Chapter 179: I Can Count to Eleven

A long black car was parked on the grass in front of Dormitory G. That wasn’t allowed, and nobody was going to say so.

Blair saw it from the bottom of the hill. Half the second floor was at the windows.

The back door swung open before she reached the steps. Something small and dark-haired shot out of it at knee height.

"BLAIR!"

Kael hit her legs so hard she sat down on the bottom step. He climbed straight into her lap, grabbed two fistfuls of her coat and buried his face in it.

"I waited a hundred years," Kael said into her coat.

"It’s been three weeks."

"A hundred," he said firmly.

Clarice was stepping out of the car in a cream coat and gloves, as if the grass outside a human dormitory were a red carpet. She looked up at Dormitory G: the peeling paint, the wet laundry on the fire escape, the faces in every window.

"Goodness," she said. "They keep you in this?"

"It’s warm," Blair said. "Mostly."

The front passenger door opened, and Daemus got out of the car. He took one look at the three of them, walked over and lifted Kael out of her lap by the back of his jacket.

"Hey. Who wants to see the ice machine?"

"Me," Kael said instantly.

Clarice was still studying the building. "The pack pays for better than this, dear. We’ll have to talk about it."

"She likes it here, Mom."

"Nobody likes it here."

Daemus didn’t argue. He bent and kissed the top of Blair’s head, right there in front of his mother and the whole second floor.

Clarice’s smile didn’t move.

* * *

The rink was empty at midday. Daemus carried Kael down to the glass, where the ice machine was making slow, enormous circles. Kael pressed both hands and his whole face against it and narrated every turn.

Clarice sat beside Blair in the front row of the stands and took off her gloves one finger at a time.

"He called me at midnight," she said, "to read me a number."

Blair didn’t need to ask which number.

"Sixty-four. He read it to me three times." Clarice laid the gloves in her lap. "I cried. Don’t tell him."

"I won’t."

"No. You’re very good at not telling people things."

Blair kept her eyes on the ice. Down at the glass, Daemus had hoisted Kael onto his shoulders so he could see better. Kael was steering him by the ears.

Clarice opened her handbag and took out a slim white box.

"From the pack," she said. "Beralt insists that every Wintercrest charge can be reached."

Blair didn’t take it. "I can’t accept..."

"It isn’t a gift, dear. It’s a condition of your sponsorship." Clarice set it on Blair’s knee. "Your sponsor’s number is already in it. And mine."

Blair looked at the box.

"Thank you," Blair said, and put it in her coat pocket.

"BLAIR!" Kael came tearing up the steps, two at a time, with Daemus a step behind him in case he fell. Kael stopped in front of her, panting, and held up one little finger.

"You said soon."

Blair’s chest went tight. She had pinky-promised him on the curb, the morning the Wintercrests left.

"I’m sorry," she said. "Soon is hard to measure."

Kael considered this with deep suspicion. "Next time I count."

"That’s fair."

He climbed into her lap again.

"Daemus says you’re a teacher now."

"Only some days."

"Can I come to your class?"

"You have to be able to count first."

Kael held up both hands, all ten fingers spread. He frowned at them. Then he took one of Blair’s fingers and added it to the row.

"Eleven," he said.

Daemus laughed so hard he had to sit down.

* * *

That night Daemus lay on her bed with his feet hanging off the end, and Blair lay on her stomach across his chest, holding the phone in both hands as if it might go off.

"You don’t have to hold it like a bomb," he said.

"It’s very expensive."

"It’s very ugly. They gave you the pack model." He reached up, took it out of her hands and started tapping. "There. Now you have a number in it that matters."

She took it back. Under Clarice and Beralt sat a new contact.

Big Bad Boyfriend :D

"Big Bad Boyfriend?"

"It’s accurate. I’m big. I’m your boyfriend."

"And bad?"

"At math." He tapped the end of it. "And that’s my face. See? Happy."

"That’s not your face."

"It is now." He plucked the phone from her fingers again and held it high over his head, out of reach. "I’m adding a heart."

"Daemus."

"Two hearts."

She climbed up his chest after it. He let her get almost there, then turned his head and caught her mouth instead.

The phone dropped somewhere on the blanket. Neither of them looked for it.

He kissed her slowly. His hand slid up under her sweater and spread wide across the small of her back, pulling her down until she was lying flat on top of him. Blair opened her mouth against his. His tongue stroked hers and she heard herself make a small, needy sound.

His ears came up.

She shifted her knees to either side of his hips and sat up a little, still kissing him. His breath caught. Both his hands found her waist and held on.

"Bunny," he said against her lips, rough. "Coach has us on the ice at five."

"So go to sleep."

"You’re sitting on me."

He groaned and kissed her again, harder, then pulled her down onto his chest and wrapped both arms around her so she couldn’t move.

"Five minutes," he mumbled into her hair. "Then I’ll go."

He was asleep in two.

Blair lay listening to his heart slow under her ear. His arm was heavy across her back. She didn’t try to move it.

Something buzzed against her hip.

She found the phone in the blanket by touch and turned the screen toward her face. An unknown number.

Hi Blair! It’s Kyana :) I know we didn’t start off great. I’d really love to fix that. Girl to girl?

Blair read it twice.

The phone buzzed again in her hand.

Heard you beat the prince TWICE!! Everyone’s talking. So proud of you.

Blair had owned the phone for nine hours. Three people had the number, and one of them was asleep underneath her.

It buzzed a third time.

Don’t tell Daemus I texted, ok? He’d get the wrong idea. xx