Page 30 of Fortune's Blade

It was beautiful and she was beautiful, and raw and dangerous and different in this strange new place. I suddenly understood what Tanet had seen below, and why he had buzzed us earlier, to force her to show who she was inside. She hadn’t changed, but she may as well have done. Tonight, the human part of her was a thin veneer over something far wilder and more primal.

But I said none of what I was thinking. I somehow doubted that Claire, who had yet to come to terms with her other half, would appreciate it. And considering that I was still figuring out how to deal with my own alter ego after five hundred years, I could hardly fault her.

I rested my forearms on the stone instead, which wasn’t like the weather worn stuff everywhere else. This looked as if it had faced a great assault at some point, one that had probably involved dragon fire as it had a melted, lava-like appearance. Burnt and discolored, it dripped down the mellow, golden hued stone like the wax on top of a candle.

We stood there for a while, but nobody joined us. I hadn’t expected Tanet to do so, as he’d said his piece and was smart enough to know that you didn’t have to plant a seed twice. But Louis-Cesare surprised me. He wasn’t the type to let me out of his sight in a place like this, not that we had been in any places like this.

Yet he also didn’t come.

Perhaps he suspected that Claire needed a moment. I thought the same and didn’t press. We just stood there, watching silently as the sun edged closer and closer to the horizon, deepening the purple hues in the valley below and lending the clouds pink and lavender underbellies that inevitably made me think of my friend’s other half.

She must have been thinking about it, too, because when she glanced at me, her eyes were wet. “I’m sorry,” she said, blinking. “I . . . didn’t mean for you to see that.”

“See what?” I asked, assuming that she was talking about the tears. “You have every right to be upset. Your brother was being a dick.”

“No—or rather, yes, he doesn’t approve of basically any life choices I’ve made. But that wasn’t what . . . I mean, I didn’t want you to see . . . you know . . ..”

“I know . . . what?” I asked.

“You know! The thing.”

“There were a lot of things,” I said, thinking about the strangest dinner I’d never had a chance to eat. And doubted that I would.

I wondered if they had room service, and what the menu would look like if they did.

“Stop it, Dory!” Claire said, frowning. “You know what I’m talking about. The . . . rodent.”

The last word was said in a whisper, although I didn’t know why. She’d let it go, after all. “What about it?”

“What about—” she broke off. And then she just stood there, glaring at me. “I almost ate it!”

“Yes?”

“What do you mean yes? Aren’t you concerned about that?”

Judging by her tone, I was supposed to answer in the affirmative. But I still didn’t get it. Of all the things to be worried about today, a furry appetizer was pretty far down on my list.

“I eat steak, Claire,” I pointed out. “Rare.”

“But not alive!”

“And my father’s family regularly dine on blood—the human kind. I don’t think I have a right to judge.”

“I wasn’t talking about you judging me! I know better than to think that.”

“Then what?”

She turned away and stared out over the mountains some more. “I am in control,” she said after a moment, with an undercurrent of savagery in her voice. “I am. Not whatever . . . not my other half. Alright?”

“Okay,” I said, which was apparently also the wrong answer, because she whirled on me. It was a shock, but not because of the temper on her face—Claire was kind of known for her temper. But because that motion hadn’t been normal.

Some of the few perks to my condition were excellent reflexes and senses as sharp as a vamp’s. I was supposed to see everything, yet I hadn’t seen her move. Hadn’t tracked it with my eyes, felt the rush of air as she moved, or heard a change in her breathing. Yet suddenly she was there, all of half of an inch away, her eyes full-on purple with yellow flames in the centers, and her breath hot, hot, hot on my face.

I instinctively moved back, putting some distance between us. Maybe more than I’d planned, because she stopped and just stared at me, as wide eyed and frozen as she had been in the dining hall. Before suddenly crumpling to the ground and beginning to sob.

For a moment, I just looked at her, nonplussed, and then went down onto my haunches and awkwardly hugged her. I wasn’t a hugger and Claire knew it, which was probably why it worked. She looked up at me out of tear-flooded green eyes and a flushed face caught between pain and anger.

“Oh, stop it, Dory! I know how you hate that sort of thing!”