by Shana Abe
His hair, that dark vanity of his youth, now a mix of limp human strands and gold metal dragon.
His earlobe was torn. He'd worn an earring before, an emerald on a hoop; he supposed the sanf had stolen that as well. And he was emaciated. Their kind was lean in general but if he brought the lamp in his hand close enough, he could see the outline of his skull. He must have been without food or drink for months, without breath, all that while.
Worst of all was the scar that began above his hairline and ripped all the way down the right side of his face, halfway down his neck. He was lucky not to have lost an eye—or his head.
The fight in the woods. The sanf coming after him with swords and knives and bullets, and a hood. The spell of the diamond sinking over him even as he fought them, telling him not to Turn— but he was—look at his hands, he was—and someone clouted him in the face with a sword—
He'd backed away from the mirror. He had not looked into it again.
Rhys centered himself better in the bed, closed his eyes. He thought of Darkfrith. Of the woods and the lake, and the falcons and gannets that would sometimes venture to hunt fish in the River Fier. Crickets, serenading him from the bracken. Waterfalls. Swimming, weightless. Diving like smoke through the cool waters ...
His eyes opened. His body clenched, and more feathers puffed free.
After his discovery of the mirror, alone in this room, he'd tried to Turn to smoke. He'd tried three times before it worked, and even then, he'd only been able to hold it a few minutes.
Smoke should be so easy. Smoke was the most elemental of Gifts, and it should have been easy. It had not hurt, per se—not like his human body did. But he hadn't been able to hold it. Against his will, he'd felt himself gathering weight again, felt his limbs solidify, felt the floor beneath his
feet.
Three more times, he'd done it. Each time he'd been able to remain vapor a little longer than the last. But when he'd tried that extra fifth Turn, nothing had happened. His Gifts were numbed.
He closed his eyes again, tried to relax the knotted muscles of his back. At least he was clean again: with his Turns, all the dirt and grime of his imprisonment, the dried sooty sludge from the rain, had been left behind.
His hair, he thought with a trace of self-mocking humor, must look much better. He supposed that was something.
Paris was an unquiet beast. He heard no crickets here, no soothing splash of waterfalls. He heard humans. Many, many, humans. He heard dogs and cattle and chickens, and somewhere far overhead, a flock of geese honking lovelorn to the moon. He was certain he wasn't going to be able to sleep, not even in the midst of this soft bed, and so when he awoke at some undefined time later, he thought he must have simply been lost in thought for too long.
But it was darker, and it was more quiet. Not so many sounds of people. Not even animals. Just breathing. His own, a deep, slow, rasp that scraped from the bottom of his lungs. And Zoe's, lighter, more even, no rasp at all.
She sat beside him on the bed, unspeaking. He felt the curls of her hair brushing his arm.
"Zee," he whispered. He didn't have to whisper, it wasn't as if anyone else was going to hear them, but she was here, and she seemed naked, and his first raging instinct was quick hard lust— followed instantly by guilt. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." She whispered as well. She leaned closer, touched her fingertips to the quilt; he felt that, all the way through the cotton. How her fingers bunched the material and dragged it slowly down his chest.
Perhaps he was asleep after all. Perhaps he was dreaming. Only an idiot would think to lift his hand and wrap his claws—gently, very gently—around her wrist to stay her. But he did it anyway.
"What are you doing?"
"I can't imagine you're that obtuse." He thought he saw her smile, a little smile, hardly there. She did not release the quilt. She pulled it farther down, all the way past his stomach. And his hand did nothing to stop her. His hand only moved with her, not resisting, no longer a part of his best-of-intentions resolve.
"I really don't think this is what we—should be doing right now," he tried. He swallowed, fighting the incredible sensation of her fingers rubbing a circle against his skin through the cloth. "You're tired. You're grieving."
