Page 208 of Nine-Tenths

And this is also where the villain's hubris finally undoes all of his plotting.

Simcoe burbles, but the queen is having none of it.

"Speak again!" she commands, roaring like cannon fire.

"Your Majesty, I didn't—"

"You did!" I cough, ducking around Dav. "You planned both their deaths, and when that didn't work you engineered Dav's isolation, tailor-made his own personal mental fuckingbreakdownfor him."

"Shut your mouth, you useless bedwarmer!" Lt. Gov Horrorshow snarls with increasing desperation.

Around the room, dragons rise to their feet, furious. Favorites reach across aisles to comfort one another. Laura Secord weeps. Her head is high, her posture rigid, her expression like stone. But there are tears running down her cheeks. And there is no one to hug her.

The remaining dragons on Simcoe's side slowly, deliberately, stand up. Walk to the back. Abandon him.

Good.

"Cowards!" he roars at them, then aims the accusation at the rest of the room. "Cowards! Do you know what we could do if wetookwhat we deserve? We are the superior species, andwe," he thumps his chest, "Wehave earned our place at the top! And you want to give away everything we've earned? Everything I've worked so hard for? It'smine!"

Another explosive noise of horror and protest crashes down on us.

Dav… I don't know how else to describe it. Heuncrunches.Heuncrumples. He seems to fill all of his skin, the power and thepresenceradiating off of him so intense that it knocks me back a step. Every cell in my body screams to throw myself at him.

This is the draconic magnetism Dav's been hiding this whole time?

Shit,it's strong.

He reaches up and, slowly, meaningfully, removes his winged circlet and holds it out to me. I take it, press it against my heart.

"Lieutenant Governor Francis-dragoun Alibbed Gwilliam Simcoe," Dav says, silencing the crowd's howls with his gravitas. "I, Alva-draig George Tudor, Marquess of Niagara and son of Y Ddraig Goch'sown bloodline, do hereby charge you with the murder of my Favorite Charlotte Edith Woodley, and with the willfulrepeatedviolation of my Favorite Colin Fergus Levesque."

I blink to hear my name included in the list of his sins, but say nothing. This feels too important, tooformal, to interrupt.

And itmustbe important, because Simcoe goes suddenly, shockingly pale.

"Alva, friend, you can't—"

"Silence!" the queen commands, and Simcoe curls in on himself, twitching. "Proceed, Niagara."

Dav dips his chin regally at the queen, eyes closing briefly, the gold paint on his lids glittering in the sunlight. Then he pins Simcoe to the floor with a gaze so filled with hate and fury that even I quail.

"I challenge you," Dav says.

But it's more like Challenge, with a capital C, withmeaning.

"No," Simcoe whimpers.

In all the ways that Dav uncrumpled, Simcoe now seems to be pulling in on himself like a weasley, flop-sweating black hole.

"I challenge you," Dav repeats. "To a duel.Now."

The noise that washes over the gallery this time is one of excitement.

Dav starts to undress methodically. He hands me each piece of clothing, one-by-one. Too stunned and confused to do anything else, I fold it and set it on the table. He wouldn’t want it wrinkled; he always folds his clothes, even when we’re in the throes of passion. So proper. A hundred-thousand questions press behind my teeth, but the most important, the most vital, blocks them all because I can't ask:Promise me you won't get hurt?

I try not to look at Simcoe, who hesitates before stripping far less elegantly than Dav. Enemy junk is nothing I want burned into my brain. But I do glance at him long enough to catch the raised, ridged gunshot scar that crawls across his back, ugly and deep.

Laura hasn't moved to his side to take his clothes. No one has. The only thing she's focused on isme.I don't know how to read her expression, but I think it's… pity? Sorrow?