“One last thing,” said Westcliffe.

“Yes?”

“Wear your uniform. It won’t hurt to remind everyone of where you belong.”

I puzzled over that for the rest of the bright day.

...

That night, Jesse said to me, “You should go.”

We were in the grotto, the remains of our midnight meal scattered around us. I was sleepy and full and in his arms, and I’d never known that wet stone and a couple of blankets could be so comfortable.

I’d gone to smoke five times more since my trip to the stars, but no dragon.

I’d tried, though. For Jesse, I’d tried. Smoke was all I’d been able to accomplish.

“Armand needs to see you. He’s had all this time to think things through. He’ll have questions. He’d rather go to you with them than to me.”

“I hardly have answers.”

“Then guess.”

I huffed a laugh. “Are you serious?”

“I am. Either you guess or I do.”

That brought me upright. “You mean, you’ve only been guessing at what you’ve been telling me?”

He gave a grin, folding his arms behind his head. “Not entirely. Sheathe your claws, love. The stars tell me most of it. I hypothesize the rest.”

“You guess.”

“Very well. If that’s the word you want.”

“That was your word!”

“Come back down,” he invited silkily, opening up the blanket again. “It’s cold without you.”

I didn’t, not right away. I fixed him with what I hoped was a steely look, but Jesse was right. Without the shared warmth of our bodies, the grotto rippled with cold after nightfall.

“What is a yacht?” I asked, burrowing back against him, yawning. “Is it like a fishing boat? Like a steamer?”

I was a child of the city, remember. The only boats I knew were the punts and masted ships that went up and down the brown waters of the Thames.

“It’s a symbol for the sort of men who’ve never had to fish to eat, and who would board a steamer only if it were one of style. You were born on a boat, you know.”

Every muscle in my body went rigid. “What?”

“Not a boat,” he corrected himself. “A steamship. A big one.”

“Jesse—”

“Aye, I got that from the stars. But that’s all they’ll say of it. Believe me.”

I lay there, my mind spinning, trying to make sense of this gift I’d been so casually given. Trying to seize hold of its enormity.

I knew something about my past now. I knew.

A steamship! I’d only ever seen adverts for them in the papers. They were huge, sharp-edged iron monsters topped with funnels big enough to swallow whole homes, far too massive to dock anywhere near London. They had names like Mauretania, Lusitania, Olympic.

So I hadn’t spent my entire life in the city, as I’d thought. Once I’d known the ocean and at least a port town.

“Water dragon,” Jesse whispered. “If you don’t accept the duke’s invitation, people will talk.”

“I don’t care about that.”

“I know you don’t. But it’s not merely you who will be affected by this.”

“Really? You like Armand so much?” I heard the skepticism in my voice.

His chest expanded on a long inhalation, lifting the upper half of me with it, since I had draped myself over him. “Star adores dragon. Although I wouldn’t say I adore him precisely, or even like him. It’s more that … now that you’ve come, now that his powers are awakening, I’m connected to him. Like brothers, almost. And we don’t get to choose our families.”

“If you say so.”

“We’re in a bubble here, Lora. The island, the school, even the countryside. We’re all encased in a beautiful bubble, and the war seems far beyond our ken. But it’s not. Anything might happen. It won’t hurt to have Armand on your side, no matter what comes.”

“On our side, you mean,” I said sharply.

“Yes. That’s what I meant.”

I chewed on my lip. “I wish …”

He waited, no sense of urgency in his body or his breathing, only his customary, contemplative peace.

I tipped my face to see him. “I wish all this was over,” I said. “I wish there was no war and that I wasn’t in school. I wish I didn’t have to do what everyone else says and that we could just … be. Together. The two of us.”

… us-us-us …

I don’t know if he heard the question beneath my tone, if it was as blazingly obvious as I feared it was, or too smothered to detect. But Jesse lowered his lashes and met my eyes; he looked much more like himself now than he had a few nights ago. Clear gaze, golden glow. Summer storms behind the green.

“We’ve all the time in the world,” he said, and bent his head for a kiss, one of those sweet drowning ones that filled me with nectar and honey.

I hoped it wasn’t a guess, but I didn’t have the nerve to find out. I wanted too badly to believe him.

