Page 75 of Nine-Tenths

Chapter Fifty-Two

S o apparently there are taksie-backsies.

Simcoe's expression catches in a rictus of fury. "You don't dare —you can't —"

"I'd rather die than spend another moment attached to you!" she confesses, heaving like she is bringing up black sludge with the words.

"Laura," Dav gasps, stricken.

"Let go of her!" I shout. "Somebody help her! Dav!"

"I… I don't know what to…" Dav stammers, curling his arm over my shoulder to keep me from launching myself at the abusive asshole.

"Can’t you Collect her?" I hiss. "Can’t you—"

"I don’t know," Dav confesses. "Mine Own, I don’t—"

"Enough, Frank," Laura snarls. "Isn't it enough yet?"

"Pick it up!" Simcoe orders her. Laura doesn't move. "I said pick it up, you stupid bitch !"

Above us, scandalized dragons hiss as one. Leicester springs over the rail of the royal box and scoops up Laura's token, before retreating back up the stairs with all the gravity of processing a dead body.

Simcoe remembers, suddenly, that he has an audience. He looks down at Laura's arm, then up at the dragons watching him. Judging him. Simcoe lets go. Then he whirls on us.

"Frank, please ," Dav tries, placating. "Calm."

"Calm!" Frank snarls. He's got a new target now. "You and your snowflake feminazi Favorites ! You never learn, Alva!"

"I'm not the snowflake here—" I protest.

"Control your mouthy little twink or I'll do it for you—"

"You will not !" I yelp.

"You never learn, Alva, you never—"

Laura gasps, scuttling up the stairs, breathing ragged, Jesus Christ, she's bleeding . There's a gash in her bicep. She's staring at the blood, dumbfounded. "You…" she gasps, sucking on the air like she's been drowning for two hundred years, and has finally surfaced. "You selfish… fuck ."

Faster than I can follow, Simcoe whirls and lunges for Laura. She ducks away, but too slow, humanly slow , and everyone in the room surges to their feet, gasping in horror, because it's clear that he means to—that he'll—and she's his Favorite —how could—

Several of Simcoe's back-bench dragons get there first.

Simcoe draws up short when a woman hisses in his face, mouth sparking. The others shuffle Laura to the back of the courtroom, protecting the treasure that her own dragon has forgotten holds value.

"And this is the chaos that you will allow these two young fools to sow among our court?" Simcoe seethes.

"It is my court, Lord Simcoe," the queen reminds him darkly. "And we will have order in it."

"Your Majesty!" Simcoe protests.

The queen addresses me. "Your argument, Colin Dragon's Own, is that we should return colonies to the Indigenous dragons because they can manage them better than we can, isolated on our throne?"

"Yes, Ma'am," I say nervously, glancing between the queen, and Simcoe, and Laura. Someone in a paramedic's uniform is already seeing to her arm. Why don't they take her to safety? I don't—

"Master Levesque!" the queen says, voice like a whip-crack, and I yank my attention back to her. "Proceed!"

Laura's safe , I tell myself. She's got a wall of scales between her and Simcoe.

I can do this. Laura needs you to do this. Focus.

I step out from behind Dav. "Here's the thing, Your Majesty and, um, distinguished dragons and humans of the court, up there," I say lamely, craning my head up to the gallery and waving. "Hi, by the way."

Someone chuckles, but it's not mean.

Simcoe is so disgusted he spits. A smoldering hole appears in the carpet.

"Listen, I get it, there was Empire-mania going around. Europe’s crowded.

Territories are divided and subdivided and sub-subdivided.

After centuries and centuries of nesting here, to be promised a wide-open New World devoid of dragons and rich with resources?

It sounds tempting as hell, I get it, okay. "

"But it was not wide-open, Dragon's Own," says the queen.

"No, Ma'am. It wasn't," I agree, turning back to her. "You were desperate to be the dragon sleeping on the biggest pile, so you —England, Spain, France, The Netherlands, Germany, Russia—you made like Rome. But we know what happened to Rome, right?"

Simcoe scoffs. "The Roman Empire failed because of the weakness of lesser dragons than Julius Cesar."

"The Roman Empire failed because it couldn't serve the territories it seized, which caused infighting," I retort. "I mean, also, the lead pipes helped. But you get me, right?"

One of Simcoe's still-loyal backbenchers sneers. "You believe we should withdraw, despite all we've done to develop the colonies?"

The sound of frustration I make is distinctly dragonish.

I hope Dav is proud.

"It doesn't matter who can manage the Territory 'better'," I say, with finger quotes. "That's the same damn excuse you used to steal it in the first place. It's a matter of what serves both the people and the land itself best, and that's not The Great Confidence."

"So you would have us walk among the people?" a dragon calls down from the gallery. "Labor for them?"

"Exactly!" I shout back up. "Dragons are happiest when their treasures are within reach—but you spend all your time shut away in castles. Doesn't it feel unnatural ? Don’t you secretly hate it?"

A murmur of agreement ripples like a swelling tide.

"It's shameful," I add. "You owe it to the dragons you displaced, you murdered , to do better than this.

All of us Settlers do, not just the governments, not just the dragons!

You have all this power to help. Instead you sit on it, squander it, hoard it, and for what?

You'll still be wealthy when you give away a fraction of what you have, and it will make the world an immeasurably better place.

" I point to the briefcase. "If you would only read what Pedra and her colleagues—"

"The childish ramblings of a student?" Simcoe jeers.

"First, I'm not a student, I graduated with a degree in this shit! And so did everyone else who worked on this—they're professionals. And second, despite your middle name, I need you to literally choke and die right now, okay?"

