Steelhands - Jaida Jones [225]
Toverre hadn’t wanted to talk about it much though he did mention to me just once that he thought it dreadful that, with all the assistance from the Basquiat’s best magicians, th’Esar’s conscious mind couldn’t have been saved.
But to me, it was pretty obvious why they hadn’t—or why they couldn’t. Th’Esar’d staked everything on the new dragons; he’d thought they were gonna be devoted to him and him alone, making up for how the first ones weren’t. And when one of them betrayed him, going so far as to hurt him in the process, he realized how wrong he’d been and how he’d misplaced all his trust. After that, he’d probably just given up.
You couldn’t wake someone when his own dreams turned out better than reality.
I almost felt sorry for him, except it was hard to see my way toward forgiving a man who’d been willing to use me as a pawn.
Meanwhile, I was being called in left and right by Antoinette for private counsel; she wanted to go over all kinds of things with me, even give me advice, like she thought I was her own daughter and I needed the extra guidance. But she had some interesting things to say, and I appreciated it because I knew she had the experience I didn’t.
There was also the matter of how I didn’t have one of those keys in my hand, while the others—Troius, Gaeth, and even Balfour—did. Even though Balfour was a special case, I had nothing. My girl chose me, so she’d do what I said, but if she was destroyed, I wouldn’t go crackers like the others.
“And it’s even more difficult to get anything done in Volstov when you start out at a disadvantage,” Antoinette’d explained. “For a man as well, I suppose, but especially for us. I’ve worked three times as hard as my counterparts, and I’m generally disliked for it, even by those who pretend to be my friends. I’ve weathered gossip and insults, not to mention the disappointment of being passed over by those with fewer qualifications for positions far above their capabilities.”
“And is it worth it?” I’d asked.
“I sleep very well at night if that’s what you’re asking,” Antoinette had replied.
She’d been reluctant to use Germaine’s services again, and I was even more reluctant, but she’d promised me she’d be looking into it, and in the meantime, I’d just have to work extra hard to make it clear I meant business. It wasn’t something I wasn’t used to. I was willing to fight for anything if I was sure I wanted it.
And I knew I wanted this.
There was also an individual meeting that all of us who’d been involved in “The Incident” had to attend, during which Antoinette put this spell in our heads that kept us from talking about what’d happened with anyone who hadn’t been involved. When I tested it—on Wildgrave Ozanne, who was probably always gonna remember me as that bell-cracked ginger—I felt my tongue turn to ice. No matter how hard I tried to say the word “dragon,” it dried out before it ever passed my lips.
“Bathroom,” I finally managed, and the Wildgrave pointed me in the right direction. I was grateful to escape though I felt him staring at me as I fled.
I didn’t like it much, but at least I could talk to Toverre about it still, and Adamo, if I needed to. And I submitted to it because I knew it was a necessary precaution; Antoinette was just doing what she had to. And maybe it’d make her crazy someday the way it’d made the Esar, but I hoped she was too strong to let that happen.
After everything was tied up, and everyone was still walking around like ghosts mourning the end of th’Esar’s rule, Gaeth and Toverre and I had one last, late supper in Toverre’s room—since it was the cleanest—to celebrate Toverre’s success and the end of the only semester of schooling I’d ever be attending. We ate food we brought up from the dining hall, on Toverre’s clean little plates, and even though it was supposed to be a party, it felt more like a funeral.
The entire week’d been leading up to something I knew I had to do—but there’d never been a good time for it, or even time for it at all since we’d all been so