Chapter 18 The Truth
The next day, we put our new plan into action.
Bright and early, we slip out of our dormitory and cross the campus towards the main building.
Marton assures me that the Headmaster is known to be in his office at all hours of the morning and night, and that several of the students like to joke that he never sleeps.
This does not comfort me much, and I try to think about which types of protectorkin are known to be nocturnal.
I can't recall Vakhrin mentioning anything about it.
Maybe it's a habit of ardent scholars more so than of the kin.
We reach the hallway to the masters' offices without interruption and make our way down the hall, only stopping for a moment to look at the painting of the Trove.
The sight fills me with a mixture of nerves, terror, longing, and wistfulness—as it represents simultaneously the foolish task we're about to engage in, a great danger to our friends, a great mystery, and a piece of my heritage I've never been allowed to take part in.
I brace myself for whatever comes next as Marton raises his fist to knock on the Headmaster's door.
Rap, rap, rap.
Barely a moment passes before footsteps scuff on the other side of the door, and it eases open to reveal a surprised Master Albertson.
He beams at us. "Good heavens, Womack, look who it is!
" Albertson swings the door wide, giving Marton and I an unimpeded view of the Headmaster—apparently named Womack—seated behind his wide desk.
His office, unlike Albertson's, is all neatness and tidy corners, with books in careful alignment on the shelves, and parchment, ink, and the other objects arranged on his desk in an orderly fashion.
The Headmaster evinces no surprise at all at our sudden appearance.
"Oh, look," he says drily, "you're both here.
I suppose this saves us the trouble of sending someone to summon you.
"
"Were you," Marton begins, "er—wanting us?
"
"Yes," says the Headmaster.
He leans forward with elbows on his desk, steepling his hands.
"Frank and I have been wondering where you planned to run off to next, and I'm afraid we had been unable to glean anything from your haphazard research in the archives.
Thought it might save us all some trouble if we just asked you straight out.
"
Marton is struck stupid by this proclamation.
"I'm not—aren't—that is, I wasn't going to—run off.
" He gulps visibly.
"Mmhmm," says Headmaster Womack, while Albertson chuckles.
"We had assumed that it was your plan to continue searching out the truth behind some of your favorite legends.
Now with your dragon wife to help you. And that this was why you had returned to the Academy, presumably to gather some information that you needed before your next departure.
"
I open my mouth to make the firmest protest—and wheeze out a dying sound.
"I'm not—" I try, but the Headmaster levels his cool, unimpressed gaze my way, "his wife," I finish lamely.
Now Womack's eyes—and Albertson's—flare with alarm for the first time.
"Oh, dear," says the Headmaster, straightening up.
His eyes flick from me to Marton, to Master Albertson.
All three men look supremely uncomfortable.
"I suppose that makes the fact that you've been sharing a room these past two nights rather untoward. "
Is that really what they're concerned about? Not that I'm a dragon—and practically just admitted to it—but that I've been sharing a room with a man who is not my husband?
Great skies, but men are backwards.
Master Albertson clears his throat loudly into the silence.
"I think—we can—move past that point for now.
"
Womack's eyes rove between me and Marton, expression bewildered.
"Not married..." He shakes his head, muttering something under his breath about young people.
"Very well." He waves a hand, affixing his gaze to Marton once more.
"Do you deny that your plans are as I have stated them?
"
"I—We're—"
"Now hold on for just a moment," I interrupt, reclaiming the Headmaster's attention.
"How do you know what I am? And what, may I ask, are you?
"
The Headmaster's brows go up.
"Dear girl—Tarah," he corrects, at my scowl—I'm getting very sick of being dear girled and young girled and condescended to by every adult male I run across.
"Do you mean to say that you did not sense what I was immediately?
"
"I-I sensed something," I admit.
"But I wasn't sure what it was. Are you protectorkin?
"
"I am." A slight smile.
"Though I have not heard myself called by that name in many years.
I am Womack, the Keeper of Secrets for the Philostian Lycan.
" He spreads his hands.
"You're—what?
A Lycan?" I'm afraid that's the only part I've understood.
"A warg, to be exact.
" Womack's hands drop, and he seems rather disappointed by my lack of reaction.