"This is what you wanted." She turned her wrist until his fingers opened; she used both arms to inch closer to him, leaned her face down to his. "All those nights you watched me. All those times you stared at me, tried to touch me. All those pretty words about love. You said you wouldn't lie."
"You weren't listening. I said I was proficient at lying, actually. So listen now. This isn't what I want."
She came so close her lips met his: sweet, so sweet and warm; short, teasing contact that rippled pleasure all the way down his body. He felt himself arch with the power of it, rising to her.
"I don't think you're proficient at all. You're doing a terrible job of it."
"The circumstances," he gasped, trying not to move or inhale, "are somewhat intimidating."
"Are they? Good." She kissed him again, full and hard on the mouth, with her hair fragrant on his face and her soft tongue tasting his and Rhys lost himself. He pulled both hands free of the mattress, and goose down floated about them like snowfall.
Easy as silk, she slipped above him, rubbed her bare skin to his. He felt her breasts crushed to his chest, her nipples peaked. As carefully as he could he raised both arms to embrace her, to urge her closer still.
It was the best, best—God, the most amazing dream ever. All his pain forgotten, drowned in her touch, in her heat, in the heavy curtain of silver that hung between them. He wanted to run his fingers through the strands and it killed him that he could not. He wanted to stroke her as she was stroking him, her hands hot and urgent all up and down his body—and he couldn't, he wouldn't.
Because he might hurt her.
Because he might bring her hurt.
"Zoe. Zee. Stop."
She cupped his face and held him for her kiss, and despite himself Rhys felt his neck strain as he reached up to kiss her in return. When he couldn't breathe any longer, when he thought he'd black out with the hunger for her, she turned her face and pressed her lips to his cheek. To the scar.
"I'm not going to do this with you now," he said, as quickly as he could; he wanted the words out while he could still speak them. He squeezed his eyes closed so he wouldn't see her face. "I love you, and you're not ready, and I'm not going to do this."
"This is just another way to love."
"No." He turned his head away from her. "This is one of the most sacred ways. It's meant— between us, between mates, it's meant to be sacred."
He felt her chest rising and falling against his. "More pretty words. Where were your principles the other night, when you were in another man's body while with me?"
"It's different now."
She stilled.
"I love you," he whispered again.
She rolled away and off the bed, gone in a tempest of stale-smelling feathers. He still couldn't bring himself to look, so he only listened as she walked, very swiftly, out of his room.
When he finally woke up the next afternoon—he thought it must be afternoon, judging by the shadows—the maison was empty. Zoe's belongings were missing. James's belongings were missing.
Even the diamonds from the garden were missing.
He couldn't believe it. He did not want to believe it. She'd actually abandoned him.
Rhys stalked a final circle around her room: the neatly made bed, the washbasin and chamber pot empty, the drawers of the bureau and the door to the closet politely closed, everything left tidy as by a houseguest departing who did not mean to return.
"Right," he muttered. "We'll just see about that."
Chapter Twenty-Two
She gave the diamonds away, one by one. She ventured down the back lanes of St. Antoine, boulevards that grew smaller and more crooked with every step, buildings pushed and crammed together so tightly that the only
way to tell one from another was by the changing colors of paint. Wan-faced Others stared at her from stoops, out from windows. When she wandered too near a cluster of grubby children gathered around a spinning top, they surged toward her, hands reaching.
Zoe gave them each a gemstone.
A man with a red beard who was missing an arm and smelled of beer.
A girl with a baby on her hip and a toddler behind her crying soul-sobbing tears.
An elderly woman.
A toothless young man.
The last diamond, heavy and round and colored canary yellow, went to a gray-haired fellow surrounded with cats—he'd been feeding them before she walked up, feeding them painstakingly the crumbs of something from a greasy sheet of waxed paper. All the cats scattered, and the old man looked after them without trying to call them back, his hands trembling.
She took up his nearest one, pressed the diamond into his palm, and then added a louis for good measure.
