Page 129 of Nine-Tenths

Chapter Thirty-Five

Laura catches up to me as I'm stalking out of the ballroom.

"And how are you enjoying your first Draconic fete?" she asks, trying to manners-away the scene that turning on my heel and storming away is causing.

"You mean, now that I'm aware that I'm immortal because Dav and I get freaky?" I snarl, grim, and sweaty. "I can’t believe I was so starstruck that I missed the part where you should bedead."

"Ah," Laura says, keeping pace.

I crane around just once to meet Dav's eyes. He’s standing in the middle of the dance floor, still and bereft, surrounded by chatting little sycophants. I can hear them all laughing about our hashtag—"Alvalin! How modern!"—utterly missing how tight and miserable he is.

I want him to come after me, to soothe, to explain.

I don’t want him to touch me.

I don’t knowwhatmy feels are doing.

And I’m not sure where I’m going, just that I know it has to be somewhere Dav is not right now.

"Oh,andthat I just found out what his middle name means," I add, slaloming around a glittering rainbow of brocade-clad gawkers. "Andthat he had a Favorite before me? Who isdead? Oh, no, I’m fine. Totally peachy keen!"

"Perhaps we should have a word in private," Laura suggests a bit desperately.

She corrals me into the cool, refined quiet of a library. And just like that, I am alone in a room with Laura-McFreaking-Secord, heroine of the Battle of Beaver Dams, the woman who walked all night to warn Dav and the other British officers of a planned American attack after they’d occupied and used her house as a secret base. A woman I should, by all right, respect like crazy, and right now justhatea little bit.

I want to scream. I want to break something. Instead, I cross to the window, shove up the sash, stick my overheated head out into the cool night air, and do Gem’s stupid fucking yoga breaths.

The Don Valley spreads out below me, wild and wooded, the moonlight glimmering on the rushing river. Obviously, I like that there's a forest in the middle of the city, with just a bridge connecting Old York to the rest of Greater Toronto Area through the undeveloped greenery. Entering the historic capital of Upper Canada feels like you're stepping back through time.

I just hate that the attitudes of everyone here are still stuck in that era, too.

Laura sits in one of the artful magazine-spread-perfect chairs by the fireplace and patiently waits for me to get my shit back under control. When I feel like I can talk without hurling, I joinher, perched on the edge of the chair, too revved up to relax. She matches my posture as if we were Regency romance heroines in each other's confidence. Which, in a way, we kind of are?

"Don't be upset with Alva," Laura says. "He’s always kept his secrets close."

"I’m not," I choke out. I’m mad at the fuckheads around Dav who think his personal tragedies are titillatingbon mots.

Laura chuckles, and I'm struck with the impression that she's quick-witted in a calculating way, hidden under biddable charm. I hate to admit it, but I can see how it would work with Simcoe's Father Knows Best bullshit. I bet she rides herd on him and he doesn't even notice. I wonder how that works, when Simcoe has a wife. The fact Laura is alive means she and Simcoe have to swap spit at least semi-regularly. Eugh.

"I'm sure you've noticed that there's a, hm, let's call it an aversion to transparency, among dragons."

I snort. "That's a polite way to say it."

"It's uncouth to discuss such things as The Gift openly, in much the same way humans tend not to explicitly discuss the sexual part of their marriages when they declare love for their spouse."

"Then how does anyone… I mean, you, how do you make a decision of whether you want to be a Favorite? How can there be informed consent if there's noinformation?"

Laura chuckles again. "'Informed consent.' How modern."

"It's only fair to know what you're getting into before you get into it." I point to the black velvet ribbon around her throat, with the Flame-Laurel-Maple Leaves-Hand-with-Dagger motif set in a cameo at the hollow of her throat. "Did you know what that meant before you put it on?"

"Of course," Laura says.

"I didn't."

Her expression softens. "Alva grew up in the heart of the British court, did you know that?"

I had once chided myself for wanting to make out with someone who, for all I knew, might actually be a Prince. It makes my stomach lurch to hear Laura lay out that whatever his position is in the puddle of blue blood, it means that he's important enough to basically grow up in a palace.