Chapter 212: Will the Pet Be Eating?

Daemus showed up to their first date in a tie.

It was dark green with little hockey sticks on it, and he had knotted it wrong. The skinny end hung lower than the wide end.

"It’s Hollis’s," he said. "Don’t tell him."

"Does he know you have it?"

"He will." He held out his arm, then switched and held out the other one. "Which side do you go on?"

Blair took the first one.

She had never been on a date. Everything she knew about them came from the paperbacks Heather kept under her bed. In those, the man pulled out her chair, the candles burned low, and they talked about their dreams until the restaurant closed around them. Blair had read three of them in one week. She still had no idea which parts were real.

A cab was idling at the main gate. Daemus folded himself into the back with his knees jammed against the seat in front of him and put his hand on her knee. He kept it there all the way down the hill.

Town was bright and busy. Shop windows glowed. The sidewalks were packed with beastmen on their way home from work: a giraffe ducking under a shop awning, two hyenas sharing a cigarette outside a bar, an otter mother towing three kits by the hand. The air smelled of exhaust and roasting chestnuts.

On the corner, a fox woman waited for the light with a human man on a leash. He kept his eyes on the pavement.

Blair turned up her coat collar. Daemus moved over until his arm pressed against hers.

The steakhouse he’d picked had red leather booths, a fire in a stone hearth, and a smell of meat so thick it hit them at the door. Daemus’s nose went up.

"Oh, that’s good."

The hostess was a doe in a black dress. She smiled at Daemus. Then she looked at Blair, and her eyes went to Blair’s bare throat, and down to her hands.

"Will the pet be eating?" she asked. "We have a mat by the kitchen."

Blair’s face went hot.

"She’s not a pet," Daemus said. "She’s my date."

The doe looked at him again, longer this time, and her ears shot straight up. "Of course, Your Highness. I’m so sorry, Your Highness."

"Just Daemus."

"Yes, Your Highness. This way."

The room was full. A rhino couple took up a whole corner table by themselves. An old owl sat alone with a bottle of red and turned his head all the way around to watch them pass. Across the aisle, a table of hyenas in work jackets stopped laughing. In the booth next to theirs, two wolves stopped chewing.

Blair slid in with her back to the wall.

The waiter was a crane in a black waistcoat, so tall he had to fold nearly in half to hear them. Daemus pointed at him before he could open his mouth.

"What’s the biggest steak you’ve got?"

"The forty-ounce, sir."

"Two of those. And the ribs. And the potatoes. A lot of potatoes." He squinted at the board behind the bar. "And what’s that?"

"The whole roast fowl, sir."

"That too."

The crane wrote it all down and turned to Blair. "And for the lady?"

"The soup, please."

Daemus’s head came around. "Soup?"

"I like soup."

He looked at her. His ears tipped back. Then he looked at the crane. "Bring her a steak too. A normal one."

"Daemus."

"I’ll eat it if you don’t."

In the next booth, the wolves had gone back to their food.

"Forty of them, standing right outside the dorms."

"My sister’s pulling her boy out Friday."

"Wouldn’t you?"

One of Daemus’s ears turned toward them. Then it turned back to Blair, and he reached across the table and stole her bread roll.

The steaks came on wooden boards that took up half the table. The fowl came on its own platter with its legs in the air.

Daemus picked up the first steak with both hands.

For ten minutes, the only sounds from his side of the table were chewing and the crack of rib bones. Grease ran down to his wrists. He tore the fowl apart at the joints, ate a leg in three bites and went back for the other one.

Blair ate her soup and watched him. In the romance books, there had been a lot of gazing across the candle. Daemus was gazing at the potatoes.

She laughed.

He looked up with his cheeks full. "What?"

"Nothing."

He swallowed. "I’m being gross."

"A little."

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, which made it worse. "Is this how dates go? Is this normal?"

"I don’t know," Blair said. "It’s my first one."

He stopped with a rib halfway to his mouth.

"Your first date," he said. "Ever?"

"Ever."

