Chapter Eleven. When You’re Caught
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WHEN YOU’RE CAUGHT
FARREN
It’s hours before James returns. The screech of a car outside my bedroom window and the creak of the door are the only real signs. Then the faint chatter of my parents welcoming James home.
I didn’t tell them the whole truth. I said I crafted Bex to a stop, but left out the bit about James suspecting. Some part of me feels I could still persuade him I’m not a silver-crafter. After everything, I never crafted that silver cuff off my wrist. He doesn’t have any evidence.
At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.
I unfold from my desk chair. I’ll go to the loft, play to his ego, somehow invalidate what he felt today.
I can do that. I have to do that. But two steps to the door and I backtrack, throw myself on my bed, and replay my strategy for the hundredth time.
Nothing feels like a good enough excuse, and the problem is James’s argument remains sound. What reason would I have to hide this?
A knock whacks me out of my thoughts. Mom or Dad have been checking on me throughout the night, grieving together about Hendrix, worried I overextended myself. “Come in,” I call.
James Murphy opens the door, his cast gone, his typical unreadable expression staring at me.
“Oh.” I fumble out of bed and immediately regret it. Flopped on my comforter, I held power. I looked like a casual and calm person, who isn’t freaking out having James Murphy in her room. Now, fidgeting in front of him, the tone I just used?
The power has shifted, and he knows it.
James doesn’t speak, eyes wandering around my room.
None of my classmates have been here before.
I assumed the first person would be a friend like Cara Moore who I’d tug through a tour.
The little copper-colored trophies from my crafting competitions.
The desk with a collection of books toppled sideways.
A bird bath I transformed into a pillowed pedestal near the window for a Feyling I nursed back to health last month.
I wait to see how badly James is about to upturn my life. If I’ve decided anything in these past few hours, it’s best for me not to talk too much or go on the defensive.
He keeps scanning my room, a look of interest crossing his features. “I assumed you’d want to make sure I didn’t tell anyone about today,” he suddenly says.
I catch my breath. That’s exactly what I want. But how to respond so I don’t admit anything? Damn it, he’s already cornered me, and by acting considerate of all things. What’s even worse is he’s not even confirming or denying if he told someone. Next-level deception.
I go with shrugging. Carefree, act carefree. “So, did you? That is, embarrass yourself for giving a copper credit when it was your own crafting?”
He shakes his head, almost like he’s trying not to laugh, but I spot the beginning of his dimples. “I didn’t tell anyone.” I wait for the but, the next words that involve an exception or someone else’s suspicions. His eyes hold mine as he says, “Wouldn’t want to embarrass myself.”
The relief that washes over me is so overwhelming I slouch. Then straighten, realizing how obvious that looks. “Wait, did you just make a joke?” I didn’t think Murphy capable of jokes.
He ignores that. “I’m the first to find out about this, aren’t I?”
I start shaking my head.
“Otherwise, you’d be better at lying.”
“Why do you think I’m lying?” I try for light exasperation. Still casual, still calm.
“For one, I know my own power and more importantly my own limitations. Two—” He extends his right arm, turning it like he can’t believe it’s healed. Half a month, I note. Probably less in reality. Which means his recovery is borderline unprecedented. “I believe I have you to thank for this.”
I stiffen like stone. He insinuated the same thing this morning at breakfast, which means I have to deny having a hand in his healing along with what happened today. Damn it, I was so caught up in Bex I didn’t account for the other evidence.
“That wasn’t me,” I stutter in a mush of syllables.
He steps closer. “You’re saying you didn’t give me silver?”
“I didn’t.” It’s not a lie.
He sighs, frustration finally setting in. This isn’t how any of this was supposed to go. James Murphy was never supposed to realize I was better than him. “I’d assumed you had given me silver you had permission to carry as a spotter.”
Damn it. I could have said that. Why didn’t I say that?!
“Fine then. Keep lying.” Another step closer. “But as much as you want me to, I won’t forget what happened today. Soon enough I’ll see you craft again.”
I bring my hands up in between us. I’ve had all day to think and the main element of my strategy relies on this—I can’t let Murphy test me again. “If you cuff us together, I’ll scream. I’ll—”
I stop, seeing James’s face. He’s gone red.
I replay my words and they snag on what I just implied. Or not even implied. What I just said with a straight face. “I didn’t mean it like that.” My voice sounds like it’s been murdered, and the ghost of embarrassment is speaking for me, hoarse and quiet.
Our seclusion suddenly dawns on me. We’re in my room, alone. The door closed.
He rubs the back of his neck. “I won’t cuff you to me.” He looks up at the ceiling. “Again.”
Okay, good, because today if he’d waited me out, I don’t know what I would have done.
“I’m sorry I tried to test you like that,” he adds.
“But you still think I’m a silver-crafter?”
He refocuses on me, his dark eyes intense.
“I know you’re a silver-crafter.” He anticipates my contradiction.
I almost try for it again, but I can’t keep at this.
Because I had James Murphy all wrong. There’s no manipulating his ego or his misogyny, how humiliating it is to have a female copper-crafter do something he couldn’t.
His tone doesn’t carry insecurity or envy.
He’s somehow oddly humble and confident?
Completely unbearable and useless to me.
Therefore, I need to refocus on my last resort, or what I’ve been calling Plan B in my head for the past five hours—make him agree to keep my secret.
I take a breath, relax my stance. “Fine. What do I need to do for you to keep this quiet?”
