Chapter Twenty-Two. When Learning Something New
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
WHEN LEARNING SOMETHING NEW
FARREN
A few days after our vet visit to the auction house, I’m back to routine—feeding my parents’ dragons strips of bass for breakfast. Only my focus keeps shifting to the loft’s stairs.
I haven’t seen James yet today. Now that I’m teaching him veterinarian skills and we’re working through the sanctuary chores like fellow interns, I kind of assumed I wouldn’t have to go knocking on his door every morning.
The other day, I knew I had to seek him out. Today I had hoped …
You are the opposite of worthless. His words won’t leave my head.
“Your parents are gone,” a voice suddenly says from the opposite direction of my staring. I whirl to find James leaning against the stone between stalls, nonchalant.
I’ve startled so bad Mom’s Sprinter, Aggie, bats her wings in irritation. Her mate, and my father’s dragon, Keen, snorts in James’s direction. Rule number one, never suspect James Murphy is sleeping, ever.
I backstep. “Why did that sound ominous?”
He jerks from the stone. Surprise or horror, maybe both, envelop his features. “No, it’s … It’s just, it’s your turn,” he prompts.
“My turn? Are you trying to dump your chores on me?” I throw another hunk of bass to Aggie. Her jaws snap the fish out of the air.
“No, I…” He nods toward the loft. “I promised I’d teach you how to craft a silver tea.”
Oh, now that explains why we need my parents gone. I’ve been waiting for the right moment. When James asked when I’d like to start learning a few nights ago, I told him to wait until both my parents were off the sanctuary. Something warms inside me that he remembered.
I glance toward Hort, still curled in sleep. “We’ll need—”
James reveals a scale of silver from his pocket. “Done.”
I toss two more pieces of fish to the dragons, emptying my pail. “Me as well.”
He jogs up the stairs and holds his door open awkwardly. “Come in.”
I feel like I’m entering unfamiliar territory instead of a place I’ve been hundreds of times.
James still hasn’t decorated his rooms, not that I had expected anything different in the last week.
I’m used to Jeffrey’s green decor and Shelly’s watercolor paintings splattering these walls. James’s neatness contradicts that.
I go to wash my hands of raw bass and turn to James staring at me. Somewhere over the last few days the irritation I used to feel in his presence has been replaced with a different sort of tension. My insides are pulled taut awaiting what he might say.
“I’ll get a kettle started,” he declares.
“Yes. Thanks.”
James boils water as I sit down at the table.
Another thing I never thought would happen, I’ve grown accustomed to eating with James Murphy.
He’s become a staple at family dinner. My parents furnish most of the conversation though.
Mom hasn’t inquired about his dating life again, thank god, but does like to ask him questions.
I’ve learned a little more about all twenty-four dragons under his father’s care, snippets of his life outside of school.
Mostly, Dad talks about his cases. Now knowing why James was so eager to listen, I’ve spurred my father on, letting him teach.
Half the time Dad will pull out diagrams after dinner and the three of us will pore over anatomy textbooks. It’s been … nice.
Yet I haven’t been here since the thunderstorm. While I’ve spent so much time chatting with Jeffrey and Shelly in this exact spot it feels inappropriate being alone with him. Maybe because I saw this place as their little cute love nest, a place meant for a couple.
Done setting the kettle, James sits down across from me and pulls out a vial much like the one burning in my pocket.
Only his shines silver. “Since you can’t buy silver already pulverized, we’ll work on that first.” With a pop he uncorks the tube and pours out the contents.
The metal spills across the table like glitter, so fine and polished. “We’ll use this for reference.”
So well prepared. And in this instance, not to compete with me, but to help.
James lightly places Hort’s natural shedding on the table in front of us with a smirk. “It’s tedious work. You can take your frustrations out on it.”
“I don’t have any frustrations.” I don’t know why I lie. Every time I’ve had to hide my power I’ve been frustrated. At the auction house I was frustrated I had to concede one of the easiest of procedures to James. It seems pretending has become a habit I cannot shake, my own armor.
James leans back in his chair. “Huh, didn’t think you were the type.”
I try to ignore his baiting. Because I have no idea what he means. Ignore him, I chant. Ignore him and his smugness.
But I can’t take not knowing. “What type?” I blurt.
“The type to try to make me do the work for you.”
“That’s not what I was doing.” I grab for the silver, but James crafts it an inch out of my reach, the metal skittering across the table. In retaliation I craft too, pulling at the power like engaging a bicep. The silver smacks into my palm before James can play a game of keep-away.
