It had rained at some point while they were all upstairs, but except for directly around the three scrawny shrubs, the courtyard dirt had been packed too firmly for anything less than a downpour to make much of an impression. Graham leaned against the west wall by a stack of lumber under a tarp and wished he hadn’t stopped smoking. Yeah, it was a filthy, expensive habit likely to shorten his life—in point of fact, the reasons he’d quit—but it had given him something mindless to focus on when his thoughts slid off into unpleasant areas.
Like how he’d spent thirteen years working for a man willing to kill his child. Have his child killed. He pressed two fingers against the pocket.
“You okay?”
“Just needed some time alone,” he said, watching Allie close the door and walk toward him while frowning down at the wet ground.
“Okay.” She settled against the wall, close enough he could feel the narrow strip of air between them begin to warm.
“What part of alone didn’t you get?”
“You said needed. I figured you were done.” She still hadn’t looked directly at him. “Charlie said we should talk—actually, she was a little more definitive about it than should—but I’ll go. If you want me to.”
She’d started to move before he found his voice. “Stay.”
They stood—leaned—silently for a moment, then Allie said, “Can I see it?”
“It?” The corners of his mouth twitched although he couldn’t quite manage a smile. “You’ll have to be a little more specific.”
“Did I ask to see it again?” Her elbow impacting with his side turned out to be a lot pointier than it looked. “I meant the artifact in your pocket.”
Yeah. He’d figured. It felt warm as he fished it out. Body temperature. “You’re not going to see much.” The fixture over the door held one of those energy-saving fluorescent bulbs, and the circle of light ended about a meter out.
Her fingers were warmer than the bullet as she plucked it off his palm. He found that vaguely comforting. “I have night-vision charms on my eyelids.”
“Seriously?”
“Gale girls aren’t big on eye shadow, and we like to minimize our chances of waking up the aunties.”
He matched his tone to hers; all surface, no depths. “No lights on when you come home late?”
“Or go to the bathroom. Or raid the fridge. This would have killed him?” Her voice suddenly serious, she held the bullet up between thumb and forefinger. It seemed to glow with a dull, dirty light. Optical illusion. Probably. “In either form?”
“That’s what he made it for.”
“Your blood’s in this, too.”
Interesting she could sense that but not surprising, all things considered. “My blood’s just there to help my aim.”
Allie made a noncommittal sound, then said, “Or to give his uncles a scent when they set out to find the shooter. My charm wouldn’t have lasted against blood magic.”
“You think…”
“I think,” she interrupted, “given that your target would have been standing absolutely still in the moment just after emergence…” The moment she’d tackled Jack to the ground. “… you couldn’t have missed a shot at that distance.”
Nice to think that. “I wasn’t a lot farther away the last time I missed.”
“But now you know how fast they change. You wouldn’t make that mistake again. That miss, just made this shot…” She raised the bullet a little higher. “… more likely.”
Graham frowned. “He’d still be in danger from the Dragon Lords. He’d need me to take out as many of them as possible.”
“Unless he thought your death by Dragon Lord was the best way to get my family involved. While we’re going after the Dragon Lords, he can slip away. Hide again.”
“Again?”
“If the aunties haven’t taken him out, it’s only because they don’t know where he is.”
And that just begged for a sidebar. “Why do the old women in your family hate sorcerers?”
She shrugged. He didn’t know if she’d moved closer without him noticing, or if he was so attuned to her, he could feel the air currents shift. “Power corrupts.”
“That’s a pretty nonspecific reason to kill someone.”
“He ordered you to kill his son.”
Yeah. Definitely a specific example of the premise.
“As much as I hate to admit it,” Allie continued. “Actually managing to have a son with the Dragon Queen suggests he’s a lot more powerful than I thought. Because that’s, as Charlie pointed out, fucking amazing.”
“He was good with fire,” Graham told her dryly, remembering the blaze answering Kalynchuk’s gesture in the workshop. Then, suddenly, he froze.
“And that shot, that shot you didn’t take, that shot was the whole reason for your existence!”
“Graham?” She’d finally turned to look at him. He could feel the heat of her concern on the side of his face. And then the press of her hand against his chest. “Breathe!”
The air in the courtyard felt superheated as he drew it into his lungs and gasped it out. Then Allie started to breathe with him, her mouth near his, slowly in and out, the vise around his ribs loosening. “He was good with fire,” he repeated, barely recognizing his own voice. Allie stood close enough he could see that her eyes were the cool gray of a winter sky, and he let himself fall into them. “I saved him out in the woods, made a one-in-a-million shot, and two days later my whole family was dead in a fire.”
Allie made the jump with him. “You think he killed your family?”
“I think he was willing to kill his.” His hands were shaking. Graham didn’t remember reaching out to hold Allie’s hips, but it helped. It helped to have something warm and alive in his grasp. “He showed up in the village almost before it was over and took care of everything.” His family had been nearly hysterical with grief. He remembered uncles, hard men who’d fought the North Atlantic every day of their adult lives, crying like children. He remembered how Stanley Kalynchuk’s hand on his shoulder had felt like the only thing he had left that was real.
This time, when the memories tried to slip away, he fought to hold them.
It was like trying to hold smoke. He had the essence but not the substance.
“Why can’t I remember?”
Allie touched her forehead to his. “He doesn’t want you to. He wouldn’t, would he?”
“No. He wouldn’t.” Graham took a deep breath and loosened his hold on her just a little. Probably too late to prevent bruises. “He was there for me for all those years because he needed me today. Needed to know someone could take that shot and not miss. I’d have shot through you, wouldn’t have hesitated if I hadn’t gotten to know you. I’d have killed you and considered you collateral damage for the greater good.”
“But you didn’t.”
“But I could have.”
She cupped his face between her hands and repeated, “But you didn’t.” Then she kissed him. Softly, comfortingly.
She was all he had left. When she pulled back, he murmured, “If I could choose again…” and she stared at him like she was seeing him for the first time and she smiled.
“No.”
“I just…”
“No. Not until you really understand what it means.”
It took a moment to hear not yet instead of no. “But I thought I only got one chance.”
“Well, you’re like two people, right? The reporter and the sorcerer’s… person? Two people, two choices. Besides, there’s a half-Human Dragon Prince upstairs eating pie. We’re making this up as we go along.”
“We are?”
“Yes. We are.” And she kissed him again.
“He needs to talk to someone,” Charlie had said, “and it can’t be either of the boys, not with all that horn showing. He’ll end up going all bantam rooster and getting damaged.”
“You go, then.”
“No.”
“Charlie…”