Lara blurted out a quick laugh. “Nagel.” She shook her head. “Good eye, actually. Several of my sisters posed for him.”
“Did you?” I asked.
Lara sidled a little closer, half of her face coming out of the shadows, and I could see her vulpine smile. “A lady doesn’t speak of such things.”
“So that is you in that big one. Huh. You’re famous.”
Another quick laugh, as if she was working not to let too much of it get away from her—and not the throaty chuckle she used at parties. “You know what fame is worth.”
“Some people seem willing to die for it.”
“Some people are fools,” Lara said. “Most people, it sometimes seems.”
“Nah,” I said. “That’s an illusion, explained by my Perfect Idiot Hypothesis.”
She lifted a raven-dark brow. “How so?”
“Everyone has a talent, yeah? Something they’re naturally good at. It might be something weird and off-putting, or just strange, or something really useful, or something really spectacular that makes them a lot of money. But everyone’s got something.”
Lara actually spent a moment thinking about that before answering. “I am not one of the elder beings of this world. But I have seen many generations of humans come and go. Yes, I would find that statement to be largely true, by long-term observation.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “Here’s my hypothesis: Everyone has something they particularly suck at, too. An anti-talent, if you will. Something at which they have the ability to be the Unchosen One.”
Lara’s eyes wrinkled at the corners. “Go on.”
“Well, it explains a lot, doesn’t it? You get enough people going, and you’re guaranteed to have someone who exactly, perfectly, completely sucks at handling any given situation. Sooner or later, that person is the one with the ball, and of course they screw it up. It’s just math. Chance will eventually decide that the Perfect Idiot will wander along to be put into the exact situation they are worst at coping with.” I wrinkled up my nose. “There’s always a Perfect Idiot, somewhere. I would imagine that, looking in from the outside, it would make humans look quite a bit more stupid than the average member of the species deserves.”
“I find it counterproductive to consider life in terms of species and averages,” Lara said. “Every individual is its own unique threat. It should be dealt with as it is, not as someone analyzing numbers deems its average.”
I studied her profile for a moment. Her eyes were silver, throwing back the winter light like a cat’s. “You see everyone you meet as a threat?”
“Everyone you meet is a threat as well,” Lara said, her eyes glittering. “You’re just too young to see it yet. You still think that society, civilization, law, these imaginary fortresses you’ve constructed, are something solid. They can vanish in a day. I’ve seen it. Over and over. Last summer, you saw it, too.”
The battle. I leaned on the merlon and said nothing.
“That’s what history looks like,” Lara said quietly. “There’s been an unusually long quiet spell. And sometimes I forget that you’re young enough to have grown up in that. That you see a largely peaceful world as normal. It isn’t. Peace is easy to lose. Hard to get back.” She lifted her head a little, baring the long line of her neck, and inhaled slowly. “And history is on the wind.”
“Meaning what?” I asked.
“That it is time to take chances,” Lara said, silver eyes glimmering. She wasn’t looking anywhere near my face, and I was having trouble looking away from them. I mean, I did. Wizardly mental discipline and whatnot.
But I didn’t want to.
“Here it comes,” I said, squinting out at the quiet street. If I squinted hard enough, I almost couldn’t see the houses that had been burned down during the battle. “What do you want?”
“I want to sort out what it’s going to be like between us,” Lara said quietly. “Our marriage. Right now.”
“I’ll expect dinner every evening at six, pipe and slippers at seven…”
Lara’s mouth twitched at the corners, as her expression visibly wavered between annoyance and amusement. Finally she rolled her eyes and sighed. “I could probably live with that much more comfortably than I’d like to think.” She shook her head. “Running the White Court is a ridiculous amount of work. I make difficult or impossible decisions for two hours a day and spend the rest dealing with the consequences of previous decisions. It…grinds. A period of routine, quiet, and order could very well prove to be excellent self-care.” She gave me a sly sideways look that made my knees feel a little weak. “You should see me in a poodle skirt.”
My throat was probably dry because it was so cold. I worked a couple of times and then swallowed.
“I’m serious, Harry,” she said in a heavier voice. “How do you want this to work?”
“I get to choose?”
“You’re one of the two,” she said. “Seems reasonable that you’d have a say in it.”
