the boy never considered for an instant how he did it, what muscles needed to labor instead of atrophy. He studied the taut, unblemished face of the prince and remembered how it had felt to rub his own fingers over his chin. To feel unscarred flesh. To touch without severing anything within reach.
That was before the cellar, of course. B.C., he’d decided to call it, in another one of those spurts of inappropriate black humor.
B.C. Before he’d spent months lying motionless against ice-cold stone, every fiber of his body tensed, withering into slow starvation.
Before he’d been struck down and scarred and stuck in this weird, in-between state of dragon and man.
Before. Everything was beautiful, everything was better before.
Except for one. One thing had improved: He wasn’t going to spend the rest of his life alone. He was going to spend it with a creature whose grace and bravery surely canceled out all his own fresh new flaws.
Whether she liked it or not.
Morning sunlight warmed the narrow dining room of the maison. It lit through the lace curtains in fanciful pieces, fell along the table to highlight the white ceramic serving dish of buttered eggs and burnt toast th
ey all shared. The manacles were here as well, one resting on the chair between Rhys’s legs, the other in the coat pocket of the prince. It seemed an equitable compromise, at least in the eyes of Prince Sandu—who’d been right displeased to discover them both missing this morning.
Zoe had only ignored him, dismissing his complaints with an impressively Gallic shrug. Neither she nor Rhys mentioned her spell of the night before. He didn’t know the reasons for her silence but he knew his own. By not sharing what she had done, it became a precious secret that bound them. A gift from her to him—the first she’d ever handed him—and Rhys was going to treasure it.
And it seemed to have worked. He no longer heard the symphony. Even when his skin brushed the iron, the sharp little stones, he heard nothing. He’d never, ever been so pitifully grateful in his life to have silence ringing in his ears.
Zee had made the breakfast. None of them trusted the Zaharen woman to concoct their meal, and blackened toast was a small price to pay, he reckoned, for safety. Rhys had devised an awkward yet effective manner of getting the food from his plate to his mouth: After several messy tries, he’d eschewed the fork and knife for the end of one bladed talon. Since then, he’d cut himself only twice. Handling his cup of coffee, however, was more hazardous. He’d had very little coffee.
But the eggs and toast were like manna. He savored every bite.
His future bride and the cook ate in silence, seated across from each other at the table. Neither made eye contact with the other.
“The lease here is done in a few days anyway,” continued Prince Sandu. “With the sanf all about, we never wanted to lurk in one place very long. You will be welcomed in my castle. And there we may together invent a new scheme against our enemies.” His crystal eyes lit upon Rhys. “You’re the brother of Lady Amalia, who was our guest so many years past. She was the daughter of the Alpha of your tribe. As his son, do you have the authority to speak for him?”
“Yes,” Rhys said.
“No,” said Zoe. She placed her fork beside her plate. “I mean, no, Highness, I won’t be traveling with you.”
The boy flicked his hair back from his cheek with a pale finger. “Are you certain? It’s far by human means, of course, but if we fly, we’ll be there in days. It’s a strong sanctuary. A fine place to regroup.”
Zoe addressed Rhys. “Can you Turn?”
“I don’t know.” He stirred a swirl into the leftover butter on his plate. “I have not tried.”
He was afraid to. Stupid, cowardly, mortifying. He was afraid. He didn’t know how he would be able to bear losing one more slice of himself.
The iron cuff against his leg still felt cold through his borrowed breeches. Rhys wore the clothing of Hayden James now, only slightly ripped; the dragon prince was too slight, but James had been about the right size. If Zoe had noticed or minded the garments, or his hands’ effect upon them, she’d had no comment about that either.
“Even if he managed smoke,” she was saying now to the prince, “his dragon will be as wounded as he is. I doubt you’d fit that female and me both safely on your back, Highness. Much less a third person.”
“Then, very well, we may hire a carriage.”
“No,” she said again. “Thank you. I’m staying here.”
The prince leaned back in his chair—ah yes, so easy, another mechanical contraction of muscles, no spasming, no pain—and then lifted his voice to the cook, saying something to her in his native tongue.
“Da,” she whispered, her eyes glued to her plate.
Sandu lifted his coffee to his lips, blew at the steam, and spoke in English. “I told her to forget what I’m about to say.” He took a taste, set down the cup with his lips puckered; it was bitter black, and there was no cream or sugar or even honey left in the house. “Here is the problem: I cannot control the female forever. My Gift is good, but perhaps not as strong as some. I spoke with her last night, enough to realize she was taken from my hills just for her blood—and that due to a traveling father, she speaks a rudimentary French. She swears only three men ever came to the house—one was killed days earlier; I assume your fellow from the dance hall—but she cooked for many. I need to get her out of Paris, back to my castle. She’s a weakness for us. No doubt she has information that she isn’t even aware she possesses. Any small memory may help. In time, I can access it, or someone in my clan can.”
