“So, biting is a good thing?” Is it the dragon equivalent of kissing? Or is it something more intimate?
Odilia squints at me. “Don’t tell me my cousin hasn’t—No, wait, never mind. I don’t want to know.” She makes a face. “My mother says it’s not proper for a girl to bite a boy first, but that’s so old-fashioned. And I wasn’t about to lose him to Bryn. So I bit him, and he bit me back, and it turns out he’s liked me for years. He was just too shy to do anything about it.” She grins. “I don’t even care that we came in second in the games. It’s the best feeling, when someone likes you back.”
I’m grinning, too. “Isn’t it?” Especially when that someone’s maybe about to tell you they more than just like you.
She gives me a funny look, like I just said something weird.
There’s a flash of light from the stage, as one of the dragons breathes fire. And now I know why we’re sitting this far back, because even though we’re out of danger, I can still feel the heat. Goose bumps prickle along my arms. Other than at Celeste’s party, this is the closest I’ve been to dragon fire since my mother died. It’s amazing and terrifying.
One of the dragons switches to human form and darts into the middle of the stage. It’s a girl, and I think it’s Odilia’s friend. She waves an imaginary sword at the others and says her lines.
Odilia cups her hands to her mouth and shouts something at her. Her friend nods, then starts over, louder this time.
“Is she supposed to be a paladin?” I ask.
Odilia nods. “It’s Hild’s first time playing a human. Amelrik’s supposed to be here to give her some pointers. She’s nervous about getting the details right.”
“I’m human. And a St. George.”
She looks at me like Good for you?
“I just mean that I could answer questions.” I’m pretty sure I know more about humans than Amelrik does.
“You don’t even know what they’re saying.”
“Right, because humans don’t speak Vairlin.”
Odilia waves that away. “In this story, they do.”
“But that’s already not authentic.”
“It doesn’t matter. Use your imagination.”
“But if she’s worried about getting the details right—”
“The important details.” She rolls her eyes. “Just forget about it. Amelrik should be back soon, anyway.”
An uncomfortable silence settles between us. Or at least it feels uncomfortable to me—Odilia doesn’t seem bothered. I try to watch the rehearsal, but I have no idea what they’re saying, and I can’t follow it.
“So, did Bryn end up going to the party?” I ask, partly because I’m bored, but mostly because I’m dying to know.
“Yep. And she had to watch me and Osric together all night.”
“Do you think you and him will . . . ?”
“Get married and have the most beautiful draclings? Yes. My father won’t like it, because Osric’s family isn’t nobility, but Cedric’s his heir, not me, so I think I can wear him down.”
“I was getting at more like if you thought you’d have sex, but I guess that covers it.”
“We already have, but . . .” She glances around, then lowers her voice. “Only in human form.”I swallow. “It’s only been a couple days.”
“Five days, and that’s exactly what I mean! I know only doing it in human form makes me sound like a tease, but I’m not ready to go all the way. Besides, I don’t want to get pregnant. If he wants it that badly, he can wait until our wedding night.”
“You mean, that can’t happen when you’re in human form?”
She looks at me like I’m an idiot. “If I stayed in human form, then yeah, eventually. But obviously I’m not going to do that. I can’t do that, and even if I could, I’d go crazy.”
“But . . . if you’re in dragon form, couldn’t you just switch to human form, and, um, not get pregnant?”
“Wow.” She blinks at me. “How do you not know this stuff?”
“I do.” Mostly. “Just not about dragons.”
“Well, it’s possible, but it’s not a sure thing, and, again, I’d have to stay human for way too long. But Osric said he didn’t care what we did or didn’t do—he’s just happy we’re together. Can you believe that?” She sighs wistfully.
We’re quiet again for a while, only this time it’s more of an easy silence. Eventually Amelrik comes back and sits down next to me. He usually seems upset after he talks to his father, but he has this big smile on his face, like something really good just happened and he can’t wait to tell us about it.
