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  When he was finished speaking, I found I could scarcely breathe. Royston was a peerless speaker, and had he asked me at that moment to leap out a window, I suspect I would have done it for him without hesitation. His eyes were very bright and his face alive with the meaning behind his words. I felt my heart stutter in my chest as my breath stuttered in my throat.

  This was one of many reasons why I so often dreamed of kissing him. He spoke more beautifully than the most exquisite passages I’d ever read.

  The expression on his face was too overwhelming, the force of his words too pure. I looked away from him and knotted my fingers in the bedsheets.

  “It is,” I whispered. “I do wish for that.”

  “When I was somewhat younger than you,” Royston told me, “I left my home in the countryside. I had no such offer as you have before you now, and—I’ve never told this to anyone—I was completely terrified of all that lay ahead of me.”

  “But you did it yourself,” I replied. “You have no reason to feel beholden to anyone now, for the . . . the price they paid for you when you were that age, to rescue you, to show you all the things you speak so eloquently about.” I was near to shredding the sheet, and I forced myself to let go of it before I really did tear it. “It is almost . . . too kind of you. Your offer.”

  “I won’t hold you to it,” Royston promised. “I don’t expect to be repaid.”

  I shook my head. “Then you undervalue me,” I said. “It would seem that I owed you too much.”

  “Then think of it in terms of my selfishness,” Royston said candidly. “In the terms I have tried my hardest not to think of it. As I said, you are more than worthy of the city, but if you would do me the favor of considering it from my perspective—Hal, I am quite close now to begging for your company.”

  It was much the same as the way I’d begged for him to stay.

  We were unexpectedly equals, at least in terms of how greatly opposed we were to being parted from one another. After a moment, I found myself laughing, then Royston was laughing with me; we ran the gamut from nervous to relieved in no more than a second, and I fell against him, hiding my face against his shoulder, muffling the sound of my laughter in shades of gratitude and delight.

  “Would you really?” I asked him, when I’d quite composed myself once more. “Would you really take me away from here, take me with you to the city?”

  “This is no jest, Hal,” he said. “I would never have offered it if I didn’t have every intention of seeing it through. A good assistant is a rare thing to come by; a good student even rarer.”

  “Mme will be so angry,” I added. “She’ll be likely to faint all week.”

  “Let her be angry,” Royston said. “She deserves you less than anyone else here.”

  I sobered for a moment when I thought of the others. “I will miss them,” I said softly. “I’m very fond of the children.”

  “They shall come to hate me, no doubt, for whisking you away from them,” Royston replied. “I will be their evil uncle, who stole the light out of their lives without any warning.”

  “Don’t,” I murmured, and nudged his shoulder lightly with my own, but there was no vehemence in my rebuke.

  “Hal,” he said, and I wondered what it was about his voice that could make my own name sound like a title both foreign and beautiful. Despite what good sense had taught me about the extent of Royston’s personal feelings, I turned slightly, and tilted my head up.

  He touched my cheek, and looked at me with an expression that I’d only ever seen him wear when he spoke of Thremedon, his beloved city. Then he winced, and took his hand away to press it against his forehead, a faint glimmer of unhappiness crossing his face.

  “I’m sorry,” I said quickly. I didn’t know why I had thought . . . but it didn’t matter. If Royston was going to take me to the city with him, I would have to be more circumspect.

  “No,” he said, though his argument sounded halfhearted at best. “It isn’t that. I’ve only . . . I’ve got something of a headache, that’s all.”

  “Oh,” I said, accepting the lie, because it was clear that was what Royston wanted me to do. “That’s all right. We can—we don’t have to talk.”

  We were silent for a while after that, but this time it was without the prior awkwardness. I toyed with one of the rings on Royston’s left hand, and he allowed me to do it. It was a ring for poison, with a complicated, stiff catch, and the silence that stretched between us was punctuated by the sound the ring made when I managed to open it.

  At last, Royston said, “Will you come with me, then?”

  “Yes,” I told him, without hesitation. “Yes, I’ll come.”

  “Ah,” he replied. The pleasure and relief flooded his voice, deepening it. “Well,” Royston went on, and I was sad to hear that quality disappearing from his voice, “it’s rather late to talk to my brother about the matter.”

  I hid a yawn against the inside of my elbow. “I don’t know what I should pack,” I admitted.

  “Don’t worry,” Royston said. “I shall see to that. Would you . . . ah, would you like me to stay with you awhile? If you have any questions about the city—about what will be expected of you there—I wouldn’t mind answering them.”

  I had a few, and we stayed up a while longer, talking in hushed voices. Only once more did Royston show signs of the headache that had bothered him earlier, but he insisted it was nothing. He spoke instead of what Thremedon would be like this time of year, what plays would be having their runs in the theatres, and how he was friends with one of the airmen in the Dragon Corps—none other than the Chief Sergeant himself. It all seemed rather like a dream, and indeed I must have drifted off without noticing it, for all at once I was opening my eyes to the sound of birds chirping outside.

  The first thing I understood was that I was alone; there was no other warmth curled against me in my small bed.

