“Then what happened? You left panicked and have been avoiding me since. If it wasn’t between us, then what happened inside you?”
This was why I liked Draw. He understood people.
It was also why I wanted to curse him. He was entirely too observant for his own good and especially too observant for the good of an Earthling transported into her favorite fantasy world trying to make sense of her feelings.
“I just don’t think it’s wise. You know I have to go home at some point.” I dropped my voice. He was the only one I had been honest with about my purpose in Landsome. “I’m keeping both of us from getting hurt.”
A smile broke on Draw’s face. “You’re worried, which means you enjoyed our time together more than you expected to. That’s a relief.” Draw restarted the sword drill with new energy. It seemed he thought the conversation was over.
The conversation wasnotover!
“Wait a minute.” I stepped in front of him and had to duck his sword.
“You two,” a voice boomed. It was Jerrald. “I didn’t give you permission to engage in combat practice. Back to drills.”
Draw snickered as I stepped back into position. Jerrald watched us for a moment. I wondered if he noticed Draw’s new enthusiasm. Jerrald only told him to keep his sword arm steady and me to bring my elbow in closer to my body.
“Okay, you can stop. You’re going to have a new member training with you—one who should have been out of his sleeping roll an hour ago.”
At Jerrald’s side was the boy I’d cried behind a rock with during the Badgerden-Lionsgate battle.
“You remember Omar,” Jerrald said. “He can teach you the rest of the drills.”
I scoffed—Omar was half our age—but Jerrald continued, raising his voice. “And in return, Draw, you will teach him how to read, and Dottie, you can teach him magic.”
Omar grinned but my eyes went wide. “I can’t teach him magic.”
Jerrald was prepared for my refusal. “You owe me a favor, remember?”
It was true—I was the happy recipient of splint mail when it seemed others were less well equipped—but how could I tell Jerrald I didn’t know magic without looking like the worst witch’s apprentice in Landsome? It would cause him to wonder about my cover story, and I really didn’t need any more issues than I had now.
“Look, just let him show you.” Jerrald turned to Omar expectantly.
Omar’s face went shy at the attention. He was a preteen, his gangly limbs ready to shoot up and out. He raised a lantern despite it being full morning now and held it near his face. With his other hand, he rubbed the pads of his fingers together. They sounded of sandpaper. As they rubbed faster, the lantern brightened. I raised my eyebrows, about to ask a question, when the glass hurricane burst.
“Omar!”
The boy cried out and dropped the lantern to the ground, the flame snuffed. Jerrald made Omar reveal his hand, fussing over him. In the meat of Omar’s palm was a piece of glass. Jerrald plucked it gently and red began to run.
“Okay,” Jerrald spoke calmly. “We’re going to get this wrapped, but tonight and from now on, the three of you are to meet twice a day. Keep those,” he said about the practice swords and pulled Omar away with him, holding the injured hand over his head.
Draw watched them recede, then turned to me. There was a sheen of sweat on his brow and I supposed I looked the same.
“Dottie,” he said picking up our earlier conversation, “I already know you have to go home. It’s sweet of you to worry about me, but I can manage my own feelings.”
I glanced down, pretending to examine the wood sword. He made it sound as if what we’d had together wasn’t special. “So you weren’t, you know, impacted?”
“In my room?” He bent close. He smelled like a library—paper and leather. “If you’re not being sweet, you’re being inexplicitly silly. I thought you could feel very well how impacted I was.” He dropped his voice to a raspy whisper. “I’d like very much to make the most of our time together. What I’m trying to say is it would be even worse to miss you while you were here.”
I could feel the warmth of his body in the cool morning. I wanted to find a tent and pull his hips against me. Feel his lips on my neck. Let his hands explore me.
But there was something more important than how I felt. His cousin was going to turn him over to the Dark Mage Amédée. Draw would be killed.
The only way I’d ever be ready to leave Landsome was with Draw alive and sorting ledgers once again. That meant I needed to manage Ironclaw. Convince or stop him. To do that, I needed the reckless hero of the book to trust me, something he wasn’t going to do if I was getting cozy with the man he would soon plot to betray.
“It’s complicated,” I said.
Draw’s green eyes looked neither hurt nor surprised, as if he already knew I’d eventually come around to his side of things. “Yes,” he said, “you are.”
