Chapter 208: You’re Four Minutes Late

On Friday night, Daemus was on the front steps of Dormitory G with an algebra worksheet on his knee.

He had one pencil behind his ear and another between his teeth. The porch light buzzed over his head. When the door opened, he took the pencil out of his mouth and pointed it at her.

"Question seven’s a trick question."

Blair stopped on the top step. "None of them are trick questions."

"This one is." He held up the sheet. "A train leaves at four. It never says where it’s going."

"It doesn’t have to." She sat down beside him and took the worksheet. "It wants how far. Not where."

"That’s impossible."

She tapped the numbers with his pencil. "Sixty an hour. Three hours."

He frowned at the page. His ears tipped forward. Down by his knee, under the edge of the sheet, his fingers counted.

"One-eighty," he said.

"One-eighty."

"Huh." He took the pencil back and wrote it in big digits. Then he looked at her, and his whole face lit up. "I did that by myself."

"You did."

"Kiss for a right answer?"

She leaned over and kissed his cheek.

He stared at her. "I did algebra."

Blair laughed. She took his face in both hands and kissed his mouth.

He made a low, happy sound. The worksheet slid off his knee onto the step. His hand came up warm under her hair, and he tipped her head and opened her mouth with his. His tongue moved against hers. Her fingers curled in his collar.

When she pulled back, he followed her an inch and kissed her again. Then the corner of her mouth. Then her jaw, just under her ear.

"Daemus. I have to go."

"Mm."

He let her go. Then he reached up and did the top button of her coat, under her chin.

"It’s freezing," he said.

He picked the worksheet up off the step and smoothed it on his knee.

"Question eight’s a boat."

"Speed times time."

He was already writing.

* * *

Jack’s car was running at the far end of the faculty lot.

She got in. He looked at the clock on the dash.

"You’re late."

"Four minutes."

He pulled out of the lot.

The city went by, dark and wet. He drove with one wrist hooked over the wheel. Blair watched the streetlights slide over his knuckles.

He parked across from the black tower. She reached for the handle.

He caught her left wrist.

He turned it over and pushed her coat sleeve up with his thumb. The skin on the inside was smooth and pale. He looked at it a long moment, his thumb resting on her pulse.

Then he let go and looked out the windshield.

* * *

The courier with the silver scale at his throat sent her up.

The elevator opened on the blue room. Jasper sat on the arm of the white couch with a glass in his hand.

He looked at her. Then at the elevator. Then at her again.

"You’re late," he said.

His scales were already up along his throat, blue and silver and pink, rising and settling with his pulse.

"Traffic," Blair said.

"Coat."

She unbuttoned it and held it out. He took it and dropped it over the back of the couch.

At the dining table, Caleb laid one card on another and kept his eyes on them. The chain at his ankle ticked against the chair leg.

Jasper set his glass down. "Pick."

She held out her left hand with one finger lifted.

"No."

She pushed her sleeve up to the wrist.

"No."

Blair’s stomach tightened. She pushed the sleeve higher, past her elbow, and turned her arm over. On the inside of the elbow the vein showed faint and blue.

Jasper took her arm in both hands. His fingers were cold. He bent his head and bit.

The sting went deep. She sucked a breath through her teeth. His mouth closed over the cut and drew, hard and fast, and his grip tightened on her forearm until it hurt.

Heat crawled up the inside of her arm toward her shoulder. She hated it. She stared past him into the dark water.

Something pale was coming up through it.

Mari pressed herself flat to the glass. Her mouth worked. Her round eye was fixed on Blair’s arm.

Jasper lifted his head. His lips were red. He looked over his shoulder at the tank, and for a second his face went blank.

"Come here," he said.

He stood and pulled her by the arm to the table. All nine places were set. He picked up the wine glass beside a card that read Blair, held it under her elbow and squeezed her forearm.

Blood ran down to her wrist and dripped into the glass.

"Jasper."

"Hold still."

"What are you doing?"

"Feeding my sister."

He squeezed again. She flinched. Red pooled in the bottom of the glass. Then he let go of her and carried it across the room.

At the end of the tank wall, a steel chute was set into the marble beside the glass. He flipped its lid up and poured.

The blood came out into the top of the tank in thin red threads.

Mari went up through them with her mouth open.

She swallowed. Then she stopped dead in the water.

Pink came up under her gray scales. It spread down her side. Blue followed it, then silver, rippling down her whole thin length to the ragged tail. The same colors as the scales on Jasper’s throat.

For a few seconds she was bright.

Jasper laid his palm flat on the glass. He stood very still.

"Look at her," he said quietly.

Blair looked.

Pink. Blue. Silver.

Blair’s hand went to the brown hair at her temple.

At the table, Caleb’s hand had stopped over the cards.

The color faded. It drained out of Mari from the tail up, slowly, until she was gray again. She turned and struck the glass beside the chute with her head. Then again.

Jasper took his hand off the glass. When he turned around, the smile was back.

He crossed the room, took Blair’s arm and licked the last red line off her wrist. Then he pushed her sleeve down over it himself.

Blair pressed her palm over the inside of her elbow.

"Why did she do that?"

"I was hoping you’d tell me." He tipped his head and looked her over. "Four years she’s turned her nose up at everything I put down that chute. One glass of you."

"It’s just blood."

"Is it?"

She looked at the tank. Mari hung at the glass, gray again, her mouth working.

"Is it bad for her?"

"She looked fine to me."

"For how long?"

Jasper smiled. "Next Friday I’ll give her two glasses, and we’ll find out."

Blair’s fingers tightened over the bite.

"Anyway." He sat back down on the arm of the couch, pleased. "Where did I leave you on your thrilling little story?"

Her mouth went dry. "I was laughing at the beastmen."

"Right." He leaned in. "Then you turned your head and looked at the one with his hands on you. Right in the eyes. And you asked him..." His voice dropped, soft and amused. "’Enjoying yourself?’"

The room went cold around her.

"He stopped. They all did. So you pouted at him." Jasper pushed out his lower lip. "’Why’d you stop? Was I more of a turn-on when I was crying and begging you to stop?’"

"I didn’t say that."

"Word for word." His eyes shone. "Then you stood up."