Chapter 39
Bev’s table—which was now housed under a narrow velvet tent—was set up outside Grave’s, a popular boarding house not known for the quality of the rooms. I shoved down a gag as I glanced up at the lit windows.
I approached the maroon velvet, which was pulled aside to indicate she was awaiting her next customer, and cleared my throat.
“Bev?”
Before she looked up, her cheeks pinched as she smiled down at her deck of cards. “Arivelle Mireaux. You finally want something you can’t get.” She glanced up, and a small laugh left her thin lips when she saw me.
I paused, hands shoved deep in the pockets of one of Rush’s jackets. Today, I was dressed as a newsboy, hoping to throw off anyone watching this neighborhood for my inevitable return.
I gave her a solemn nod as I slid into the creaky wooden chair opposite her.
To my delight, Bev agreed to help us without much persuasion. The silver gil on the table did the trick. I hated that I was using Rush’s money, but I’d promised to pay him back when I started winning races.
The entire meeting only took fifteen minutes.
“Thank you, Bev.” I stood up and extended my hand.
She ignored my hand and shuffled through her cards. “I was right, you know.” She slid out the card with a dragon on it. “I’m always right.”
I snorted. “When we get the information we need, I’ll pay you the rest.”
She pressed her palms together and nodded. “As you wish.”
The rest of the week dragged. Vanya was likely buried under schoolwork, and Rush was spending all his spare time searching for clues about Myth’s whereabouts. The empty house felt like a prison of its own, plush though it was, so I went to see if Fairfax was still in town.
“I will also do some digging,” he told me over tea in his hotel suite.
He’d stayed after hearing I had left jail after my bond had been posted, only to vanish.
“Legally, the duke can’t take your dragon if there is evidence of a bond.
However, as he covered up the results of your test, conveniently, there is no public record of what happened there that day.
” He pursed his lips and sipped his tea.
“Is this not evidence enough?” I lifted the hem of my skirt and showed him the scab on my knee, visible beneath my stockings.
“You could have fallen,” he said with a dismissive sniff. “That is not evidence of torture, Miss Mireaux.”
“I have a bruise where the syringe jammed into my skin,” I said, pointing at my shoulder.
But he only clicked his tongue. “Not enough evidence,” he affirmed.
“All we can do now is find your dragon, perform a public bond test—oh, yes.” He tilted his head down in a reproving way.
“If you really want this, the bond must be proven. Then we can get you back in school and ensure that you have every chance at winning the race.”
“Don’t make me go through that test again,” I said flatly.
His brows rose. “Do you know how the duke wins yet?”
My skin heated. I hadn’t yet told Rush the real reason Fairfax had paid for my tuition at Cardan Lott, and I wasn’t sure what would change when I did.
I should have told him. But for some reason, I hadn’t, thinking I could keep the truth from Fairfax.
Now that Myth was gone, however, I was aching to see him again, and I actually wanted to return to school, finish my classes.
Without Fairfax, that wouldn’t be possible.
Slowly, I nodded. I didn’t care as much about winning now as about buying myself enough status to maybe keep the duke off trying to murder me. But even if I won, he might never stop hunting for a chance to kill me and steal my dragon. “When we find Myth,” I said quietly.
Fairfax pursed his lips. “You are forgetting that I can help you or not.”
I shook my head, a sad laugh falling from my lips. “It was never about changing the world, was it?”
“Pah! If you ruffle the feathers of the upper class, I’ll have a laugh and enjoy myself, but no, it was never about that. Not for me. When we find your dragon, you will tell me the truth, Miss Mireaux.”
Fairfax seemed to read the resignation on my face and stood, lifting a hand toward the door.
“We will find him; don’t you worry.” His tone had grown lighthearted once more as he followed me to the suite’s double doors, where a man in livery waited to show me out.
“And, Arivelle, in the likely event that you are not allowed to participate in the end-of-year race at Cardan Lott, the next best thing would be a night race. If it comes to that, I will ensure the race is well attended. It will be as grand an event as the end-of-year race, you’ll see.