“Well?” Odilia asks, when he doesn’t say anything.
He starts to answer her, then frowns and points at the stage. “Hild’s holding her sword wrong.”
“It’s an imaginary sword,” I tell him. “How can you hold something wrong if it’s imaginary?”
Odilia makes a frustrated sound. “You know that’s not what I meant. What did Uncle Ulrich say? Or did you not end up talking to him?”
“No, I talked to him.” Amelrik’s hand rests next to mine in the space between us on the stone bench, where Odilia can’t see. He moves his hand closer and absently draws circles on my skin with his thumb. “He’s officially giving me a position on the court.”
I raise my eyebrows at him.
“The court,” Odilia says, “is all stuffy meetings and arguments. It sounds boring.”
“He wants my opinions on things.”
She seems skeptical. “Does the rest of the court know about this?”
“He announced it to them.”
“And?”
“And a few of them expressed some concerns.”
“In front of you?” I ask.
He shrugs. “My father told them the decision was final, and that they just have to accept it. He said I’m not a dracling anymore, and I’m his son, and that I have a lot to offer. That’s what he said. About me.”
Odilia stares at him in disbelief.
“Things are different now,” he says, his voice barely a whisper. “It’s not like it was before.”
“And you actually want to be on the court?”
“Well . . .” He considers that. “It’s what Cedric would be doing, if he was here.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Okay, fine. No, I don’t like boring meetings. And I don’t like the way the rest of the court looked at me, when my father announced this. They were horrified. But he stood up for me. He’s never done that before. He made them acknowledge me, just a little bit, and . . . Maybe it won’t turn out to be my dream job—”
Odilia snorts. “You think?”
“—but I’m happy. Really happy.” He smiles and secretly squeezes my hand, implying that I’m part of the reason why.
I smile, too. I want to put my arms around him and press my face against his. I want to kiss him so bad right now. But despite what I said before, about kissing not looking any different whether we’re supposedly just lovers or actually together, I’m pretty sure that if I did any of that, it would be obvious that there’s something more going on. So I restrain myself.
But even if I can’t kiss him right now, warmth spreads through my chest, and all my feelings for him crowd together, until I think I’m going to explode.
And I wish, more than anything, that I could freeze this moment in time, and we could always feel this happy.
34
NOT. FAIR.
“Stop pressuring me,” Amelrik says. “I’m reading as fast as I can.” It’s evening, a couple days later, and he’s half sitting, half lying on his bed, finally finishing Princess Mysteries #7.
I’m next to him, with my head resting on his chest and his arm around me, sort of reading along, even though I finished the book over a week ago. “I’m not pressuring you.”
“You asked if I was done with this page yet. Twice.”
“Well, I didn’t mean it in a pressure-y way. But you’re almost done, and I really want to know what you think of the ending.” After he spoiled part of it for me and then almost died, he kind of stopped reading it for a while. And even though he said it would be fair if I spoiled the rest of it for him, I wasn’t about to do that.
I try to be patient while he finishes the book, focusing on how good it feels to be cozied up with him like this. I can feel his heart beat and the rise and fall of his breathing. Not for the first time, I wonder what he was going to tell me the other day, before Odilia interrupted. There’ve been a couple times since then when we were alone and he got really nervous and seemed like he had something to say, but he stayed quiet.
I mean, I think I know what he was going to say. Because he was talking about how much he’s enjoyed our time here together, and about his feelings for me, and that can really only point to one thing, right?
Amelrik claps the book shut, startling me out of my thoughts. “Wow.”
I sit up a little. “What did you think?”
“I hated it.”
“What?”
“I mean, I loved it. But I also hated it.”
“You mean, because of what happens to Liam?” At one point near the end, the murderer tries to kill Princess Genevieve, since she’s getting too close to solving the case. But Prince Liam jumps in the way and takes a knife to the chest that was meant for her.