“Damn.” He looks at me then. Impressed? I’m not sure. Surprised maybe. Slowly, he reaches for the silver. “Could … could I try something?”
“What?”
He sets the silver scale in the middle of the table, equal distance away from each of us. “On three we both craft.”
It’s a common game. For kids in year five. For beginners. “You want to play tug-of-war with me?”
“I want to test how much stronger you are.”
“Why?”
“To see how much catching up I need to do.”
I can’t help smiling. “Murphy, you’re never catching up to me.”
“Sounds like you’re afraid you’ll lose, Walsh.”
I huff. “Okay, count us off. This will be over embarrassingly quick.”
James rolls up his sleeves. He’s wearing the light-blue dress shirt of our school uniform without the tie or coat. An interesting combination of how I’ve seen him every day, yet different. “One.”
I almost forget why he’s counting, the gesture of rolling fabric drawing at my attention for some reason. I’m mesmerized by how good he makes the simple act look. “Two.”
Right. A game. A game I’ve just bragged about winning when I don’t in fact know if I’m stronger than James. I mean, this is silver not gold.
“Three.”
The silver lifts in the air, hovers. I will it to come to me, but James pulls in the opposite direction.
I’ve never done this with silver, never thought I would have the chance.
The earthy grit of iron, the rich smoothness of tin, and familiar tang of copper, I’m well acquainted with each and I’ve faced every kid in school. Silver lessons were unimaginable.
With an extra tug the silver flies into my hand. Or maybe I don’t need silver lessons.
James’s dimples appear. “I did better than I thought.”
“That’s because I was distracted,” I admit outright and without thinking.
“Distracted? By what?” He sounds baffled.
I’m ashamed of my excuse, even if real. How in the world was I distracted by his forearms?
Two months ago, I never could understand when girls would giggle about a boy’s cuteness.
Not just that they were cute, but the genuine sexual attraction, even if they barely knew the guy.
Now, I’m speechless with distractions. “Nothing. Just wasn’t concentrating,” I stammer.
James places the silver back on the table with a thunk. “Again then?”
“Again.”
I win nine out of ten. The kettle whistling knocks us out of round eleven and the metal clatters on the floor, closer to James.
“That one was going to be mine,” James says as he retrieves the boiling water.
“You wish.” Sweat clings to my brow. I wipe at it quickly, not wanting him to know how hard holding that silver against him was at the end.
When he returns with a mug of water, he crafts the metal from the floor, looking sheepishly at the solid hunk. “I should have been teaching you how to pulverize this.”
“Murphy, I know how to pulverize. They do teach that in lower-level crafting classes, you know.”
By the look on his face he definitely did not know that.
Much like our game of push and pull we start cutting the metal, a competition emerging once again, this time unspoken. Who can carve faster, with more precision? Back and forth we work until dust-like crumbs lay before us.
This feels like training together. We’re pushing against one another, but for the first time to create something. “I always wanted to train with you in the mornings before class,” I admit.
His mouth pops open and he stops pulverizing. “Why did you never ask?”
“Because you’re you and I’m me.” I wave my hand between us like that’s enough explanation.
He frowns.
“What, was I going to ask you to only practice in copper? And when I could do more than copper, I was too scared you’d notice my strength.”
“Okay, the last year makes sense. But before that? Do you remember when I approached you all those times?”
“Oh, when you’d waltz over and critique me? How could I forget.” I smother my voice in sarcasm.
His cheeks flush. “I was trying to help.”
“By criticizing me?”
“I’m not—I’m not great at talking with … people.”
“And yet everyone always wants to talk to you.”
He pauses and I wait until he continues. “I wear this … mask. I have to be a certain way around my family. An extension of that at the racing tracks. Then at school I … well, they treat me like I’m a dragon they can bond with to advance their own career.”
I go stock-still, finally seeing it. The coldness.
The indifference. What a perfect mask. One I fell for over and over.
“Is this the real you then?” I don’t know why I whisper the question like it’s a secret until I watch as James contemplates it.
Then my reasoning snags. I want him to say yes.
The boy in front of me nice enough to help me brew a silver tea is the real him.
“It’s more complicated than that. Yes, I wear masks, but—” He rubs the back of his neck. “Maybe the idea of masks is a bad analogy.”
“No, it makes sense. Keep going.”