“So, you’re admitting it?” he asks. One side of his mouth quirks up.
“Just answer the question.”
“I want to know why. Tell me why this is a secret and I’ll keep quiet.”
I choke on a laugh. “You expect me to believe that’s all you want?”
He shuffles in front of me and I prepare myself.
But here’s the thing. I’ve driven a trench into my carpet with my pacing trying to guess what James Murphy could want in exchange for his silence.
All I mustered was maybe forcing me to withdraw my application from the Revers scholarship.
I stand firm in front of him. I can’t give up that dream.
“It bothers me,” he finally says. “No one would hide this. Especially the Farren I knew at the beginning of high school.” He pauses as something seems to click into place. “You became a silver-crafter beginning of year eleven, didn’t you?”
Unbelievable. He’s deduced the exact timeline. “How? I mean—” I’m a mess. And I can’t be a mess right now. “How do you know that? You’d barely said five sentences to me until I saved your life.”
His stare is piercing. “Just because I’m quiet doesn’t mean I don’t pay attention.”
His eyes have always shouted their scrutiny. I simply thought I had done a good job pretending. I had hunkered down and only worked and acted like a copper.
Oh.
Like a copper, which I had never acted like before. Unlike many of my classmates, I always strove for more. My dream of getting into Revers Academy could only manifest by studying and training harder than anyone else. I know how early James arrives at school because I arrive early too.
Our school forbids crafting anything but your designated metal while in session.
However, they set out hunks of raw metal for us to practice on during our free time.
For years James and I would occupy opposite ends of those crafting fields, sometimes for a full hour before first bell.
But last fall I stopped going for two months.
And when I came back, I never touched bronze or silver again.
I didn’t realize anyone would even notice.
James Murphy did, though. I mean, of course he noticed. But I didn’t think he’d care or think twice about it.
A rush of different emotions engulfs me. Fear and guilt and anger. I had counted on my invisibility, on being the odd Forsen country girl who would rather work with her dad after school than spend time with friends.
Before I carried this secret, I always wanted someone to notice me, to have close friends. However, right now, Murphy’s observation makes my heart skip.
I can’t fail at this. Not after everything I’ve sacrificed.
I march up to Murphy so fast he backsteps. Good, he’s off-balance.
“You promise? All you want to know is why?”
“Yes,” he says, breathless.
“Alright.” I nod and put everything I have into the next statement. “The truth is, I advanced too quickly.”
“Okay…?”
“I advanced too quickly, and then I realized how that would look.” I take a breath. “Today, you said I should register. But have you really thought about what would happen if I did? Name one silver family who would be pleased, who’d accept me?”
From James’s face, he knows the answer. None.
Perfect.
“Last year I learned the world we live in is fickle. They don’t like crafting advancement unless like-minded silvers deem it acceptable.
My father and I would be questioned, assumed to have stolen bronze and silver off clients.
He’d lose business. And without business, we could lose the sanctuary. Worst-case? We’re arrested.”
“But you didn’t steal silver from your clients,” James states.
“Of course not.”
“You gained a silver dragon’s trust. Formed a bond like how it should be.”
Something like that. “We have a lot of clients. I’ve been around enough bronze and silver and…”
“And you picked it up naturally.” He’s nodding, filling in parts of the story for me. Thank god. This actually sounds legitimate. I might get away with this.
“Yes,” I say. Now, I just have to swear him to secrecy. “There is your answer. You’ll promise not to tell anyone? Ever?”
He’s thinking. I can clearly see him thinking.
“Murphy?”
He only stares. Mulling over my explanation as if my life doesn’t depend on it. Yet, it does.
“James?” I implore.
“I won’t tell anyone.”
“Just like that?”
He glares, or maybe that’s how he squints, but something tightens around his eyes. “Why does it seem like you expect me to blackmail you?”
Because other people would. I would if I could. If I could figure out what he wanted, I’d use it against him. Make sure he’d keep this secret because I held some leverage of my own.
When I don’t say anything, he does glare. I can tell the difference now. This second look is brutally cold. “You think that little of me, huh?”
Yes. Maybe. I’m not sure. I stay silent.
He turns, only stopping before the door, alongside my desk. “I got these for you,” he says. He places something small and clear on the tabletop. The sound of glass pings against wood.
Only when he leaves, the door clicked shut, do I rush to discover what he’s left. On the desk lie various rounded pieces of glass, all different thicknesses. He didn’t know my prescription so James Murphy gifted me an entire array of lenses in order to fix the glasses he broke.
I clutch one of the lenses in my hands, careful not to crush it. It feels like our truce, fragile, but also …
I sprint out of my room, spotting James halfway down the stairs. “Thank you,” I whisper-yell as I bend over the banister. He stops, craning his head to look up at me. His expression remains unreadable. I hold up the lens I grabbed. “Thank you for this.”
James shuffles on the stairs and finally I see emotions tumble across his features. A splash of surprise. A twinge of uncertainty. Then resolve. “Whatever you think of me, I said I wouldn’t tell. And I won’t.”
“Then I believe you.”
He nods once before descending the stairs and out of the house.
I stay standing there. I don’t think I’ve ever meant my thankfulness more in my life. And of all people, my gratitude is for James Murphy.
My trust as well. Though I’ve yet to see how that will fare. But he’s not the monster I thought had come to ruin my life. For if he’s willing to fix what he broke, maybe he won’t try to shatter my whole existence—at least not intentionally.