  I jerked awake all at once. Something was wrong, but for the first few reeling seconds of consciousness, I couldn’t remember what.

  Then, I remembered everything all at once. Today I was leaving for the city—Royston had been with me before I’d fallen asleep; he’d asked me to go—but he was beside me no longer, and all at once I couldn’t tell if what had passed the night before had indeed been no more than a dream. I could remember, only in bits and pieces, what it had been like in the night with Royston beside me, the anxieties that plagued me waking me and his warmth at my back. At one point—if I could be certain that I hadn’t dreamed it all—I’d even turned to press up against him, one arm around his shoulders. He’d let me.

  My cheeks were too hot and I was frozen in place—not just because of the cold—staring with unthinking misery at the rumpled sheets drawn clumsily but unmistakably around me.

  So Royston had been with me last night, and before he’d left, he’d seen fit to cover me.

  We’d spent the night together. I’d slept with Royston by my side, a thrilling and awful realization at once. What if I’d kicked him in my sleep, or elbowed him in the stomach? What if I’d snored, or mumbled while dreaming? And where had he gone, leaving me here alone?

  There was no clock in my little room. I didn’t know what time it was, if I had overslept or imagined everything. For all I knew, Royston was gone already.

  I was beginning to doubt myself for a complete raving madman when there were two short knocks against the door.

  That was our signal.

  My hands froze, and I couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps I hadn’t imagined the whole thing after all.

  A moment later my suspicions were dispelled. “Are you decent?” Royston’s voice called through the doorway, and I could have laughed or cried for gladness, however much the question made me blush.

  “I am always decent,” I replied, feeling somewhat impish in my relief. Though that wasn’t entirely true—a few of the buttons on my shirt had come undone—and I was in the middle of fixing them when the door swung open and Royston stepped i
nside.

  Royston stood there, expression inscrutable but his eyes impossibly warm. In his left hand he held my best pair of boots, the leather ones that the chatelain had bought for me when it was first decided I’d be staying at Nevers to teach Alexander and William their basic grammar and histories.

  “Those are my boots,” I said lamely, pausing mid-button.

  “Yes,” Royston said, not looking away from me. “They are indeed. You’re going to need them, I should think, if you’re to leave with me in ten minutes. I’ve settled it all with my brother; I have miraculously managed to convince him that you deserve a finer education than is available to you here.” Without betraying a single emotion, Royston set the boots down just inside the door. “I believe you might also want to change into your weekend finest, though of course once we come to Thremedon I’ll have an entirely new wardrobe made for you, should you like it. They’re terribly obsessed with fashion there, and I think you’d look very fine in high-collared blue, unless that’s gone out while I’ve been away.” He must have seen my bafflement, for after a moment’s pause he continued, “Don’t worry. It won’t be any trouble at all. I shall have to have my tailor make up new clothes for me as well if I want to look presentable. I simply thought that I might bring you along and make a day of it.”

  “Royston,” I began, then snapped to attention at once. “When must I be ready?”

  “Ten minutes, if you can,” Royston said. “I’ll leave you to it.” He gave me a private smile before ducking out.

  I was ready in six.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THOM

  I began to have dreams of flying.

  This wasn’t so surprising. I’d never been up in the air before Rook manhandled me onto Havemercy, and it was such an incredible thing I didn’t wonder at the impression it left upon me. Yet at the same time, in the course of just one night, Rook had managed to throw off my entire balance, ruin all my equilibrium, and send all my assumptions into the sort of tailspin he’d maneuvered at one point over the Cobalt Range. I didn’t know what to make of it—or of him.

  The most I knew was that I couldn’t stop dreaming about it.

  I couldn’t get the grease out of my hair or the soot out from under my fingernails, and sometimes in the night I startled myself awake by catching the lingering smell of sulfur still clinging to my skin. Naturally, this meant I spent most of my time weary and also useless—for now that the airmen were back in the air, it seemed that the purpose for my presence was obsolete. At any moment I expected to kiss all dreams of a grant from th’Esar good-bye. My one reprieve was, now that all the airmen were doing nightly raids, everything smelled of smoke and ash and grease, so at least Chief Sergeant Adamo wouldn’t notice one more man in the Airman who reeked of it.

  It was then that the invitation arrived. Or rather, all fifteen of them.

  There was one for each of the airmen, and one for me. We were all guests of honor at th’Esar’s ball tomorrow evening as a part of the citywide festivities to celebrate our impending victory, which was apparently much closer at hand than anyone had known until now. The few times I’d left the Airman to clear my head, the city had been full of uncertainty, men and women not liking what it meant that the raids had started back up again without warning. Thremedon was too far from the border to see the effects of the war in the city itself, but the people weren’t deaf, and those in Miranda especially must have heard the raid siren going off every night. The last thing I’d expected now was a festival. Then again, it would probably do everyone some good, and if the end of the war was truly as close as th’Esar said, then we were all due a little celebration.

  It was only that, to my eyes, th’Esar’s ball was going to be much more like a performance evaluation than a party. I was reminded that the Dragon Corps was especially required at the ball, in order to show off their newly acquired etiquette and manners.

