C.E. Mutphy - Hands of Flame

Insult still heated her face, but curiosity leapt to throttle it. Margrit bit down on asking about a woman she shouldn’t know anything of. Sarah Hopkins, who had been pregnant with Janx’s child, or Daisani’s, and had turned to Alban to escape the seventeenth-century fire that had burned London. She wondered if Sarah had been unwilling to pay the cost, and had been able to walk away far, far later than Margrit imagined possible.

“Is that what happened to Chelsea Huo?” The words came hard, tight voice putting Chelsea in Sarah Hopkins’s place. “Did she choose the Old Races? She’s this nice, ordinary woman, but she was able to stand there today and give me legitimacy. Because she chose you?”

Laughter glittered in Janx’s eyes, and he unwound himself from the couch, leggy and comfortable in his own skin. “A nice woman,” he echoed, clearly delighted by the sentiment. “How charming. I shall have to tell her. Would you call me a nice man, Margrit?”

“You’re a bad man, Janx.” Margrit deliberately unknotted her hands, shoulders slumping as she recognized that he had no intention of answering her question. That, more than anything, seemed to be the legacy of dealing with the Old Races. She could only learn enough to realize how little she knew, and how unlikely it was she would be told more. “You’re a bad man, and you know it.”

Janx spread his hands, an expansive cheerful gesture. “I know. Evil shouldn’t look this good.”

A jarring memory seared Margrit’s vision, showing her the sneering, angry face of a man she’d once defended. He’d raped three women, murdering one of them, and had watched Margrit with open, domineering scorn. Watched her as if she were a victim, waiting for him; watched her much as Malik al-Massrī had watched her. Angry, threatened and threatening, proprietary, making her an object not of desire, but of subjugation. Janx had treated her that way once, and faced with her ire, had treaded a line of caution with comic exaggeration since. Margrit spoke slowly, words more weighted than she intended: “Evil doesn’t.”

Something unexpected happened in Janx’s green eyes, disconcertment fading into surprised pleasure. He held his pose a moment longer, studying Margrit without guile, then brought his hands together and shifted his weight so he could offer a flourished bow from the waist. “What peculiar honors you do me, Margrit Knight. For your kindness, I’ll give you what you haven’t asked for—advice.”

“Are you going to tell me to walk away?”

“No.” Janx gave her a toothy smile, letting it linger so her gaze was drawn to too-long canines. Daisani should have those teeth, she thought for the dozenth time. The vampire should have a mouthful of weaponry, not the dragon. “No, my dear. You’re a lawyer. I’m going to tell you how to handle Alban’s forthcoming trial.”

Margrit’s cell phone trumpeted the William Tell Overture, startling her into a flinch and earning a shift of surprise from Janx. Habit drove her to her feet as she searched her purse for the phone, and sent her walking a few feet away, as though doing so would render Janx incapable of hearing her.

“I wouldn’t, if I were you. If you’re getting reception, you’ll probably want to stay exactly where you were.” Janx nodded to the chair she’d abandoned and Margrit came back to it, thumbing the phone on.

Her mother’s voice, distorted with static, came through. Margrit put a finger against her opposite ear, trying to hear better, then muttered a curse as the connection dropped entirely. “It never rains but it pours. If I don’t call her back, she’ll think something terrible has happened. Can you show me the way out of here?”

“I can,” Janx admitted languidly. “Whether I will…”

“Well, your other option is keeping me locked up like Bluebeard’s wife.”

“Like Beauty, I should think.” Janx collected Malik’s cane and pushed to his feet, still more stiffly than she was accustomed to. “Are you certain you have to go now? We were doing so well.”

“You’ve met my mother. The grapevine’s probably told her I wasn’t at the trial this morning, and she knows the only thing that would keep me away would be dismemberment or death.”

Janx gestured at her. “At least you look the part.”

Margrit looked at herself again and groaned. “I hope I have time to get home and shower before she sees me.”

“I could come along,” Janx offered hopefully. “Distract her.”

“Absolutely not.”

“I can be very distracting,” he promised.

Despite herself, Margrit laughed. “Yes, you can be, but you may not be. Just tell me how to get out of here before Mom uproots half of Manhattan trying to find me.”

“Allow me to escort you, at least. Grace prefers not to have random interlopers wandering her tunnels.”

“That’s another reason it wouldn’t hurt for you to move on. This is her territory.” Margrit took the dragonlord’s elbow when he offered it, matching her pace to his unusually slow one. He’d made deliberate haste in leaving the warehouse, had moved then with all his customary beauty, and now, she thought, he was paying for that arrogant performance.

“So concerned with territory and belonging. Are you like this in all aspects of your life, or just when it comes to us?”

“I think it’s just you.” Margrit frowned down the tunnel, trying to recognize features. “The battles I fight aren’t usually about territory. They’re about money or power or passion. It’s just with you that land wars come into the equation. Grace has worked hard to make a safe place for those kids down here. You and what you do are the exact opposite of what she’s trying to achieve.”

“You could always ask me a favor.” Janx’s voice was too light, as though the question was a test. “I do believe I still owe you one.”

Margrit paused, drawing him to a stop, and studied him. “One,” she said slowly. “You owe me the one we agreed on. Then again, I very likely saved your life this morning, Janx. That makes two favors you owe me, and if I’ve learned nothing else, I’ve learned that the Old Races count coup. You could’ve told me how to deal with Alban’s trial as a balance to the attack this morning, but you handed that over for free. For my Grace,” she echoed softly. “What would you do, dragonlord? What would you do if I asked you to leave Grace’s tunnels, to leave New York, in exchange for your life?”

Janx’s jade eyes grew paler and cooler as she spoke, and when he replied, it was less with anger than a mark of respect Margrit thought she had only just earned. “I wouldn’t have expected you to call in that marker, my dear. I find myself caught between awe and dismay. Do you really believe my position here can be traded away so easily?”

“You wouldn’t be dismayed,” Margrit said, “if it couldn’t. So now I have my answer.”

Janx’s lips curled, showing teeth. “You’ve learned too well for my tastes, Margrit Knight. This is your exit.” He stopped shortly, making a gesture of fluid chagrin. Margrit put a palm against the ladder he’d brought her to, glancing up, then pulled herself onto the first rungs before looking back.

“I haven’t asked.”

“No.” Janx’s expression turned dour. “You haven’t asked yet.”

Margrit’s cell phone rang again as she reached street level. It was midafternoon, a deceptive amount of time having passed with Janx in the unchanging light below the streets. She took a breath and held it, then, hoping her voice would sound normal, answered with a cheerful, “Hi, Mom.”

“Margrit Elizabeth, what on earth is going on? I’ve been trying to call you all morning. Are you all right? Why aren’t you in court? What were you doing in Harlem this morning?”