"Colin!" Dav, yelps. "Manners!"

" What about my name—" Simcoe starts but I don't give him the satisfaction of getting out the rest.

"Sorry, it was Francis Alibbed Gwilliam Simcoe, wasn't it?" I seethe. Dragons and humans already in the know rustle as if settling uncomfortable scales, whispering to one another.

"Colin—" Dav tries to caution, but I'm too angry now.

"How apt would you say it is?" I sneer. "You gave Dav George .

Famous slayer of dragons, meant to remind him of the one mistake he's ever made.

" I hold up a finger, righteous, rigid. Then I tilt it down to aim it directly between Simcoe's eyes.

"Do you know what I did when I learned that?

I looked up yours. Alibbed? Isn't that IOld English? For Survivor ?"

"I survived a battle that should have been my end!"

"Oh, I read about that," I say, theatrically indolent.

"In Spain, right? Your father sent you away to fight under Wellington, and you think he should have kept you by his side. He didn’t pick you as his second in command because you weren't good enough , Frankie.

Dav was top of his class. So Dav was the one who marched dear-old-dad's forces all the way to Washington, and Dav was the match that burned their Presidential Mansion to the ground.

Dav was the one who was rewarded with territory, with glory in battle, with your father's respect.

While you barely escaped with your life.

And you've spent the rest of it wondering if daddy wanted you gone.

If maybe he gifted Dav a vital march because he didn't trust you with it.

If maybe Dav was the son he always wanted. And doesn't that just eat you alive ."

Dav grabs a fistful of my blazer, right at the small of my back. It's a warning. It's not necessary.

I know I'm on thin ice.

I've just decided I don't care.

"You let your whore speak for you?" Simcoe says. Laura's expression crumples in horror at the slur. "Is your allegiance to your own kind—"

"I owe you nothing," Dav rumbles. "Least of all when Colin's right."

"Upper Canada is mine . I inherited it, and you continue to hold territory within its bounds at my pleasure.

You serve under me," Simcoe snarls. His tongue is suddenly long and lashing, tail thrashing behind him, face slowly growing longer with every word.

It's terrifying, this uncanny version of him.

And then he does the unthinkable.

Five things happen at once.

One: Simcoe leaps across the room and grabs me by the neck. Skin on skin.

It's so fast that his hand is gripping my chin viciously, the claws pressing into my cheeks, my back pressed to his front, before I realize what's happened.

Two: I get very, very scared.

Once, a long time ago it feels now, Dav had scared me.

Dav's fangs, and claws, the way they slid so easily into my arm.

It was just one moment, and never repeated.

I never feared him again. Was shocked by it, yes.

Swooned once, yes. Terrified for him when he'd frenzied, sure. But scared of Dav himself? Never.

I'm scared now.

Three: Simcoe hauls me into the sunken pit. My jacket tears off in Dav's fist. I freeze up as he drags me around, not daring to struggle with his claws so close to my jugular. His other hand slides across my chest, disgustingly intimate, before coming to rest at the base of my throat.

Now is not the time for a panic attack, I scold myself, even as my lungs burn and my whole body starts to shake. Keep your shit together!

Four: Silence falls so quickly it's as if the whole population of Whitehall has been sucked into a blackhole.

And then, filling the void left by the horrified shock of watching a dragon lay hands on another's Favorite—lay hands with the intent to harm —a collective sound of disgust and alarm crashes across the rafters like a tidal wave.

Five: Dav screams. And I mean screams .

There is nothing remotely human-sounding in the noise. It's a shriek like tearing metal, filled with fury and fire. Literally. Sparks leap off his tongue. His eyes blaze golden, glowing with the fire he's stoking in his throat. His fingers curl into black-tipped, wickedly sharp talons.

I swallow hard, fighting against the impulse to surge forward, wrap him in my arms, calm and soothe his unimaginable agony at seeing his treasure so violated. But I'll be slashed open if I try.

Simcoe grips my face harder—why the face, it's such a weird and personal place to grab, so showy, but so awkward—and I suck in a stuttering breath that makes Dav pause. He shifts from foot to foot, like a jungle cat aligning his balance before pouncing, eyes wide, watching for his opening.

"He is wrong, " Simcoe snarls, his voice right in my ear, his elongated tongue lashing hard enough that I feel it flick against the shell of my ear.

I wince, and Dav's attention roots to that spot, lips curling back to reveal fangs.

"Yet you insist on having him! I sought to release you from that, sought to save you from your terrible choices, and you refuse my guidance! "

The handshake, I realize.

"That's not for you to decide," Dav counters. "He asks only to be treated as my equal in an inescapable bond he unknowingly consented to."

"He wears your token! And yet you let him command you ! Disgraceful!"

Dav's temper.

"I love Colin! I will not allow anyone to define the terms of our relationship," Dav hisses. "Least of all a poaching, heartless—"

"Poaching!" Simcoe laughs. " Poaching , boy?" He gives me a hard shake. A small prick under my jaw, and blood trickles down my neck. I don't dare lift my hand to wipe it away.

"Get your hands off him."

He touched me on purpose.

"Not until you submit to me," Simcoe snarls. "Not until you admit that your place is subservient to me."

"If you hurt him further I'll—"

Simcoe laughs again, harsh and cruel.

He is touching me on purpose, right now.

"You'll what?" he sneers. "Rip through him to get to me? Murder another Favorite?"

Another collective gasp of shock, another shrieking scream from Dav.

And then a sixth thing happens: I understand.

"You tried to make him kill me," I say. "Just like you made him kill Charlotte."