Chapter 27
“Okay, boy, now!” I dropped a copy of the booklet from the race arena on the courtyard bricks and darted behind the stone door of the lair, where Rush waited, head peeking out to watch. He waved me in, his arm reaching around me and pulling me closer, away from the crack at the door.
His hand stayed on my side.
Myth flamed.
Rush’s arm tightened, tugging me against his stomach as the heat washed over us. When the sparks died, we bolted from the lair and knelt to examine the remains.
The bricks were scarred with black, and ash floated in the breeze, the pages nowhere to be seen.
“I thought that would go differently,” Rush admitted, scratching his cheek.
I nodded. “Myth, can you fix it? What?” I said to Rush’s quirked brow. “He fixed the bench. It’s worth a try.”
We hurried back to the lair and Myth lazily coughed up a few more sparks that zipped through the air and went out. Nothing happened.
“I guess he can’t fix it, then.”
“Guess not,” Rush agreed.
“So, the stone altered the text of the book, but maybe it doesn’t affect dragonfire…since their fire is already magical?” I shrugged, unsure of anything related to magic. It was all conjecture at this point.
Rush tilted his head back and forth. “Maybe. I think there has to be a way to affect dragons with magic, though. I’m assuming that’s how my father’s dragons win races. But maybe it only works on dragons who don’t have their flame anymore.” He hung his hands on the back of his neck.
“So, where does the magic come from?” I asked, staring at Myth. “The stones or the dragons?”
“That, my dear, is the question we need to answer.”
After a minute, I started to shiver.
Then Rush turned to me, his eyes bright with an idea. “Why not leave Myth here for the whole break? Come and ride. Study magic.” He shrugged his shoulders like it was the most casual request in the world.
Laughter burst from my mouth. I’d planned on leaving Myth at Cardan Lott over the break, considering I had nowhere else to keep him.
“And what will your father say?” I asked.
Rush stepped toward me. “He won’t know. He never comes here until the spring.
What say you?” He lifted his hand like he was about to lead me onto a dance floor.
“Come and study the ancient hidden art of magic?” He twirled his wrist like a circus performer about to bow.
“Train to win against an unbeatable opponent?”
Humor made the weight of it all feel less suffocating. I smirked at him. “Why train if magic is the only thing that can make me win?” I swatted his hand away, but he lifted it higher, closer.
“Because if both of us are magicked to win, then it’ll come down to skill.
I think.” He winked. “Train to beat me. If you can.” He flashed a wild grin, and like a mask had been placed on his face, he was the easygoing Rush Covington once more.
“I don’t like losing, and I won’t go easy on you just because I think my father might murder you if you get on his bad side. ”
“Ever the gentleman.”
With a flourish, he dipped into a bow. But when he stood up again, his face was grim, all joviality washed away.
“If you have any hope of surviving my father’s wrath when he finds out what you know—and he will—you’ll need to be holding all the high cards, which means winning.
But if there’s one person who hates losing more than I do, it’s my father. ”
My shoulders trembled from the cold, but his words were like thorns in my veins, stabbing through the levity of a moment ago. “Then shouldn’t I try not to anger him?”
He stepped closer. “He’ll be angry either way when he finds out we know about magic. But if you’re a famous racer by then, you have a chance. If you’re still Arivelle Mireaux from bottomside…”
“I see your point. No one will miss me.” My words came out barely above a whisper.
“I would.”
My head snapped up and I looked at him, unsure if I had heard him correctly. For several long seconds, I held his stare, until another shiver broke my composure.
“Saints, it’s cold,” he said, rubbing his hands together a little too forcefully. “I’ve learned enough for tonight.”
“Will Myth be okay after…?”
Rush snorted. “That stone won’t hurt him.”
Probably right. I followed him to Azeron after hugging Myth goodnight. Rush checked the saddle, tugging here and there. This time, when I climbed onto the back of his saddle, my arms wrapped around him more easily, my face pressed to his back.
“Watch out, Mireaux, or I’ll think you’re comfortable with your arms around me.”
I ground my chin into his back, and his spine straightened. The slight rumble of his quiet chuckle shook my body, and I smiled as we took off.
As Vanya and I packed for our two-week break, I couldn’t stop yawning.
Every now and then, my gaze would drift out the window and I’d get lost somewhere between memory and expectation.
Only when I felt my roommate’s eyes on me did I snap back to the task at hand.
