Chapter 23
He bought us train tickets for Chesson Station, and we rode in crushing silence back toward the school. His knee bounced incessantly. I picked a hangnail until it bled.
“Shoot,” I said, trying to stop the bleeding. I didn’t want to get blood on the dress Vanya had paid for, despite the fact that there was likely dirt on it from my fall during the fight. I felt Rush’s gaze on my hands, and my stomach cinched.
When his warm hand encircled mine, I sucked in a breath.
He squeezed, and my world constricted with the movement.
“I knew the moment I saw Myth at Cardan Lott that your life would never be safe.” His voice was barely above a whisper.
We were nearly alone on the train, only an old man slumped over his hat in a seat at the other end of the coach.
“Now we know why my father was so keen to hunt your wild dragon. It’s not because he’s dangerous, but because my father will stop at nothing to keep magic a secret. ”
His fingers released mine and fell back to his lap. I stared at them. What did he just say?
“And if he even thinks you know their secret, you will die too.” He paused. Then, “I’m sorry I dragged you into this.”
I withdrew the card he’d handed me earlier and slid it down my lap. With one finger, I tapped the face card. “I dragged myself into this, remember?”
His silent chuckle shook against my shoulder. “Do you know how to play poker, Miro?”
“I understand the concept.”
He cut hard eyes at me. “Not good enough. You can’t beat the Empire on concept. You need to be holding all the winning cards when the time comes to reveal your hand.”
I shrugged, aware of how my shoulder brushed his, of how close we sat. Of how everything had changed in a matter of hours.
Everything you think you know is a lie, I realized.
“Then how do we win?”
He sighed and leaned his head back against the seat. “We bluff.”
“I don’t like that option. What are the other options?”
His smile pulled at something deep inside me. “The only other option is learning how to wield their secret and use it against them.”
“Learning how to use…magic?”
“Winning is always a gamble, Miss Miro. It takes risk.” He rolled his head against the seat until he was staring over at me, a mischievous gleam in his eye. “To beat them without bluffing, we’ll need to learn everything they know about magic.”
“That might take a while.”
He nodded solemnly. “Right now, they don’t know about Myth. And even if they find out, they won’t know we know what his flame can do. Whatever happens, we have to feign ignorance.” His head rolled on the seat until he was staring at me. “Ari.”
I looked up.
“It’s what they’ll expect, so we play into their expectations. If they come for Myth—wait, listen.” He lifted his hand to silence my protest. “If they come for him, we have to pretend we don’t know what his flame can do.”
The train rattled down the tracks, shaking me gently, doing its best to lull me to sleep.
In my lap, my fingers fidgeted madly. Finally, I muttered, “So we learn about magic, without a guidebook, and we test my dragon, without getting caught, and we somehow do that in a way that enables us to stay alive when the Empire decides we need to die?”
His sigh expressed what I felt. Both his hands raked down his face. “Something like that.”
“Short of a magical cure for death, how exactly do you propose we stay alive when that time comes, Rushland?”
He cracked his knuckles. “Give my father a reason to keep you alive. Make yourself an asset.”
I snorted. “Asset? How could I be valuable to your father?”
“It’s that or prepare to beat him when he tries to kill you. Asset or assassin, those are your two choices.” He flicked my leg with his finger. “Like it or not.”
I couldn’t believe he was using the word assassin in the same sentence as his father. “Your father wouldn’t…”
“He would. He has. He…” Rush rubbed his face.
“I’ll just say this quick. He had a son with another woman.
Years ago. It was all a big secret, but when the young man showed up at our house, with a letter from his mother that claimed he was my father’s child, my father shot him. In the chest. I was seven.”
“Oh, saints,” I said, clamping a hand over my mouth.
Rush stared at his lap. “He was older than Reggie. If my father had accepted him, he could have inherited everything. But my father showed us that day what he’ll do to keep his secrets.”
I was speechless. Rumors circulated about the duke’s ruthless manner as a businessman, but this was…so much worse. Finally, I managed to mutter, “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged, his knee bouncing rapidly. “So when I say he’ll kill you if he thinks you know too much, he will. He’d probably even kill me if he thought it would serve his purposes.”
Rush had watched his own father murder his half-brother, and I couldn’t imagine what that would do to someone. But it didn’t mean I could stomach the idea of taking out the duke. “I’m not going to kill anyone,” I mumbled.
“Then I suggest you start shaping up to be someone he can’t kill when he gets the chance.”
Leaning my head back against the seat, I pressed my hands into my lap to smear away the nervous sweat. “Any ideas how to do that?”
He tilted his head back too, mirroring my posture, and turned his face toward me. “We make you famous.”
I shot forward, whirling on him in my seat. “What?”
The curl at the edge of his lips worried me, transfixed me.
“Win the end-of-year race, and people will notice if you go missing.” The train hissed as it slowed, arriving at the station. Rush planted his hands on the seat in front of him and stood. “Saints, you win that race, and my father might even choose to make you one of his riders.”