His head lists to one side, curious. "The Keeper of Secrets is a title which refers to my role in this country, and here at the Academy in particular, on behalf of my people.
Our people." His gaze goes to Master Albertson.
What? I study the old man anew, but he seems as harmlessly and perfectly human as ever.
"You—you mean that Master Albertson.
.." I turn to the man in question. "You are Lycan as well?
"
Albertson shakes his head, a jaunty smile crossing his face.
"I am Frankfort, of the Equira." He gives a little bow, eyes dancing.
"I am, dear Tarah, a unicorn."
"A.
..unicorn?" I repeat in disbelief. I've read and heard stories of unicorns, mostly in Cherry's book or of her own invention.
They were always delicate, ethereal creatures, full of mysterious beauty and tender magic.
They were not chuckling old men with liver spotted hands and caterpillar eyebrows.
Cherry is going to be so disappointed.
"That's right," Albertson laughs.
"But I am not surprised you didn't sense me.
The danger complex, you see."
"The—huh?
Danger complex...?" I shake my head. More and more that I do not understand.
"The danger complex is just what I call it," Albertson explains, waving a dismissive hand.
"But it refers to the amount of inherent danger conditioned by the fundamental nature of different protectorkin species.
A Dragomira like you, you see?" He gestures to me.
"Has a high danger complex. So high that even humans can sense it.
A warg like Womack? A lower danger complex, but still enough to be detected by other kin.
If he were a wendigo, on the other hand, you'd find it difficult just to be in the same room with him.
" Albertson laughs.
And I.
..feel like I need to sit down. A Dragomira like you.
..has a high danger complex. Danger conditioned by the fundamental nature.
..
So it's not all kin.
It's me, specifically. My kind that is dangerous.
"I'm—" I try to gather my wits, dredging up something coherent from the wordless horror in my chest. "So you—you find it difficult to be in the same room as me?
" I ask the two men. The warg and the unicorn.
Dear gods.
Albertson's eyes turn sympathetic.
"Do not be distressed, my girl. It is just one facet of your nature.
We know that." He indicates Womack and himself.
"And you are hardly the first of your kind that we've met.
All people should be given the benefit of being judged on an individual basis, and not as an anonymous figure of a larger group.
"
I nod mutely. "I— I need to sit down.
"
Albertson's eyes widen, and he moves quickly to present me with one of the chairs that has been pushed against the wall of the office.
I slump down into it the moment it's behind me, breathing unevenly.
I feel a slight pressure on my shoulder, and I realize it's Marton.
His hand. Comforting me, of course.
This must be huge and confusing for him too, but he's comforting me.
The realization steadies me, somehow.
Reminds me what's important here, and it's not me.
I turn my attention to the Headmaster. To Albertson hovering beside the desk.
"You're Secret Keepers?"
Womack smiles wryly, but it's Albertson who responds.
"It's only an official position for the Philostian Lycan, I'm afraid.
They're a highly packish lot." Albertson grows amused at his own joke, chuckling briefly before going on.
"I am just a lone unicorn shifter, doing what I can to keep the secrets of protectorkin safe across the realm.
"
Womack rolls his eyes.
"He's done more work towards discrediting various rumors and legends about our kind over the years than anyone else.
And he'll tell you that, too."
"Well," says Albertson, smoothing his lapels with affected humility, though he is, in fact, visibly bursting with pride.
"I do what I can."
"But," I lean forward, "But why do you do it?
Why make the protectorkin seems like they don't exist?
Doesn't it just make things worse for those of us who are found out?
"
Albertson's pleasure dissolves.
"It is not supposed to, no."
"Our intention," adds Womack, "has always been to make the world safer for our kind.
To make it so that humans are embarrassed to believe in us, and will discount any rumors they hear as superstitious nonsense.
"
"And that's what you've always done here at the Academy," Marton speaks up in a tight voice, his hand tensing on my shoulder.
Without thinking, I reach up to touch him, placing my palm over his on my shoulder.
I feel his grip relax the slightest bit.
"Ah," Albertson's gaze goes to Marton.
"Marty, my boy, I never meant..."
"I don't care what you meant," Marton hisses.
"You—you—lied and misled me. You let the other students mock me, when all along you could have just told me the truth.