Vanya crammed her trunk shut and sat on it.
“I’ll miss you,” she said, sticking out her bottom lip.
“Oh, come on, you’ll be too busy to miss me. Skiing. I can’t quite imagine what that’s like.”
Her lips curled into a smile. “At least my family’s ways of keeping me from going home are fun, right?” She hopped up and threw her arms around me. In the weight of her embrace, I could sense the pain those words had caused her.
“Well, there’s always Rending Night at my place, a one-room apartment in a tenement house whose stairwells reek of urine.
” I shrugged as her jaw fell open. “Infinitely more appealing than skiing in the Draks, if you ask me. And you’ll be missing out on meeting my mother; that wonderful woman believes I’m a walking accident.
Last chance to change your plans?” I tilted my head.
“Oh, Ar,” she breathed, smile fading as her shoulders fell.
In just two syllables, there was much grace. She understood that going home was often as hard as leaving it. A fact I never would have thought true of a princess.
“See you in two weeks,” I said.
The stairs to our third-floor apartment were as creaky as ever, announcing my arrival long before my knock on the door.
Evie flung the door open, then swallowed me in a lung-crushing hug.
“Hi,” I said, smiling over her shoulder. “What have you done to your hair?”
She cupped her hand under the short bob, a style I’d seen on race day that I’d dismissed as ridiculous. “Do you like it?”
“You look seventeen. Not fourteen.” Her face lit up. “That wasn’t a compliment, Eve.”
She clicked her tongue and stepped back.
She was definitely taller. Her hairstyle made it look like she’d skipped a few years in my absence.
She would be a full-grown woman by the end of the year at this rate, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.
Neither Bennett nor I could keep the hounds away if we weren’t here.
“I can’t believe Mama let you do that,” I said, stepping into our home.
The scent of evergreen greeted my nose, partially obscuring the general stench of the poorly kept washrooms at the end of the hall. Boughs of cedar hung at the doorframes. Evie’s touch. I smiled and dragged my bag inside.
“No trunk?” asked Evie, scanning the hallway behind me.
I shook my head. “No.” A gnaw of guilt. “I won’t be staying here the whole break. Oh, don’t look at me like that.” I peered around the apartment for Mama. “I have a dragon to take care of now.”
Twirling her fingers in the air, she pranced around the back of the couch. “Oh, that’s right; we’re not illustrious enough for you anymore, dragon rider.”
“Not the case at all,” I said, thinking of the dung that had been hurled at me only days ago. I flopped onto the couch, which squeaked in greeting. Evie fluttered over and sat beside me, her head tipping onto my shoulder.
For a moment, we sat there. Time shifted and it was just her and me, like it had been before Cardan Lott, before fixed races and magic and an irritable blond boy had taken over my thinking.
“You seem different,” my sister observed. Sometimes I felt like the connection between sisters was as profound as the one between dragon and rider. Not quite telepathic, but close.
I inhaled deeply. “I am different, Eve.” It felt both freeing and burdensome to admit it. It struck me that I hadn’t been daydreaming nearly at all since my classes had begun at Cardan Lott.
Itching to avoid the subject of school, I jumped off the couch and pulled out my old book of fairy tales from under the bed. Running my finger over the title, I walked back to where Evie still sat on the couch, twirling her short hair around a finger.
“Mama panicked when I came home from school like this,” Evie said, pulling her legs under her. “I almost felt like you, the way she hounded me.” Her giggle felt like a knife through my ribs.
“I’m sorry, Evie.” I’d left her alone with our mother for four months. It was no surprise she’d chopped off her hair. I only hoped that was the worst she’d done in my absence. “And don’t you try to be like me,” I said, folding down beside her.
Her brows lifted, making her look young again. “But all I’ve ever wanted was to be like you.”
Tightness pinched my throat, and I had to try three times before I could swallow. “Would you still let me read to you?” I asked. When she nodded, I had to bite back a small laugh that sounded almost like a sob.
“What is it?” Evie asked, her hand reaching for me.
“Nothing.” I thumbed through the book, fighting memories of Rush, which led to memories of Scarlett’s empty threats, then to fears of Duke Covington’s revenge, should he find out what I know.
This book contained stories of star-crossed, impossible romances, stories Evie and I had acted out countless times over the years.
I’d always played the prince, because Evie had always insisted on being the woman who captured his heart.