The Sweetest Dark (20 page)

“Inamorata. It means
lover.
”

“I know what it means.”

She took in my face and slanted a smile. “Dear me. Have I offended you?”

“Only by your ignorance. I'm not his lover. I'm not—anyone's anything.”

“But you could be, if you wished it. If you looked at him the way he looks at you …”

“You're imagining things.”

“I'm not. Everyone's noticed.”

“What does it matter to you?” I flashed.

Sophia's smile faded; she gazed at me thoughtfully. “It matters to Chloe. Isn't that enough?”

I glanced around the room. Lillian and Stella were watching us from a table by a window, worry etched along their mouths. Mittie and Caroline stood taut nearby. What was their queen bee doing talking to the worker drone?

I smiled back at Sophia, pleased to etch their worry a shade deeper.

“You're right. It's enough.”

“I like you, Eleanore,” she said, straightening. “Believe me, I'm just as astounded by that as you are.” She took a couple of steps toward the others, then paused, sending me a pale-blue look from over her shoulder. “But my head is
not
tiny.”

...

I laid back against the smooth clamminess of the embankment. Water purled near my feet, the sound a balm against my skin. Without the light of a lantern—I hadn't chanced carrying one—the entire cavern glowed with its unearthly cool light, as if the moon had sunk to the bottom of the sea and now shone upward at me, silvery and serene.

Better. Much better here. Even the press of stone against the back of my head and shoulder blades didn't bother me. It felt like relief.

I
could
try to become smoke again, I realized. I didn't need Jesse for that. Did I?

As soon as I thought it, the itching returned, ten times worse than before.

“All right,” I said aloud.

… 
right-right-right
 …

“Smoke,” I whispered, staring hard at the stalactite directly above me. “Smoke.”

Graceful and thin. Weightless. Less than air, less than …

It happened.

And once again it happened without pain and before I could fully even take it in. One second the stalactite loomed over me; the next I was sliding sideways toward it, rising in curls. No more itch, no more gravity. No more Eleanore, just the outline of my clothing below me, still laid out on the stone.

I wanted to laugh. I wanted to dance! I could see myself, how I'd become like vapor. I could control—mostly control—all the tendrils of me. My density.

I heard that celestial song beckoning again from beyond the roof of the cavern, the summoning of the stars, and I ached to reach them. I coiled and tumbled, wrapped around the fangs of rocks, and searched for a fissure to slip through. I was going to
fly
so, so far away—

The hidden door inside the grotto creaked open. The boy who stepped through it wasn't Jesse but Armand Louis.

I churned in place for a moment in confusion, concealed in the toothy pattern of the ceiling.

Armand,
not Jesse. Armand, who'd spoken to me once about the grotto, who was likely the only other person alive who knew the secrets of the castle as well as Jesse did.

He saw my garments straightaway, crossed to them, and bent down, lifting my blouse in his hands. I wouldn't suppose him to think they belonged to anyone but me. He'd seen me wearing them at least twice before, and the mud brown of Blisshaven was distinctive.

The golden flowers of my cuff gleamed up at me like a smile.

“Eleanore?” he called, looking around. But the grotto was echoing and empty. There wasn't exactly anywhere to hide.

“Eleanore!”

He was searching the water now, so close to the end of the embankment, his shoes were getting wet.

I'm not here,
I thought, frantic.
Don't look up; go get help, just go, just leave, so I can come down and get my things.

He was stripping off his coat and then his waistcoat. He was yanking at the laces of his shoes.

Yes! That could work! I could assume my human body again while he was underwater, snatch up my clothes and boots, and dash for the tunnel—

Yet it was only my second time transforming to smoke, and it appeared there were aspects of it I hadn't precisely mastered. As Armand pulled off his first shoe, I began to thicken.

I could not prevent it. I could not slow it. And I didn't even make it down to the ground before I was a girl again. I dropped from the ceiling with my arms and legs flailing, a surprised yelp wrung from my throat, and hit the water hard.

