Myth had come for me.
Rush had come for me.
A dragon wasn’t supposed to be able to feel emotions from a bond across an entire city. Everything I’d read about dragon bonds said they were intense only when dragon and rider were in close proximity, when they were together.
Myth’s steadily beating wings, along with the almost catatonic levels of calm he was pumping into my head, nearly put me to sleep as the dawn turned a pale gray, then a faint yellow.
We landed in the rotunda. Rush helped me down, his hands encircling my ribs as he lowered me gently to the stone floor.
“Thank you,” I said, tucking my hair behind my ears.
“What happened?” he asked, slipping his hands into his pockets.
“Scarlett found one of your notes. Then Luther showed up with a gun.”
He raked his hair from his face and cursed. “I’ll bet they checked my room too. Saints. I’ll tell them I was at Jackie’s—no. I’ll tell them I was at my father’s.” He squared his shoulders with mine. “You go ahead. I’ll put Myth up. Class starts in a few minutes.”
“You’ll be late.”
He shrugged and started walking backward toward Myth’s den. “Want to bet on that?”
Minutes later, my bare feet smarted as I hurried across the gravel from the lair to the back entrance of the school.
A small shout of angry relief fell from my lips as I rose to the terrace where Scarlett and her friends had hurled dung at me. The gothic exterior of Cardan Lott, pointed and fierce and lovely, like the fangs of a dragon, wasn’t the haven of knowledge I’d once thought.
They thought they could get rid of me, but it wasn’t going to be that easy.
CHAPTER 33
Iwalked through the halls of the school, feet grimy and sore, skirt smeared with dirt from my fall, and hair windblown. A few students stopped and stared. I looked every bit the wretched bottomsider that I was. And so be it; they said they knew who I was. But Scarlett couldn’t have discovered my heritage just from Rush’s note, so there was a piece I was missing. I blessed the smooth floor beneath my feet and straightened my shoulders, heading toward the entrance to House Ruby.
When I walked into the bustling room, I did not stop as every eye turned my way. I did not stop as people gasped, covered their mouths, or laughed. I turned and headed toward the spiral staircase, envisioning the privacy of my dormitory, a bath, and a clean set of clothes.
A bell chimed from somewhere on the grounds, and footsteps sounded in the room below. No time for a bath, then. I sighed. Scarlett rushed down the steps and stopped short with a yelp when she saw me.
She crept past me with wide eyes and a curled lip.
I smiled at her.
“Wait just a minute,” came a deep voice from behind me.
I stopped my ascent but did not turn around. My blood heated at the sound of Luther’s voice, and I tried to calm by breathing.
“What are you doing?”
Finally, I turned around, but only halfway. I enjoyed the feeling of looking down at him, if only for a moment. “Changing for class.”
From the bottom of the steps, he stared at me a moment. “Nobody comes back when I tell them to leave.” His tone was incendiary.
I shrugged my shoulders, eyeing the people watching us from the room below. “Well, then it’s a good thing I’m nobody.”
A few students from the common room coughed or chuckled quietly. Prescott, who was lounging in the breakfast area, said loud enough for the room to hear, “Saints, don’t cross that one.”
It was the nicest thing he’d ever said to me.
A quick splash to my face and a change of clothes, and I was jogging down the hall to make it to Enplencourt’s class. Vanya hadn’t been in the common room when I’d arrived, and she’d already left our room with her books.
When I barreled around the corner into the history hall, my entire class was standing in the hall before Enplencourt’s closed door. Her door was never closed.