You will have your chance to prove your place. ”
I left the hotel in a bit of a daze. All I could do now was wait until my friends or Merlon Fairfax found out when Myth would be moved.
Downstairs, a door slammed. I lay on the settee, papers strewn all over the floor, hair a mess.
I’d fallen asleep on the pages of Caring for Timperemon, a book Vanya had brought me that Professor Siva had assigned in literature.
Over the past three weeks, she had done her best to keep me up to date on my assignments, assuming the only way I’d be allowed back in school was to show up with a stack of papers as if I hadn’t missed a beat.
Lithe footsteps clipped across the foyer. “Ari?” came Rush’s deep voice.
My cheek made an unladylike sticking sound as I sat up. I looked around at the mess, tried to smooth my hair.
“Oh,” he said, staring at me from the entryway. Books lay scattered around the floor and on the couch, and I’d crumpled my essay drafts and left them in a heap. “My father is moving Myth. Tonight. I only just found out.”
I leaped up and stepped over the papers and books toward Rush. “Let’s go. What are we waiting for?”
The side of his mouth tipped up. “Easy there. We should clean up here first. Just in case.”
I bent to scoop up papers and collect books. “I didn’t want to fall behind,” I explained, a little ashamed of the disarray.
Rush knelt to help, gathering wads of paper. “I’m no expert, but sleeping on textbooks isn’t the best way to absorb their material.”
I tossed another wad of ruined notes at him, too excited about Myth to retort.
He stuffed the scraps of paper in his pockets until they were all full.
“Can’t leave these here.” As he took a stack of books from my hands, his fingers lingered over my own.
“There’s a chance Myth hasn’t used his flame this entire time, but if he has, you can’t let on that you know what it can do.
You’re dead the minute he thinks you know.
And,” he said a little quieter, “we’re not supposed to have anything to do with each other outside of school.
If you come back, it’ll return to the way it was. ”
I nodded, emptying like a sucking drain. A small part of me wondered if I could go back to pretending to be Rush’s enemy.
“My father can’t know, Ari.” He stepped closer, drawing my eyes up to his. “Not just about what we know, but about…” Rush swallowed. “He can take away everything we care about.”
My body tensed at what he was implying. But I was too excited about Myth, too stir-crazy from sitting alone in this house so long, to say anything intelligent. “So now the charade will be that you hate me again?” I teased, not realizing how the words would sound until they’d fallen from my mouth.
A small breath hissed from his nose. Was it a laugh? A disgusted snort?
As Rush turned to leave the room, holding his arm out for me to go first, he said, “Yes, Ari. The charade will be that I don’t care for you.”
When I climbed into Azeron’s saddle behind Rush, my heart still thundered from his words.
He was a Covington, and I was a bottomsider, and no part of me could fully process what he’d said.
Besides, we were going to steal my dragon back, and I could barely contain my excitement over seeing him again.
Once we were all strapped in, Rush glanced over his shoulder. “Ready?”
My arms tentatively held his waist, unsteady from his confession and the departure from the easy way we’d always teased each other.
Rush Covington had said he cared for me, and suddenly, sitting in a double saddle with him was as strange as it had been the first time, when my opinion of him had been less than favorable.
Stranger, in fact, now that I wanted to hear him say it again, to mean it, to prove it.
“Let’s go get my dragon.”
He nodded, but as we took off, he pressed one hand over mine, holding me to him. His palm covered my fist, his fingers resting in the grooves between my knuckles.
We left Azeron saddled in the lair and marched down the path to Cardan Lott, old snow crunching underfoot. As we approached the school, part of my heart lifted while my stomach knotted. This place had changed me, even if I hadn’t changed it. Maybe that would be enough.
“They’re setting up for the spring ball in the ballroom.” He nodded at the terrace where we normally entered the school.
“The ball?” I scratched my head. “Already?”
