Chapter 168: You Told the Wolf First?

Blair woke because she couldn’t feel her arm.

Daemus was lying on it. He was lying on most of her, actually. Somewhere in the night he had given up on the wall and rolled half on top of her, one heavy thigh across both of hers, his face buried in her neck.

The bed had survived. Barely.

She wriggled her arm. He tightened his grip.

"No," he mumbled.

"I have an exam."

"Bring it here."

"It’s the last one."

He lifted his head. His hair was flat on one side and standing straight up on the other, and he blinked at her as if he couldn’t remember who she was. Then he smiled, slow and sleepy.

"Morning, Bunny."

He kissed her before she could answer. It was lazy and warm, and his hand slid down her bare side to her hip and stayed there, his thumb stroking the bone. Neither of them had bothered with clothes last night.

When he rolled her onto her back and settled between her legs, she could feel exactly how awake he was.

"Exam," she breathed against his mouth.

"Mm." He kissed the corner of her lips. Her jaw. The soft place under her ear, slowly enough that her toes curled. "What time?"

"Nine."

He lifted his head and squinted at her alarm clock. It said 8:20.

Daemus groaned into the pillow beside her head. "I hate school."

"You don’t even have an exam."

"I hate it on your behalf."

He climbed off her carefully, as if she were the thing that might break and not the bed, and threw her skirt at her. While she dressed, he lay on his back with his hands behind his head and watched every button.

"Stop it."

"No." His eyes followed her sweater down over her stomach. His smile thinned, just slightly. "Last paper. Then it’s the weekend."

Then it was tonight. Neither of them said it.

* * *

Desk 3 was empty.

Blair noticed the moment she walked into the exam hall, and so did everyone else. Jasper Silver had never missed a paper. People kept turning in their seats to look at his chair, and then at her.

Killian was already at Desk 1. He was looking at Desk 3 too.

The Owl proctor turned the hourglass.

The chair stayed empty for three hours.

Killian didn’t finish first. She noticed in the second hour, when she glanced up and his pen was still moving. When the last grains ran out, he capped it at the same moment she capped hers.

The proctor was collecting papers when the hall doors opened.

A young man in a gray suit came down the center aisle with a long, flat white box in his arms. He was human. A small silver crest sat at his throat, shaped like a fish scale. He stopped at Desk 2 and bowed.

"Delivery for Miss Willows."

"Not in my hall," said the Owl proctor.

"The exam has ended, sir," the courier said politely, and set the box on her desk.

The whole hall stopped packing up.

The box was tied with a wide blue ribbon. Blair looked at it and didn’t touch it.

"Well?" Killian hadn’t turned around. "Everyone’s waiting."

"I don’t want to open it."

"Open it."

She pulled the ribbon and lifted the lid. Under the white tissue lay something folded and soft. She lifted the top of it, and it ran through her fingers like water.

Silk. In the gray light of the hall it was pink. When she tilted it, it ran lavender, then silver at the folds. Where the window light hit it, a thread of blue moved through it, vanished, and came back.

Blair’s stomach dropped.

She knew that color. She had seen it in the mirror every morning of her childhood, before the dye.

Behind her, someone whispered, "Jasper sent her a dress." The whisper went down the rows like a dropped coin.

Killian had turned around. He looked at the silk in her hands. His tongue flicked out once.

"Vulgar," he said.

He reached over and took the hem between his thumb and finger. His knuckle brushed the inside of her wrist, cool as stone, and she felt it all the way up her arm.

"It isn’t even a color."

A small card lay in the tissue. She saw it the same moment he did. His hand moved. Hers was faster.

The card went into her skirt pocket.

Killian looked at her pocket for a long moment.

"Give it to me."

"No."

She said it quietly, and she didn’t take it back.

A muscle moved in his jaw. Then he stood.

"You remember what I told you."

"Don’t eat anything."

"Don’t eat anything," he agreed, and walked out without looking back.

Under the desk, she took out the card.

You’d never choose it for yourself, so I did. Wear it tonight. I want to see how well it matches.

On the back was an address in the city.

* * *

Jack’s door was open an inch. She knocked anyway.

"Come."

He was at the window with a cigarette and a stack of graded papers. He glanced at the box under her arm, then at her face, and put the cigarette out.

"Close the door."

She closed it and locked it. Then she set the box on his desk.

Jack lifted the lid and drew the dress out by its shoulders and held it up to the window.

The light went straight through it. Pink, lavender, silver. Blue.

"Who," he said.

"Jasper. It came to the exam hall."

"And this is the first you’ve heard of a dinner."

She hesitated a second too long.

"The invitation came Wednesday."

Jack lowered the dress.

"Wednesday."

"Yes. I was going to tell you."

"Who else knows?"

"Daemus." She made herself keep going. "And Killian. He took the card off my desk."

Jack laid the dress over the back of his chair, very neatly. "So you told the wolf first."

"He was there first."

"And the prince."

"I didn’t tell the prince anything. He took it."

Jack came around the desk. Blair didn’t step back, and then found the edge of the desk behind her thighs, so she couldn’t have anyway.

He held out his hand. She gave him the card. He read it twice.

"He isn’t inviting you to dinner," he said. "He’s telling you he knows what’s under the dye. And he wants you to come and prove it."

"How does he know, Ms. Willows?"

Blair looked at the dress on the chair.

"He was in the hotel lobby," she said. "He saw me."

Jack waited. She didn’t add anything.

"I’m going anyway."

"Yes. I gathered." He handed the card back. "Then I’ll drive you."

She stared up at him. "You’re not going to tell me not to?"

"Would you rather I did?"

"No."

"He knows something." He took her chin between his finger and thumb and tilted her face up. "So you’re going to find out what. I’ll be in the car. If you’re not downstairs by eleven, I come up."