He put the rib down. He looked at the bird carcass, at his hands, at the grease spots all over the white tablecloth.

"And I’m doing this?" He grabbed his napkin and scrubbed his fingers. "Okay. Okay. What’s supposed to happen? What do people do?"

"In books they talk."

"About what?"

Her face warmed. "Their dreams."

Daemus considered this with great seriousness. He folded the napkin. He put his elbows on the table.

"I want to play pro," he said. "There’s a league in the capital. They send scouts to the last game of the season. Every year." He turned his water glass around on the tablecloth. "My dad thinks hockey’s for pups, but fuck him."

Blair chuckled. "You’d be good."

"I’m great." He grinned. Then he pointed his fork at her. "Your turn."

Blair looked at the candle.

"The human seat on the council," she said.

"Is that a real thing?"

"One seat. For all of us."

He looked at her for a long moment. "You’d win."

"You don’t know that."

"You’re the smartest person at that whole school. You’d win." He leaned back and looked around at the fire and the candles in their little glass cups, and at a couple by the window with their heads bent together over one dessert. "We did this all backwards, huh?"

"Backwards?"

"We kind of did everything else first."

Blair went red.

He grinned at her. Then the grin went softer.

"I like this part," he said.

She reached across the table and took his hand, grease and all.

**

The crane set the bill on a small silver tray in front of Daemus.

Daemus reached for his back pocket.

"No," Blair said.

She pulled the tray across the table, opened the white envelope in her lap and counted out the bills. It took a lot of them. She laid them on the tray, added a few more for the crane, and pushed it to the edge of the table.

Across the aisle, one of the hyenas leaned over to the others.

"Where’d a human get that kind of money?"

"Where do you think?"

They laughed. "Wonder what she charges by the hour."

Blair’s fingers went still on the envelope.

Daemus turned around in the booth, hooked one arm over the back of it, and looked at the hyenas until they looked at him.

"She tutors," he said. He looked them over one at a time. "You fucking idiots should book a few hours."

The hyena who had spoken looked down at his beer.

The crane picked up the tray. He looked at the money, then at Blair and carried it away.

Outside, the cold hit them. There were forty minutes left before curfew.

At the corner, Daemus bought a paper cone of chestnuts from a cart before she could get the envelope out.

"That one’s mine," he said. "It was like two coins."

He peeled one, burned his fingers, swore, and handed it to her. They ate them walking to the cab rank, shoulder to shoulder, and he dropped the shells in his own coat pocket because there was nowhere else to put them.

The cab dropped them at the gate at seven forty-eight. They walked back past the dark library with her hand wrapped in his inside his coat pocket, among the chestnut shells.

Under the buzzing porch light of Dormitory G, Daemus checked his phone.

"Seven fifty-four."

"Six minutes," Blair said.

"Six minutes," he agreed, and kissed her.

His mouth was warm and tasted of salt. He kissed her slowly at first, then deeper, his tongue sliding against hers. Blair caught his tie in her fist and pulled him down to her. He made a low sound in his chest.

His hands slid inside her open coat and settled on her waist, his thumbs against her ribs through her sweater. He walked her back one step until her shoulders touched the door. Then he lifted her by the waist onto the top step so her mouth was level with his, and kissed her again.

She wound her arms around his neck. He kissed the corner of her mouth, her jaw, the soft place under her ear. His breath was hot on her skin. Her fingers curled in the hair at his nape, and he groaned against her throat.

"Daemus," she whispered.

"Two more minutes."

He found her mouth again. She went up on her toes and kissed him back, harder, until her lips felt swollen and her heart was pounding against his chest.

The door opened behind her.

Margot stood in the doorway with her clipboard, her braid over one shoulder.

"Eight o’clock," she said pleasantly.

Daemus straightened up and let go of her waist. His tie was crooked and his hair was a mess. He kept his eyes on Blair.

"Night, Bunny."

"Your Highness," Margot said to his back as he went down the steps. She held the door. "In you go, Blair."

Blair went in.

Margot turned the lock behind her and made a note on her clipboard.