Rush stared at the ground a moment. “Nothing I do will make my father care about me more than his secrets.” His breath plumed around his face.
My heart ached for Rush. I chewed my lip and tried not to picture the duke holding a pistol at his own son.
“I want to see if I can find a few more magic stones from the house before I go,” he added, voice firm and businesslike. “I’ll make it look like a break-in. Then we’ll have more stones to test with Myth.”
“See you soon,” I said, tucking myself low against Myth’s neck. When we took off into the night, snowflakes stinging my cheeks and sticking in my eyelashes, I didn’t feel the thrill I’d felt before. Instead, I felt like I was soaring into a storm—one I didn’t think would leave me unscathed.
CHAPTER 30
The school grounds were cold and dark, draped in a thin layer of snow that would be a blanket by morning. Myth arced toward the lair, landing quietly in the grass. As if he hadn’t just murdered someone.
Deep breaths. I tried to steady my hands as I unfastened his saddle, led him inside. Most of the dragons had gone back with their riders to the large lairs their families owned. A few dragons boarded here over the break, if their owners were on holiday. Myth slithered into his den, curled in a tight ball in the far corner. His eyes held an apology laced with confusion, as if he felt bad that I was afraid and distressed, but not bad for what he had done.
I peered in at him from the door for several long minutes, unable to find any words to say.
Finally, I told him I’d return after celebrating Rending Night with my family. But as I walked toward the train station, I couldn’t fathom pretending like everything was okay come morning.
When I awoke,a fire crackled in the hearth and Evie was humming as she bustled about the apartment, flour dusted on her apron and a smile painted on her face. Her eyes were bagged and tired, but she still radiated beauty.
“Fun evening?” I asked as I sipped a cup of coffee.
She pointed at me with her wooden spoon. “Oh, Ar, it wasmagical.”
My heart thunked in my chest like a book falling off a shelf. “Need I remind you that you are fourteen years old?”
“Don’t be so rude.”
Rush’s words nipped at my mind.Always prickly. I was, wasn’t I? Forcing a smile, I said, “Tell me all about it.”
I listened, trying to nod and grin at the appropriate times. But inside my chest, a hollowness sucked at my joy until I felt like a vacant room. Evie was growing up and entering a world that was not kind, no matter how pretty it looked, and I was both proud of her and sad that the world wasn’t the glittering place she hoped it was. I had thought I could change that, at least a little bit, by attending Cardan Lott and forging a better path for our family and those like us. Now, however, I realized Fairfax had been right: changing the world wouldn’t come without a high price. But if it would keep the smile on my sister’s face, perhaps the price would be worth it. As she twirled and told me about the fashions and the decorations and the dancing, a tear leaked down my face. I wiped it away before she could notice.
The morning passed with more peace than normal. Mama didn’t snap until nine a.m., and only then it was at me, briefly, for telling them I had to return to school early.
Bennett stopped by at noon, looking worse than he had last night. He scrutinized me in a way that said he could read the hidden fear on my face, but he said nothing.
When I left, in a hurry to make the train back to school, he pulled me aside and muttered, “Be careful out there. Don’t do anything stupid.”
I bit my lips and gave him a small hug.
When I arrived at school, Cardan Lott’s stone facade was tipped in white, looking more like a holiday retreat than a place built to bury lies.
I stood under the front archway for a moment, recalling the first time I’d passed through here. Rushland Covington had walked past me then, asking me a question.
Just going to watch from the shadows?
With a deep breath, I pressed forward, leaving footprints in the snow as I made my way toward the door to House Ruby.
I was not going to merely watch from the shadows. Not anymore.
Now I was going to light the whole world on fire.
The week sailed by without a visit from Rush. When worry niggled at my mind, I shoved it down with trips to the library to hunt for mentions of gemstones in everything from fables to historical accounts from the last war, when treasures were stolen and moved en masse. Myth hunted freely on the grounds, and I flew with him a time or two, getting so cold I had to bake in front of the roaring fire in the common room for a whole hour afterward.
One day, hunting through the shelves of Cardan Lott’s massive library, I discovered another copy of the book we’d found at his townhouse,The Biography of Evelyn Rook.I brought the book back to my room for further inquiry, swinging by the post room on my way, in case any letters from Fairfax had arrived.
The post room was unmanned during the holiday, and I flipped through the accumulated letters in the box on the desk.
There. A letter with my name scrawled across the front in Fairfax’s looping script.