  I thought I was going to be sick when I read this final, personal addendum on my invitation. We hadn’t done our exercises in weeks, and there wasn’t a man in the lot who had any reason to make anything other than a fool out of me for all the torture I’d put them through. Showing them up in front of one another with those role cards had seemed a brilliant idea at the time, but it certainly hadn’t done anything to dispel the animosity between me and Rook. I knew that without Rook’s support, I would be completely disgraced in front of everyone. It was quite possible there’d be another international incident.

  In short, I was going to be ruined.

  Since there was no way around it, I resigned myself to it. When th’Esar himself sent his personal tailor to fit me with suitable attire for the coming festivities, I held out my arms and let my measurements be taken with a sort of mechanical numbness.

  And I was still dreaming of being up in the air, the electric friction and the sheer exhilaration of almost dying, the world falling away beneath me, the wild madman’s cries Rook let out as he dove toward the ground. It was quite obvious I’d lost my mind.

  I didn’t see much of Rook himself after that night, for it seemed that he was called out most often despite the arrangement of signing up that Adamo had explained to me one day when we’d found ourselves both in the common room at the same time with no polite way of excusing ourselves. As for Adamo, he continued to display the same peculiar kindness toward me that he had since the war had started back up, and whether it was simply pity rather than an appreciation of my position or skills, I didn’t know.

  I had a feeling it was the former, but I would still take what I could get.

  Curiosity continued to overwhelm me—or perhaps it was simply that I could still smell on my skin the evidence of a city being burnt weeks after the fact. In any case, when next I found myself accompanied in the common room by a noisy game of darts that appeared to have no rules to it whatsoever, I let my interest get the better of me.

  “Why is it that Rook goes out so often?” I was combing over my notes in an attempt to gather at least a concise report of what I’d learned in my time here, that I might have something to present to th’Esar when he demanded it.

  “Well, he’s the best, isn’t he?” Niall threw his dart, whereupon it stuck deep into the wall. He punched the air, and gave his companions a condescending look. Whatever their target was, I could only assume he’d hit it dead center.

  “Well,” said Raphael, “and he signs up for all the extra shifts.”

  “Is he kind of like a madman?” I said without thinking.

  Niall only laughed while Compagnon went to the wall, examining the shapes made by the darts with what I thought looked like a compass.

  “It doesn’t count,” he said at last, and Raphael held out his hand as though expecting to be paid.

  Niall ignored him. “There’re the fourteen of us, yeah? Three a night, if we go out every night, then it depends on what you fly because you’ve got to balance out your attributes.”

  Compagnon set to giggling over “attributes.” I listened like a student.

  “Anything more than that is extra, see? So if the fighting’s really bad, and we want a leg up, we’ll take the girls in twice a night,” Niall went on. “The extra shifts used to be real necessary when the war was wilder years back and th’Esar didn’t want to give them any kind of a chance to rebuild. And it’s a volunteer system, see, only no one really wants to sign up for any of those shifts unless they’re assigned to ’em proper, since it means that much less sleep, so Adamo used to just put our names up there; didn’t even bother disguising his handwriting, just wrote ’em up there neat as you please.”

  I nodded, swallowing the urge to polish his speech. With the ball looming in my mind’s eye, I had to be particularly gracious if I had any hope of earning their sympathy and cooperation.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Niall concluded, “because we’re all keen on the flying, else we wouldn’t be here, you know? But Rook’s—Rook’s built like a dragon himself—more comfortable in the air than he is on the ground,
plus he’ll blast right through anyone as tries to get in his way.”

  “Also,” said Compagnon slyly, “he’s made of metal, so that he can go all night long.”

  Raphael groaned and threatened to stick him with the compass in what sounded like a not only painful but quite physically impossible feat.

  I wanted to ask how many of them had ever flown with passengers, but something bid me hold my tongue.

  There hadn’t—so far as I could see—been any consequences for Rook having taken me up on his dragon. It seemed odd to think that no one might have noticed, when it had changed something so surely within me. I felt as though the information must have been branded across my forehead in a way entirely different from the ash under my fingernails and the greasy smell of firesmoke still clinging to my hands and hair.

  More than once after that night I’d dreamed of the fires in Molly, and woke with my heart pounding to find myself alone, a shaft of moonlight spilling across the floor of the Airman’s common room.

  If Rook had known how I felt about fire, then surely he would have done it on purpose, but I couldn’t see fit to accuse him of the things that weren’t his fault, especially as those occurred so few and far between.

  I went for a walk that evening to collect my thoughts.

  Certainly, when I’d been put to the challenge of rehabilitating th’Esar’s Dragon Corps, I hadn’t agreed to anything like exile. The city stretched from the door of the Airman, same as it had from the ’Versity, and there was no reason for me to stay locked away like a heroine of fairy tales—though as luck would have it, the airmen would have paid more attention if I’d been possessed of breasts and a skirt—and my obstinacy in this regard was faintly maddening. The more time passed, the less inclined I was to leave the building; now, when I went for a walk, it was simply up and down the halls, being turned about by my surroundings like a rat in a maze.