It seems almost unnecessary to mention that I was never taught how to swim.

Chapter Twenty-Two

I knew to hold my breath but not to close my eyes. It turned out that saltwater stings.

I was a fish without fins, sunk into the deep. I was engulfed in silver glow and bubbles and treacherous, looming chunks of pillars and craggy island stone. I was flailing still, unable to manage anything else, my body smacking against one of those huge ancient columns, scraping off muck.

Then there was a frothing of more bubbles, and a new shape was beside me. Armand, fleet as an arrow, grabbing me by the hair and then the shoulders. I clung to him and tried to breathe too soon when we broke the surface together, so I ended up inhaling mostly water.

He got me to the embankment, I'll say that for him.

My fingers fumbled along the slick stone but couldn't find a hold. Armand's hands had become a painful pressure against my rib cage, but no matter how hard he pushed at me, I couldn't do it. We were both flailing now.

Then, a miracle. Jesse was there, hauling me up to my feet, twirling us both about so that he stood between Armand and me.

I held on to him because my legs felt weak. I dropped my head to his shoulder because I was still heaving for air. I was naked and made of rubber and my hair was a long wet river draped along Jesse's arm, and I wasn't about to try to move anywhere else.

You can envision how it looked.

“Don't,”
Armand spat, pulling himself up atop the embankment with no apparent effort. I raised my head to see him better. He was pushing his hair out of his eyes and glaring at Jesse, his face white with rage. “Don't you touch her!”

He was at us at once. At Jesse, I mean. He was shoving himself between us, trying to pull me away.

“No,” I rasped, holding on tight. “Let go, Armand! Let go!”

Jesse hadn't released me, nor had he defended himself. He simply lifted a hand to Armand, grabbed him by the sleeve, and said a single word.

“Stop.”

And Armand did. He stood there dripping and panting, his gaze raking us both. Then he jerked his arm free.

“So this is how it is.
This
is what you're about, Eleanore? This is what you like?”

“Don't be smutty! It's not what you think.”

“Actually, it is,” said Jesse.

Armand took a surging step toward us again. “Bugger you, Holms, and—what? What the
hell
? You can
speak
?”

I looked up at Jesse, who glanced down at me and offered a grave hint of a smile.

“What have you done?” I whispered.

“Right.” Armand was still furious. “What the bloody hell
have
you done, you lying bastard?”

“Not what you suppose, mate. Not yet, anyway.”

That was the barb that hit its mark. Jesse said it and instantly something in Armand shifted. It was real and utterly unmistakable: He was standing right there next to us, so close I could feel his exhalation on my neck, and that connection that had always existed between the two of us frosted into deathly ice.

“Get your hands off her,” he said, very quiet, very composed. “Or I swear I'll kill you.”

Jesse met his eyes, then gave a nod. “You're not going to kill me, Lord Armand. But I'm going to give Lora my coat now, so take a breath, and take a step back.”

“And close your eyes,” I added around clenched teeth, because I'd started to shiver.

He glowered at us a moment longer, then turned his back. Rigid shoulders, ramrod spine, legs apart, spoiling for a fight. If his eyes were closed, I couldn't tell, but I took advantage of the moment, anyway, as fast as I could.

“I think you should just keep this,” Jesse said to me, again with that smile. He brought the lapels of the peacoat together over my chest. “You can grow into it.”

Armand turned back around. When he spoke again, it was still in that ghastly, deathly voice. “What's happened to your legs?”

I glanced down. The coat reached to the middle of my thighs; the scratches I'd made last night gleamed a vivid red against the bluish-pale rest of me.

“Did he do that to you?”

“No,” I said. “I did it. I was asleep.”

“Fuck,” said Armand, very clearly, and walked back to his own pile of clothing and shoes. “Get on with whatever you want. I'm leaving.”

“Wait.” I trailed after him. “You can't tell anyone about this.”

“Can't I?”

“Armand. Mandy. You can't tell.”

He slung his coat over a shoulder and smiled at me, but it was a dire smile, as deathly as his voice.