Rush eyed me with a hint of worry. “It’s almost officially spring—race season.”
The ball was the school’s largest fundraising event of the year and was held at the spring equinox, the official opening of racing season.
Instead of the back terrace entrance, Rush led me to an arched doorway underneath the terrace steps.
Bricks had been placed where a door had once stood.
He moved into the stone archway, running his hands along the bricks until he touched one near the bottom.
He shoved it inward, and it made a horrible grinding sound as it moved. But no door appeared.
Rush stood up, mischief in his grin, and jerked his head toward the mirrored set of steps that led from the opposite side of the terrace.
We left a line of footprints in the snow as we trudged to the other set of stairs.
Another bricked archway. Another secret brick, this one in a different place.
It made the same grinding sound. But when it sank inward, the seemingly ancient mortar around the doorway let out a puff of crumbled masonry, and the entire thing swung inward a few inches.
Rush leaned against the heavy door, and we stepped into the school’s basement, into a hallway I’d never seen.
The corridors down here were bleak and unfashionable.
Black and white tiles lined the floor, giving the place an eerie emptiness.
One room contained old desks with broken legs, chairs with the seats missing, and two blackboards that seemed perfectly fine.
Most of the rooms we passed were closed and locked.
Rush approached one and took out a shining silver key. He passed me the lamp and turned to the knob.
“How is it that you have all the secrets of this place?” I wondered aloud, crossing my arms as he unlocked the door.
“You forget my older brother came here five years ago.” He pushed the door open and stepped aside to let me enter first.
It was a lavish room, but carelessly decorated.
Thick tapestries overlapped every part of the walls, and the furniture—which consisted of seven mismatched chairs—did not coordinate at all with the plush rug that sat in the center of the floor.
The chairs had been arranged in a circle, and lamps of varying sizes rested on three tables.
“What is this place?” I asked as Rush stepped in behind me.
“The meeting room for one of Cardan Lott’s secret societies.”
My brows rose. “One of?”
“In a school this old, there are several.”
Vanya appeared in the doorway, a look of wonder on her face. She hurried into the room and spun to take it all in.
“Right on time,” Rush said to her. “But where are the others?”
She waved his comment away. “On their way. I told them to wait a minute so it didn’t look like they were following me. Wouldn’t want others knowing about the secret entrance, would we?”
Rush smirked. “Smart.”
A few minutes later, Clarence and Prescott strolled in, their eyes arcing around the room at the layered tapestries.
“Burning gods,” said Prescott, eyes landing on me.
Clarence craned his neck as he looked around. “You weren’t kidding. Ari, it’s nice to see you.”
“I explained that I needed their help, but I kept the details slim,” Rush said.
To Prescott’s scoff, he added, “And you both played your part swimmingly so far. Prescott here found us our train. And Clarence cleverly replaced the school’s guards’ schedules on his father’s desk with a set we created.
We’ll have a half hour without anyone watching the lair tonight.
” He clapped and lifted his hands toward his friends.
“And are you going to tell us what this is for now?” Prescott asked.
“We’re stealing her dragon back,” Rush replied casually. At Clarence’s intake of breath, he added, “It comes with…risks.”
“You and risk? No.” Prescott snorted. “What’ve you got?”
Hands in his pockets, newsboy cap on, wool suit visible beneath his overcoat, Rush Covington looked every bit the gangster. “Only sit down if you don’t mind getting expelled from this school.”
“Saints,” hissed Clarence, raking a hand through his hair.
Prescott sat down immediately. Vanya covered a grin, and I was fairly certain her cheeks flared a shade pinker. Clarence looked at each one of us before glancing back at the door.
“What?” Prescott said. “Afraid of what daddy will say if his own son is expelled?”
Clarence chewed his lip and took a seat on the edge of a velvet wing-backed chair.
“Excellent,” Rush said, a wide grin cracking his face. He walked to the center of the circle and faced me. “We need you to help break Ari’s dragon out of his confinement, and this is how we’re going to do it.”