13. The Only Way Out #2
I look at Ren. He’s looking at the cavern ceiling. Studying it with sudden intense interest.
Traitor.
“Fine,” I say. “Commentary. I can handle commentary.”
“Can you?”
“I’ve survived worse.”
“Have you, little dawn?”
There’s something in his voice—ancient and knowing and far too amused for comfort. Dragons don’t matchmake. They’re above such mortal concerns. They’re creatures of fire and wisdom and celestial purpose.
Tianlong is absolutely matchmaking.
I’m going to die of embarrassment on this trip. Repeatedly.
“You’re bringing the cat.”
Ren’s voice is flat. The particular kind of flat that means he’s trying very hard not to have an opinion about something he definitely has an opinion about.
His jaw has that specific set—the one that precedes imperial decrees and impossible demands.
The Emperor of the Jade Throne, about to be defeated by the subject of pets.
I look down. Dumpling has materialized—because he doesn’t arrive so much as manifest—and is currently perched on a pile of gold coins in the corner of the dragon’s lair.
How he got here is a mystery. When he got here is a mystery.
Why he’s sitting on a dragon’s hoard like he owns it is not a mystery at all.
He owns everything. We’re all just living in his empire.
“I’m bringing my cat,” I say. “Three weeks is too long to leave him.”
“He’ll have the run of the palace. The kitchen staff adore him.” Ren sounds reasonable. He’s not being reasonable. He’s being strategic. “He’ll be fed. Entertained. Thoroughly spoiled.”
“He’ll scream.” I’ve heard Dumpling’s abandonment wail.
Once. The entire Eastern Wing thought someone was being murdered.
Guards were dispatched. Ministers wrote formal complaints.
“Every night. For hours. At exactly the hour of the Tiger, because he has a sense of dramatic timing that frankly concerns me. Your servants will mutiny.”
Ren opens his mouth. Closes it. He knows I’m right.
Behind me, Tianlong shifts—a sound like mountains settling. “The creature is a disruption.”
“The creature,” I say, “is coming.”
“This is inadvisable.”
“Lots of things are inadvisable. I do most of them anyway.”
“You’re bringing your dragon,” I add, turning back to Ren. “We all have attachments.”
The word slips out before I can catch it. Attachments. Like it’s simple. Like admitting I can’t leave a seventeen-pound orange disaster behind for three weeks is the same as admitting I—
I don’t finish the thought.
Tianlong’s massive head lowers toward the corner where Dumpling sits. The cat doesn’t move. Doesn’t even look up. He’s cleaning his paw with the studied indifference of a creature who has never known fear because he’s never had reason to.
“That creature,” Tianlong says slowly, “is looking at me.”
“He looks at everyone.”
“He is looking at me like I am prey.”
I glance at Dumpling. He’s stopped cleaning. Golden eyes fixed on the dragon with that particular intensity he usually reserves for moths and unattended fish.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” I wave a hand. “You’re a dragon.”
“I will be an eight-inch lizard.”
Silence.
The phosphorescent crystals hum. Somewhere in the depths of the cavern, water drips against stone. Dumpling continues to stare.
“…Ah,” I say.
“Indeed.”
“He won’t—” I stop. He might. He absolutely might. This is the cat who once stalked a visiting dignitary’s prize falcon for three hours and only gave up because the falcon left the province. “I’ll keep him contained.”
“You will not.”
“I’ll try to keep him contained.”
“You will fail.”
“He’s just a cat, Tianlong.”
The dragon’s exhale stirs my hair. Warm and dry and carrying the faint scent of ash.
“He is an apex predator inhabiting a body too small for his ambitions. I recognize the type. I have eaten the type.” A pause. “Not cats specifically. But the energy.”
I look at Dumpling again. He’s resumed grooming, moving on to his other paw, completely unconcerned that a three-thousand-year-old dragon is discussing him like a threat to be neutralized.
Seventeen pounds of orange confidence.
We’re going to have a very interesting three weeks.
The Moon Garden is quiet.
It’s always quiet—something about the stones, Ren said once.
Some property of the jade embedded in the ancient foundations that also blocks the dragon bond.
For a man who lives with an ancient consciousness threaded through his thoughts every waking moment, this is the only place in the palace where his mind is entirely his own.
I wonder what that costs him. The silence after so much not-silence. The absence of something that’s become as natural as breathing.
I don’t ask. There are some things you don’t ask, even after you’ve exchanged the kind of secrets we’ve exchanged.
Night-blooming jasmine opens in the darkness, white petals unfurling like small surrenders.
The scent is sweet and heavy, the kind of perfume that gets into your clothes and your hair and your memory.
Three hundred years from now, I’ll smell jasmine and think of this garden.
This bench. This particular quality of moonlight.
Him.
The bench is worn smooth by centuries of waiting—centuries of other emperors, other meetings, other silences. Now it’s ours.
I sit on one end. He sits on the other. The space between us has been shrinking for days.
I’ve been pretending not to notice.
“Three weeks,” I say.
“Yes.”
“Pretending to be married.”
The jasmine-scented air sits thick between us. His shoulder is close enough that I could lean into it without trying. I don’t. Very specifically don’t. I focus on the white flowers instead, counting petals like threats.
“Yes.”
“Sharing rooms.” I stop. The night is too warm. His presence is too there, too solid, too much. Eight centuries of training in emotional detachment, and I can feel every inch of the space between his shoulder and mine. “Sharing… everything.”
I don’t know what I mean by everything. I know exactly what I mean by everything. I refuse to think about what I mean by everything.
“Yes.”
He’s not looking at me. He’s looking at the jasmine, the white flowers catching moonlight like small stars fallen to earth. His hands rest on his knees, perfectly still, perfectly controlled.
“This is either going to solve the conspiracy,” I say, “or be a complete disaster.”
“Perhaps both.”
I turn. He’s still watching the flowers, but there’s something at the corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile. Close. Closer than he usually allows himself, closer than the Stoic Emperor mask permits.
“Perhaps both,” I agree.