“So your strategy is to leave Darkfrith to their mercies?” Zoe asked. The sun beamed behind her, spreading fire through her unbound hair, scintillating gold over silver. She had that same slight, chilly smile as last night, lovely and fearsome together.
“No, my lady. The sanf are shrewd enough to remain fragmented as a group. Hayden and I learned that much from the first ones we encountered. There is a leader, he is here in this city. There is a plan. Yet no one man—or woman—seems to have been given enough information to stitch all the fragments together. I will not abandon your family, Zoe. I pledge it now. But my initial hunt was meant to last only a week. I’m the Alpha of the Zaharen. I must go home to them. I must rally them. And I must get this female away from Paris.” He reached for his coffee, reconsidered, and returned his hand to his lap. “And you two should come with me.”
Zoe’s eyes went to Rhys. “You may. If you wish.”
Rhys managed, with great effort, not to grimace as he shifted in his chair. “Surely. And what do you imagine you’ll be doing whilst I’m relaxing in this fairy-tale castle?”
“I will be here,” she answered calmly. “I will be killing sanf.”
“My, that’s absolutely splendid.” He dug his fingers into the table to sit as high up as he could; the wood ripped like paper beneath his claws. “Do you even remember that night at the dance hall? Do you remember at all what happened? The two men? The knife?”
“I remember everything,” she said, impassive.
“Really? Because I could have bloody sworn you just said you’d be tripping about, killing the sanf inimicus, when I couldn’t even get you to bloody smother a dying man who was doing his damnedest to kill you first! But now you’re ready? Now you’re lethal, willing to murder in cold blood?”
“Yes. Now.”
He nearly smacked his palm to his forehead but caught himself in time. “Zoe! This isn’t what he would want!”
She shoved back from the table so quickly her chair tipped over. “Don’t tell me what he’d want.”
“Why not? I can’t speak his name? I can’t imagine myself in his position? I love you! And God help him, if Hayden ever loved you, he wouldn’t want you in danger like this!”
She stared at him with her cheeks gone bloodless and her eyes so black he thought he’d see eternity in them. She looked like she wanted to spit in his face. Then, without another word, she turned around and left.
Rhys unstuck his hands from the table. The gouged wood shone in long, pale scars against the otherwise warm cherry stain.
“You’ll agree I managed that nicely.” His claws clicked against his plate. “It bodes well for our wedded bliss, don’t you think?”
Sandu was staring at him with his brows drawn into a frown. “You were at the dance hall with the sanf?”
Rhys sighed, wishing for more coffee. He stabbed a piece of toast instead, lifted it to the light. “It’s a long story.”
“I believe I have time.” The prince glanced back at the cook, who watched them both now with wide brown eyes. “Oh. Yes.” He switched to French. “You’re to forget all that, as well.”
* * *
He found her in the back garden. She felt him approaching from the hallway, felt his living warmth, the odd, unexpected whisper of gold that wafted about him now. More significantly, she heard his sliding, mismatched pace upon the floor. He could not walk well. It must hurt, putting weight upon his feet.
Yet he came to her. She was seated on the steps again because there was nowhere else dry to sit. The garden had been devoted either to grass or gangly tall herbs; it had no benches or chai
rs or even flat stones. So she sat upon the steps.
The rain had swept to the south around dawn. Droplets dewed everything before her, grass and twigs and leaves, darkened the trunks of the trees. If she angled her head a certain way, the sun lit the beads of water into thousands of round perfect jewels.
At least the fence around the yard was high. No one would easily see them, not unless they crept up to press an eye against the slats.
“Please do not say you’ve come to apologize.” She’d wrapped her arms around her knees, interwoven her fingers hard to keep herself fixed.
“I haven’t. My parents told me never to lie.”
She narrowed her eyes at the colors of the alder, tan and red and brown. “Laudable.”
“And fruitless. Lying can be marvelously useful, especially if you’re good at it, as I know you’ve already discovered.”
“You’re not going to change my mind.”
“Am I not?” He sank down two steps above, slowly, in jerks. “As you wish. Listen well to the opinion of an educated lady. That’s what my mother used to say.”
“Did she.”
“Yes. She liked you, you know.”
She turned her face, gazed deliberately at the mangled mess of his right foot on the stair above her. “Now you’re lying.”
“No. Honestly. Even when we were young, she thought you had … a certain zest of spirit. It was Father whom you scared. Mother was all out for you.”
Zoe dropped her forehead into the cup of her palm. “My sister was in love with you.”
“Was she?” He sounded much brighter. “Excellent. Er, I mean … how nice.”
“You are as insubstantial as the specter I thought you were, Lord Rhys. You feel nothing with your heart. You test nothing with your depths. You say you love me, but I think it must be merely the reflection of my face. My Gifts. I don’t know how I can be expected to live the rest of my life bound to someone who doesn’t even know my favorite color. The name of my childhood pet. The ages of my nieces.”