When I awoke to the clanging bell, I slapped my hands to my face and groaned.
Images of Rush Covington flashed through my mind.
His arms around me, his hands on my back. There was no pain at all in my back, and I rubbed it, wondering if the medicine really did have magic in it and how it got there.
Magic was real.
I sat bolt upright in bed, the tiredness vanishing. My dragon could do magic.
He had magic?
I wasn’t even sure how to talk about magic. What terms to use. A startled giggle bubbled up, which I covered with both hands. Vanya grunted and lifted a hand to her forehead. Everything I’d ever been told about magic, about dragons, was wrong.
But what was right?
The questions flashed through my mind like a shuffled deck of cards.
Beside my bed, the jack of spades rested, reminding me, rudely, of all that had happened, of how my world had caved in beneath my feet. Before Vanya opened her eyes, I slid the card from the small table and slipped it under my pillow.
Rush. I needed to find him. Talk to him. If he already had a theory about magic being related to dragonfire, he already had more answers than I did. I’d been too shocked, too tired and overwhelmed last night to pound him with questions.
I blinked away the memories of last night, needing to focus on today, on getting to class and completing my exams. I swung my feet out of my bed, letting the cold floor help jar me awake.
I stretched and glanced out the window at the gray dawn, my mind drifting to Myth.
I’d thought people’s opinion of wild dragons would change when they saw that they could bond, that they could control their flame at their rider’s command.
But all of that hope was gone now. As soon as the duke discovered Myth’s flame, he would be taken from me, forever.
I remembered watching him catch a rabbit for the first time that week at Fairfax’s rented lair. I didn’t realize I was smiling like an idiot until I caught Vanya staring at me.
“What happened to you last night?” she said, eyes puffy. “You never showed up on the train. I tried to wait up.” She rubbed her tired face. “I thought you’d been caught.”
I stiffened reflexively, and Vanya tilted her head down, eyeing me suspiciously. “Do tell.”
“I wasn’t caught.” Without saying more, I rushed toward my wardrobe and threw my clothes on. “We’re going to be late if we don't hurry.”
She pouted as she too moved toward her wardrobe. “Not going to tell me?”
Not telling Vanya about my night was like trying not to tell her I’d discovered buried treasure. I ripped off my nightgown and threw on my chemise, fumbling with the buttons. A moment later, I crammed the hem of my blouse into my skirt with a fist.
“Did the blouse offend you?” she asked.
“I’m just tired.” And exploding inside. I rubbed my eyes with both hands. “At least tomorrow is our last day.” After our final exams, Rush and I planned to visit Myth again with more ideas to test his magic. It sounded like an eternity to wait.
“Yes,” she said with a smile, “and I still expect you to tell me everything.”
I blinked at her. How long could I keep secrets from her?
“Ari,” she said.
I continued buckling my shoes on.
“I know we all have our secrets, but I’m your friend, and if there’s something that you need to tell me, or that would help if you told me”—she shrugged—“I'm here.”
I stared a little too long before nodding. “Thanks,” I said and stepped toward the door.
“That's it?” she said. “Nothing?”
I paused as my hand reached for the door. I inhaled deeply and let it out slowly, then spun to face her. “I want to tell you, I do. I’m afraid if I do, it could put us both in danger.” They kill people who discover their secrets.
“Danger?” She rushed forward. “Are you okay?”
“It’s not that.” My cheeks heated. There was so much I hadn’t told her, so much I wanted to tell her. “It’s…about my dragon. He’s not…his pedigree is a fake. And I’m not Fairfax’s niece. I’m…just a bottomsider.”
It was almost the full truth, but now that I knew about magic, these truths felt inconsequential in comparison. Still, the weight that lifted from my shoulders was freeing.
She placed one hand on my shoulder, a smile softening the look of surprise on her face. Then she leaned closer. “A bottomsider? I wondered…” She tapped her lips with two fingers. “That changes everything, doesn’t it? Actually, it makes everything much more exciting.”
Exciting was what I’d thought at first, too, when I’d been offered this place at Cardan Lott. Now, all I could hear were Rush’s words…the group that kills everyone who uncovers their secrets. Telling Vanya that secret would only put her on the list, and I couldn’t do that to her.
“Well, come on, then.” Her arm looped through mine.
“Thanks for telling me,” she whispered. “Why don’t we show them what a bottomsider can do in the classroom, too.
” The way she said the word was more like a crowning achievement than an insult.
“How fun would it be if you got a top score in one of our classes?” She giggled all the way to breakfast, thinking of a thousand ways the truth about my heritage was actually the best thing she’d learned all year.
Rather than feeling like I was coming into exams at a disadvantage based on my upbringing, by the time we entered the common room, I was laughing loudly, almost believing my friend that I might actually give those Sapphire students a run for their money.
But as soon as I spotted the predatory sneer on Luther’s face, my smile vanished.