It took some time after that to trace her way back to a street respectable enough to house a grocer's market. A few of the very first children she'd encountered recognized her as she walked the other way down their lane, cried aloud and stampeded across the cobbles to her, and persisted in begging even after she told them she had nothing more to give.
"Madame! Madame!"followed her for blocks, and those children picked up more as they went, starveling boys and girls trailing along behind her like she played a magical pipe to lure them.
She had dressed too well for this faubourg. It was difficult to judge sometimes; everyone in Darkfrith was the same, barring the marquess and his kin, all the villagers were the same. The same fine houses, the same clean streets, the same fresh foods and imported wines in every home, even the farms and shepherd's huts.
Paris was not like that. Perhaps there was no other place on earth like that.
She was wearing her last French gown, salmon-pink satin with yards of deep orchid lace, and even with her shawl of plain wool she would have done better with the cook's second frock, but when she'd arisen this morning she hadn't known what she was about to do. She hadn't thought through anything beyond leaving the maison, removing herself and her belongings and everything that had belonged to Hayden. Even the diamonds he'd buried. Even the jasper, which she'd already thrown into the river as far as she could.
Zoe waited until she and her entourage of urchins reached an especially narrow passage, one with tilted buildings looming so far over the street the upper floors had been propped in place on stilts and all trace of the sun was blocked. As soon as she stepped fully into the shadows she whirled, raising her arms and Turning invisible, rushing abruptly toward them with the most unearthly howl she could manage.
Every single child stopped, stared, and screamed, fleeing in all directions. She was alone within seconds.
Not quite alone.
"They'll have nightmares for years," predicted the being who had been smoke just an instant before. She became seen, turned about, and found him leaning naked against a peeling house that cast some of the deepest shadows. "I'm fairly certain there's a reason the council frowns on that sort of behavior."
"They may add it to my list of transgressions." She looked him up and down. "What about Turning in public? I'm fairly certain that's forbidden too."
"Rebels, the both of us," he said with a shrug. "But at least I'm dragon enough to face my consequences."
A woman bent out from the open window above them, peering around to discover the source of the commotion below. Zoe ignored her.
"You're saying I can't face consequences?"
He slanted forward a bit, raised his hand and waved up at the woman, who stared at him with her mouth agape before hastily withdrawing inside. "I'm not the one who ran away."
"No. You have permission to leave Darkfrith, remember? Glorious son of the Alpha, et cetera, et cetera."
"I'm not talking about Darkfrith." He scowled at her. "I'm talking about now."
"Now? Right now I'm about to go procure us some foodstuff. In case you failed to notice, we suffer a rather severe lack of domestics to serve us. I haven't run away."
Another woman appeared in the Dutch half doorway across the street. She glared at them, shouted a name back over her shoulder.
"Your things were gone," Rhys said, straightening. He limped a step toward her, his hair falling longer than she last remembered, a look on his face that pierced her like a rapier. "Everything. All of it. After last night, after what happened—I thought you'd left."
"So you chased me all the way here? I don't know if I should be more insulted or impressed."
"Be impressed," he said, after a moment. "Your scent is exceptionally subtle. A snowflake in a blizzard. I'll have to douse you in rosewater every morning just to find you for luncheon back at Chasen."
A man pushed the woman in the doorway aside; he had the aspect of a butcher, a close-shaved head and burly arms, a shirt streaked in red rust. Zoe tucked down her chin and began to walk. Rhys stepped back into the shadows and went to smoke, a hovering wisp above her.
"I wouldn't desert you," she murmured. "Kindly don't make the same mistake again."
He lowered, became a brief, twining mist about her face and shoulders, almost stroking, before rising above her again.
As apologies went, it was nearly sufficient.
* * *
That night, she took him back to Tuileries. It was where she had already reestablished her former suite, resheeted the bed, redraped the mirror. Better to leave the maison before it was to be turned over to its landlord, who had no idea who they were, anyway. She could not envision maintaining the illusion of beclawed Lord Rhys as an ordinary man in a Parisian hotel or country inn. They needed privacy. The sanf inimicus would be well aware of them now, so they needed a place no sanf inimicus would think to look.
