Chapter 169: I Hate It, You Look Amazing

At half past seven the dress was on, and Blair was stuck in it.

The zipper ran from the small of her back to between her shoulder blades. She could reach the bottom. She could reach the top, if she bent her arm in a way arms weren’t meant to bend. She couldn’t reach the middle, and the middle was where it had caught.

She was twisting in front of the little mirror over Heather’s desk when someone knocked. Twice, then a third time, harder. Only one person knocked like he was trying to be patient and losing.

She crossed the room holding the back of the dress shut with one hand and turned the knob.

Daemus filled the doorway. He had changed out of his practice clothes into a clean shirt, as if he were the one going somewhere. He opened his mouth.

Then he saw the dress and shut it again.

He came in and closed the door behind him without taking his eyes off her.

"Turn around," he said.

She turned. The silk moved with her, and in the lamplight it ran pink down her hip and lavender at the hem. Behind her, she heard him breathe out slowly through his nose.

His fingers found the zipper. He worked the caught silk free with his thumbnail, carefully. Then he drew the zipper up, and his knuckles followed her spine the whole way. At the top was a hook the size of a grain of rice. He missed it twice.

"Who makes a dress like this?"

"Someone with small hands."

"Someone who wants somebody else to do it up." He caught the hook on the third try. Then he didn’t let go. His hands settled on her bare shoulders, and in the mirror she watched him look at her. At the dress. At her brown hair. At the dress again.

"It’s your hair," he said.

"Yes."

"So he knows."

"He was in the lobby."

A muscle jumped in his jaw. In the mirror his ears flattened, then came out of hiding entirely, dark blue and pinned back against his head.

"I hate it," he said.

Blair turned around in his hands. "The dress?"

"The dress. Him. That he picked it." He looked down at her, and his face went helpless. "I hate it. You look amazing. I hate that you look amazing in it."

She laughed. She couldn’t help it. Then she took a fistful of his shirt, rose on her toes and kissed him.

He made a low sound and kissed her back, hungry, one hand spreading across the small of her back over the dress. He walked her backward until her shoulders met the door. His tongue slid into her mouth, and his other hand found her thigh and gathered the silk in his fist, pulling it up an inch at a time.

Then he froze.

"I’m wrinkling it," he said against her lips.

"That’s okay."

He groaned into her hair. "Don’t say things like that. I’m trying to be supportive."

"You’re doing very well."

"I’m doing terribly." He smoothed the silk back down over her thigh, very carefully, as if that would help. "How are you getting there? You’re not walking to the city in that."

"Professor Feron is driving me."

Daemus went still.

"He’s waiting behind the East Wing," Blair said. "At eight."

She watched him think about it. It took a while. He looked at the door, then at the dress, then at the ceiling, as if the ceiling might have a better idea.

"Good," he said finally.

She blinked. "Good?"

"Doesn’t mean I like it." He let out a breath.

He reached past her to her desk and picked up a pen. Then he took her left wrist, turned it over, and wrote on the inside in big, uneven capitals.

COME HOME, and then he kissed the inside of her wrist, right over it.

* * *

He walked her as far as the corner of the East Wing and stopped there, where the path ran out and the faculty lot began.

A dark car sat idling at the far end, its lights off.

Daemus didn’t go any closer. Across the lot, the driver’s window was down an inch, and a thread of smoke came out of it. Daemus lifted one hand. After a moment, the cigarette tipped toward him and went out.

Blair pulled her old coat tight over the dress and crossed the lot alone. Jack leaned across and pushed the passenger door open from the inside.

Jack looked at her for a moment. Then he put the car in gear.

The academy dropped away behind them. Then the trees, then the dark fields, and then the first lights of the city came up out of the ground ahead.

Jack drove the way he did everything, with no wasted motion. One hand on the wheel. The other rested on the gearshift between them.

When she’d sat down, her coat had fallen open. The dress had slid up over her knee. His hand was an inch from it.

"Three things," Jack said, without looking at her. "Where he sits. What he looks at when he thinks you aren’t watching. And what he wants."

"He wants to see me in the dress."

"That’s what he said he wants." He shifted down for a curve, and his knuckles passed so close to her knee that she felt the warmth of them. "Everyone at a dinner wants something. The host most of all. Find out what it is before he asks."

He glanced at her, then back at the road. "What else happened in the hotel lobby, Ms. Willows?"

Blair looked at his hand.

"I’ll tell you after," she said.

Jack only hummed.

The light ahead turned red. He braked and shifted down, and this time his knuckles touched her knee through the dress. Lightly. He didn’t move them away.

She didn’t move her knee.

They sat at the red light with the engine humming. Neither of them looked at the other. Blair stared straight ahead. The light turned green. His hand went back to the gearshift.

"Breathe, Ms. Willows."

She hadn’t realized she’d stopped.

* * *

Jasper’s building was all glass, a narrow black tower between two shorter ones. Jack parked across the street and turned off the engine.

Blair reached for the door handle. He caught her wrist.

Her coat sleeve had slid back. He looked down at the ink.

COME HOME.

Jack let go of her wrist. Then, at last, he put his hand on her knee. "Whatever he shows you tonight," he said, "don’t let your face do anything."

"What is he going to show me?"

"I don’t know." He took his hand back. "That’s what you’re going to find out. Eleven."

She got out. The night air was cold on her bare arms. She crossed the street and didn’t look back, because she knew he’d be watching.

At the foot of the tower she tipped her head back.

Most of the floors were dark. The very top was lit blue, and the light moved, slowly, the way light moves at the bottom of a pool.

Something large drifted across it, and was gone.