Shep smiled and said, “Maybe we can do it again tomorrow?” After a beat, “Ari?”
I blinked and nodded. “S-sure.”
Rush had already vanished back inside the building, and I tried to school my expression into disinterest as we made our way down the path and through the doors.
As soon as I entered the Great Hall, where light meals were served during school holidays, my stomach knotted at the buzz of tension in the air. A group had gathered around Rush, who sat at a round table near the middle of the room. Luther was already back from break, and he had one arm draped around a red-haired third year from Diamond, the other pointing at something on the table.
A newspaper.
Vanya tensed beside me, her brow furrowing. “What is it?” she asked, drawing us both into the circle around Rush.
“Someone broke into the duke’s summer home,” announced a pretty blond, also from House Diamond. “Ransacked the place and set fire to it.”
My mouth hung open as I stared at Rush’s profile, still bent over the newspaper. His gaze lifted, taking in the crowd, finding me, briefly. His lips curled and his head tilted just slightly, the better to tip his hair out of his eyes. With both arms, he reached back and grabbed the chairs on either side of him, his shirt splaying open at his collar.
“House was empty. Nothing to worry about,” he said, playing the role well. Avoiding my gaze well, too.
The blond sat down at his table, propped her chin on her hands, and stared at him. “Is it true your father is going to station men here to protect you?”
I stiffened visibly, then pretended to have an itch behind my neck.
Rush relaxed into a slouch. “No one is after me.”
A few minutes later, Headmaster Vaughan arrived and the crowd dispersed, leaving Vanya and me shuffling to find a table.
Vanya chose a table where the only seat left put Rush in my direct line of sight. It was a physical struggle not to glance at him throughout the meal. But when I did, his eyes easily found mine. He was chatting with Luther, who was cramming potatoes in his mouth and didn’t notice that Rush’s attention had drifted.
For a moment, boldly, I held his gaze.
Then I was laughing again as Vanya described to Mabel the experience of sliding down a mountain on skis.
After dinner, Headmaster Vaughan stood to make an announcement.
The hall quieted.
“I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. In a few days, classes will resume, and I wish to inform you of a change you will notice on school grounds.” His voice sounded clipped, less jovial than usual. “Due to an increase in violence in the city, some of the parents have expressed a desire to see more security on campus.”
My eyes shot to Vanya, who was staring up at Vaughan with raised brows.
“Starting tomorrow, there will be guards placed at all entry points into the school, including the front courtyard and the lair.”
He dismissed us, and as I pushed my chair in, I spotted Rush storming from the Great Hall.
After dinner,I wandered back to the lair. Vanya was still sitting in the Great Hall, engrossed in a game of spades with some students from Diamond and Ruby. I wasn’t in the mood forcards, which felt so pointless when there were things like magic and death plaguing my mind.
Myth, sensing my distress, let out a low moan as I slid his den door open. For a moment, I peered in at him, trying to remember what it had felt like only a matter of months ago when I’d slide the doors open in the duke’s lair, staring in at the dragons that I believed lived in a world apart, a world I could never truly enter.
Then I stepped into the den with my dragon.
“Thought I might find you here,” came a familiar voice behind me.
I whirled around, one hand braced on the door, the other on the wall, as Rush moseyed down the aisle of the lair, hands in his pockets. My heart flipped upside down.
He stepped right to the door, to me, gave the smallest breath of a laugh, and said, “Miss me?”
“Like a sore tooth.” Scowling at him to keep from smiling, I stepped backward as he marched into the dimly lit space. I hadn’t brought a lamp, and the only light spilled in from the hall outside and the open skylight above, where stars and a winter moon shone.
“You set your house on fire?” I asked, hopeful that my voice sounded calm and unaffected by his sudden appearance.