And there was a deeper truth she would not say aloud. She needed to escape the last hints of Hayden: her memories of him in each chamber of the maison, sandalwood yet lingering. It had been difficult enough to enter his room: the comb and brush and aquamarine-rimmed snuffbox. He knew how she disliked his habit; he'd made certain never to indulge in front of her. She'd been unable to bring herself to touch the pillows on his bed, where a single golden hair still shone. She'd shoved all his possessions into his portmanteau and stored it far back in the closet of the palace apartment. She would return everything to his parents. She would keep only his ring.
Since she'd been here last, a pair of swans had taken up residence in one of the garden ponds. Zoe was sorry to see them go, silent and massive, taking flight across the liquid silver surface like water-dragons, long necks stretched and wings of thick perfect feathers.
She and Rhys watched them together, outlined in moonlight. The back of his hand touched hers; he kept it there, unmoving until she nodded toward the palace and drew him onward.
He was displeased about the solitary bed, she could see that. But she wasn't going to sleep on the floor and told him that if he wanted to, he could, and he was a fool to even consider it.
"Your virtue is safe from me," she said, dry. "I shan't trouble you again."
"Mine is safe," he muttered, still glowering at the bed. "Most reassuring."
She walked to the closet to find her nightgown. "Sleep where you wish. You might sample a hundred different rooms here before anyone discovered you. But this bed is comfortable."
"Is it feather?" he asked, lifting his voice a little, but she didn't trouble to answer. She knew he could smell the down as well as she, and better feathers than straw.
When she emerged again, he was exactly where she'd left him, only now he was glowering at her.
"Can't you see? I can't sleep beside you."
"Stars above! I told you I'd leave you alone."
He hunched his shoulders and angled his body away from hers, his gaze fixed churlish to the crimson walls. "It's not that." One fisted hand slowly raised into the lamplight; gold glimmer and blades. "It's this. I don't want
to hurt you. If I'm asleep, I won't know what I'm doing."
"You won't hurt me."
His eyes cut to hers. "Your faith is gratifying, if extremely misplaced. I'm not a light sleeper. You did see the mattress back at the maison, did you not?"
"I did. And I also see this." She walked forward across the chilled floor, the folds of her gown flowing and rippling behind her. She lifted his hand daintily, mindful of his talons, and held it up between them. "They're shorter now. Did you notice? Your hair is longer and more brown, your claws are shorter. Even your eyes seem a deeper green. And that's in just a few days. Soon you'll be much better, I think."
He stared down at his hands, marveling. "You're right. They are shorter."
"Just sleep on your side," she said, and crossed to the lamp upon the floor, blew out the flame.
Darkness. The same shrouded gloom she'd grown used to since she'd left her English home, far more comfortable and known than the little girl's room at the maison. The smells of the palace, the antique curtains and bed, the tapestry above her like a pale patterned magical carpet, sending her off into dreams.
She fell asleep before Rhys made up his mind, but awoke in the night to feel the heat of his body against hers: chaste, his back pressed to hers, the soles of their feet barely touching, a single sheet covering them both. It nudged her out of that deadened, exhausted place where she'd been hiding: Never before had she lain in a bed with a man, any man. It felt foreign and wrong, and at the same time ordinary and exactly right. She had the drowsy notion she'd awoken to him like this, the two of them like this, so many times before she'd lost count, and yet it must have only been because he'd been her shadow, her familiar. The spirit that had watched over her and discovered her dragon reflection without her even knowing.
And now he was no shadow.
He wore no nightshirt to bed, only breeches. He wore no cologne, and so his scent was purely his. Zoe curled her fingers into her pillow and inhaled it: Rhys. Summer woods and smoke. Nature and grass and outdoors. Enticement.