“How charming,” he said, “to hear you say my nickname at last.”

“Please.”

From behind us, Jesse sighed. “It's no use. It's time to enlighten him.”

“Oh, are we going for enlightenment now?” Armand's eyes narrowed; he pushed again at the chestnut hair plastered against his forehead. “Excellent. Here's some for you both. I'll have you sacked, Holms, and I might have you expelled, Jones, but I've not quite made up my mind about that yet. After
he's
gone you might be more in a mood for a toss with me, since it's clear you're that sort of girl. All it's going to take is one quick discussion with my father to end your liaison forever, as no doubt you both know.”

I walked forward. My hand lifted. Before I had realized it happened, I'd struck him, a ladylike slap that would have gotten me mostly jeers back at the orphanage, but I was angry enough to put some force behind it. His head whipped to the side.

Time stopped. None of us moved.

A slow, spiky throbbing began to flood my palm.

Just as slowly, Armand brought his face back to mine. There was my handprint upon him, red on white, just like the scratches along my body.

“You have no idea what you're set to destroy,” I bit out. “You're not thinking. You're acting like a child.”

“Actually,” murmured Jesse, wry, “he's acting like a
drákon.
”

We both shifted to stare at him.

“What?” Armand said, a stifled sound.

“What?”
I said, much louder.

“Show him, Lora.” Jesse placed a hand on my shoulder. “Show him what you can do.”

I shook my head. Of course I wouldn't. Of course not. Going to smoke was one of the very best secrets that lived between
us.
I wasn't going to add Armand to that.

“Lora. It's important.”

“He won't tell on us. I'm sure he won't—”

“Dragons do not exist,” Armand interrupted, still so white.

“You've got to show him.” Jesse held my eyes, sober and determined, love and light behind his gaze. “He must see to know.”

“But—”

“He said
dragon,
and I said
drákon.
Didn't you hear it? In his bones and in his heart, he already grasps the truth. His mind needs to see.”

Armand clenched his fists. He looked from me to Jesse, back to me, and the fear that enveloped him now was strong as stink. “You're barking mad. Both of you. I won't listen to this.”

“Oh,” I said, hushed. “Oh.”

Because in that moment, that heavy and wild moment there in the cool moon grotto, with the sea and the rocks and the sparkling walls, I understood what Jesse was telling me but what he had not actually said. I took in Armand's sharp, unhappy face and saw my handprint again, saw myself.

And everything clicked. Everything sorted out into big, obvious truths. I understood the connection I'd always felt with this reckless son of a duke. I understood his stifling fear. Without me even speaking to him of it, Jesse was confirming that all I'd suspected of Armand and his mother last night was, in fact, real.

 … 
the true nature of our world is for matters to arrange themselves along the simplest of paths
… .

What could be simpler than grouping us all together?

“You don't have to be afraid,” I said, looking past Jesse to Armand. I tried to smile at him, but my lips felt numb and I don't know how successful I was; he glared back at me like a cornered animal, desperate to bolt.

Jesse's fingers tightened on my shoulder, a silent message of reassurance.

“I'm sorry I hit you,” I said, and meant it, right before I went to smoke.

Jesse, I noticed, caught the peacoat before it reached the ground.

...

We met that night in Jesse's cottage. Armand had wanted us all to go to Tranquility, but Jesse pointed out, correctly, that it was far less risky for Armand and me to steal away to the cottage than it would be for Jesse and me to steal into the manor house.

“You've got a staff of—what?—thirty? Thirty-five these days?” Jesse asked. “Lora can't be found alone with either of us at Tranquility. Her forced departure from the school would be an inconvenience to all of us. But the only person who cleans my home is me.”

I thought personally that if I was able to evaporate quickly enough, it wouldn't matter who caught me where or what they said. It might even prove amusing.

Oy, guv'nor, she was there and then she turned into bloomin' smoke, I swears it! Only three pints of ale tonight at supper, guv, I swears!

But I didn't want to sneak all the way out to Tranquility, so I said nothing.