...

I walked into my room the next afternoon following tea and realized at once that it had been violated.

Not that you could tell by looking. It looked just as it should: bed made, furniture dusted, floor swept, pitcher of clean water. Everything looked right.

But it wasn’t.

I stood poised at the doorway, my eyes reflexively searching for what they couldn’t see. Sight didn’t help; my other senses did.

The air feathered a chill across my skin.

It tasted of chemical perfume, of jasmine and sugar.

And the music of my tower had changed. Gruffer, coarser, a cry of warning rising from the golden buttercup and oval leaf tucked in the armoire, taken up now by my cuff–but the circlet of roses was silent. In its place wavered a thin new song, one I’d heard only once before.

I crossed to the bureau and opened the drawer where I had stored the circlet, stuffed behind my stockings …

 … and pulled out instead Mrs. Westcliffe’s green sapphire ring.

“Well, sod you, too, Chloe,” I muttered, and clamped my fingers hard around it.

I raised my chin, closed my eyes, and listened. She couldn’t have been here that long ago. I’d been gone only an hour, and her syrupy scent still polluted everything. She’d taken my brooch … where?

Downstairs. Its song came to me high and faint.

Not the wing housing my fellow students. Not the teachers’ wing, either, which was a relief. And she hadn’t taken it outside the castle. Not yet, anyway.

I stalked the corridors with the sapphire ring still in my fist, slicing my way through the listless Saturday clusters of students and maids.

Winding up, finally, in front of Mrs. Westcliffe’s closed office door. My brooch sang from behind it.

Not good.

A pair of fifth-years by the turn in the hall spotted me and paused, curious. I bent down and began to work at the heel of my boot, as if it had come loose. They moved on, and I was alone.

I stood and tapped lightly at the door.

“Mrs. Westcliffe?”

No response. The door eased open.

“Ma’am?”

I took a step past the threshold.

“I just came by to ask if … you … knew …”

The office was empty. I tossed a quick glance back at the hallway, then tiptoed all the way in.

“… that you could use some bleeding locks in this school,” I finished.

Chloe’s perfume began a fresh assault upon my nose. I wrinkled it in distaste as I hurried toward the desk.

As I’d suspected, one of the drawers had been left conspicuously agape. There were papers and glass weights and a broken jeweler’s box inside, everything a mess. And there, right beneath it on the rug, was my brooch. The pin to secure it had been bent practically in two.

Amateur. Anyone wanting to wear it would have noticed if the pin was that damaged. She’d have been smarter to warp it just enough so it no longer met the hook.

Chloe Pemington was in sore need of a lesson in being smart.

I stuck the brooch in my pocket and straightened the contents of the drawer as best I could. I shoved the ring back into its box—there was nothing I could do about the broken hinge—and was closing it all up again when I heard an unmistakable castanet-clip of footsteps echoing down the hall.

I jumped up, looking wildly about for a place to hide: nothing. The curtains were useless, the bookcases too shallow, the secrétaire too exposed. If I went to smoke, I’d leave my clothes behind—and the brooch—and my cuff—

“… excused absence, of course,” Mrs. Westcliffe was saying. “I assume you will remain in contact with Miss Bashier during this time?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Sophia. Westcliffe and Sophia, right outside the door.

“Good. Good.” The door began to swing wide. “And may I rely upon you to convey our continued condolences to her and her family?”

I leapt behind the door. I flattened myself against the wall as the wooden panel bumped to a stop against the toes of my boots.

“You may, Headmistress.”

Westcliffe hadn’t noticed the bump. She entered the chamber, leaving Sophia to linger at the doorway. With just the long, vertical gap of the door and jamb between us, we stood only inches apart.

“I wired for flowers, naturally, but one does wish to offer a more personal touch in such times. Miss Bashier has been with us for many years. And she has, I believe, a younger sister nearly of school age …”

“I’m certain the Bashiers appreciate your sympathy, ma’am.” Sophia’s voice had that unctuous pitch; she shifted on her feet, clearly ready to be cut loose.

“Yes.” The headmistress had reached her desk and taken her seat. All she had to do was dismiss Sophia, who’d close the door and there I’d be.

“Very well. Good afternoon, Lady Sophia.”