"
Albertson's expression is strained.
"We did not know then— We were not sure—"
"We did not know if we could trust you," says Womack smoothly, pressing his palms flat to the desk.
"Many are the humans who have thought they wanted the truth until it stared them in the face, and it turned out what they really wanted was fairytale nonsense.
"
"It was only when you showed up with—with Tarah," says Albertson, "that we realized we were wrong.
That you were a true friend to our kind.
"
Marton makes no immediate reply, and I decide it's time to redirect the conversation.
"But all the secrets.
All the lies. Our people once guided and protected the humans.
Why do we not do that again? Why not make them trust us as they did before?
Why the deceptions and tricks?"
"You do not know our history," Womack easily ascertains.
"You could not know all that has happened between our peoples, and still ask that.
"
"We ruled, we protected, we helped and guided," whispers Albertson.
"For centuries. And still they turned on us.
" He pauses for a beat, letting that settle.
"Many of the families, the protectorkin who once ruled, their lines still exist, diluted, muddled by the centuries, but they still hold power.
But the rest of us now are free. Free to do as we please, our will no longer tethered to the needs of humanity.
We are free to go anywhere and be whatever we wish, so long as we hide what we are.
"
"But if we have to hide what we are," I disagree, "then we cannot be whatever we wish.
"
"You are always what you are, Tarah.
The trick is knowing who you can trust to share it with.
" Albertson's gaze floats to Marton meaningfully.
He continues, "Those of us who have been persecuted over the years are the ones whose secret got out to those who it shouldn't have, as yours did.
I've done what I can—Womack and I both have—for all of the kin for whom this was the case, yourself included.
Most of our people by far still wish for secrecy, and I worked for years to make all the legends about us seem like obvious, silly lies.
And it's worked so well that the humans here mock me for doing it at all.
"
"But—But you said—You told me before that you hoped that the dark age we are in would end soon.
You admitted that it was a dark age.
How do you expect it to end, if not with the truth—with the revelation of our secret?
With the humans accepting what we are.
"
"I do not know how it will end, Tarah.
" Albertson's eyes grow sad. "If I did, I would have been trying to accomplish it myself.
As it is, our two species cannot bear to trust each other.
Neither of us—humans or kin—can entrust our safety to the discretion of the other.
We hide from humans, from their great numbers and their mobs with swords and pitchforks.
And the humans cower from us, from the stories of our claws and teeth and our hunger for their blood.
So I do not know how one goes about resolving such centuries of learned, mutual distrust.
"But," his voice softens, eyes brightening, "we have sources in the Werewood Forest, Womack and I do.
Secret eyes. Friends, who recently reported to us what they saw—of a human girl and boy, travelling together with a dragon girl and a manticore boy.
All of them knowing what the others were and not seeming bothered by it.
All of them full of trust and care for the others.
That, young Tarah, gave me hope. That's how the dark age ends, perhaps.
One person at a time, one story at a time.
I do not have the answers. I just have a hope.
"
"And—and you expect me—us—to do something, to further this hope?
What is it you expect us to do?" I can't imagine it myself, but it seems clear to me now that that's what Albertson was insinuating before, when I spoke to him in his office.
Why he looked at me with so much weight, when he spoke of our dark age ending.
Albertson gives a small shrug.
"I do not know what you will do, nor what you should do.
But I trust it will be something that lives up to the great potential I have already seen in you.
And in you, too, my boy." His eyes go to Marton.
"What a young terror, you were!" Albertson whispers, smiling in a way that asks for Marton to smile back.
"How you stormed into the Academy, with bright eyes full of the instinctive truth and the hopefulness of magic.
How I tried to dissuade you from your beliefs every way I could!
But you would never have it. You would never have doubt.
When I heard you had left us, I just knew you would end up a meal for a dragon, and my heart was aggrieved.
" Here, Albertson's gaze travels briefly to me.
He smiles. "But I am glad that did not happen.
And I am sorry that I did not trust you sooner with the truth.
I misprized the contents of your heart, and I do heartily apologize.
"
"It's—" Marton says haltingly.
"It's alright. Now. It's alright now." His hand is a brand on my shoulder, and the space between us seems to grow strangely charged.
I can feel his attention on me, though I do not look over at him.