Armand and I sat across from each other at Jesse's table. A stack of letters and a diary had been placed in the middle between us. The diary was mostly jaunty and newer, but the letters were very old, combed with very old, spidery writing. Combined, they'd spelled out a message that was nothing short of electrifying.

When I'd finished reading the last page, my fingers were trembling.

Jesse, of course, had noticed. He'd said we could discuss everything after eating and was now moving about in the tidy little kitchen, slicing bread, finding jam. Stoking the coals in the oven into brightness for a kettle and tea. He'd muted his music again and so these small, comforting sounds were the only noises to be heard; thankfully, tonight had a brilliant moon, so the Germans weren't bombing. Even the crickets were quiet.

It jarred me to see Armand in Jesse's setting. His dark hair, his intense blue eyes. His posh tailored shirt and high starched collar and clean fingernails. He seemed to just
gleam
more than either of us. Perhaps that's what being born into a fortune could do. Polish you up to a shine, light up the world, no matter where you wandered. I expected this was as informal as he ever got, but compared to schoolmiss me and hired-hand Jesse Holms, he was done to the nines.

Even in the half-light of the candles, Lord Armand looked ill-suited to this rustic place, a foreigner discovering himself in a foreign land.

The kettle began to steam. The berry-ripe scent of the jam caught in the vapor, wafted over to me in long, draping coils.

Do you even know how to do that?
I wondered, watching Armand from beneath my lashes.
Have you ever even had to boil your own water for tea?

I should try to be kinder. He'd had more than a shock today, I knew, and it wasn't as if I didn't understand how it felt. But a mean little part of me still smarted over being derided as
that sort of girl.
If he was uneasy, that part of me was glad.

The brittle cold ice that had frosted inside him, that had connected us in the grotto, had melted. In its place was … I wasn't sure what. Something new. Something that felt like swords and power. Gleaming, like him.

“What is it?” he muttered, his eyes moving to me. “Why are you staring?”

“I'm not,” I replied. But I felt the blood rise in my cheeks.

Jesse thwacked a plate piled with bread between us, followed by half a brick of butter and a crock of raspberry jam. A knife–the long skinny kind that looked like it should be used for poking things, for digging insects out from tree bark–stuck up from the middle of the red goo.

Armand regarded it all without moving. I reached for the bread.

“How can you eat? After everything, how can you be hungry?”

“I'm always hungry.” I used the knife to smear butter across the bread, and then jam. It was brown bread, sour to the jam's sweet, but I didn't care. It tasted superb.

Jesse served the tea, then took the chair beside me. As soon as I was done with the bread, he laced his fingers through mine and brought our joined hands to rest atop the table, in plain sight. Happiness began its tingling spread up my arm.

It wasn't subtle, but it was clear. Armand leaned back from the light, staring disdainfully at a fixed point beyond us both.

“How long have you known about him?” I asked Jesse, using my free hand to gesture toward his guest.

“Forever. Nearly as long as I did about you.”

“God, Jesse. Why didn't you say anything?”

“He was a shadow of you.” Jesse shrugged. “His background is diluted, his dragon blood less strong. Even with you in his proximity, I wasn't certain any of his
drákon
traits would emerge. He hasn't anywhere near your potential.”

“Pardon me,” Armand said, freezingly polite, “but he is still right here with you in this room.”

“Do you mean … I did it?” I asked. “I made him figure it out? What he is?”

Jesse gave me an assessing look. “Like is drawn to like. We're all three of us thick with magic now, even if it's different kinds. It's inevitable that we'll feed off one another. The only way to prevent that would be to separate. And even then it might not be enough. Too much has already begun.”

“I don't want to separate from you,” I said.

“No.” Jesse lifted our hands and gave mine a kiss. “Don't worry about that.”

Armand practically rolled his eyes. “If you two are quite done, might we talk some sense tonight? It's late, I'm tired, and your ruddy chair, Holms, is about as comfortable as sitting on a tack. I want to …”