I thought about it. The first time I saw him was after I’d shot Ash in the face. Christophe had driven Ash away and told me to go home. Then he showed up at my front door, told me about the Order, brought groceries . . . got up on the hood of Dad’s truck and told Graves to drive, busted through a wall, and took on Sergej so I could escape. Not to mention pulled me out of the burning Schola and covered our retreat.
Put his arms around me in the boathouse. And later, in the darkness, kissed me on the lips and told me I was going to have to be his reason.
I flushed hot again at the memory.
And at least when Christophe was around I knew what to do. It was sort of like having Dad again. I mean, not really. Because Christophe wasn’t comforting in that way. It was just like, well, I knew my place in the world again. I was waiting for an adult to coach me on what to do up against the Real World.
I sat there thinking about it for a little while, and Christophe just stood there. Waiting. He didn’t poke or prod or anything; he was just letting me figure it out. I appreciated that.
But I would’ve appreciated it more if he was Graves.
“No,” I finally decided. “But I’m not believing you’re sticking around.”
“Do I at least I have a chance to prove it?” Still looking out the window. But his shoulders were still drawn up. Still expecting a punch.
I wondered about that. What must it be like to be him? To have everyone be afraid of you because of things you couldn’t change—where you were born, what you were made to do?
It was like the djamphir sneering at the wulfen. It wasn’t pretty and I hated it. And at least Graves had some sort of bond with the werwulfen to get by—he’d made friends almost right away. Christophe’s own kind were scared of him.
The least I could do was give him a chance. Especially since he’d always done what he said he would.
“I guess so.” It didn’t sound welcoming at all. Or happy. But it was all I had.
He slumped. “Good enough. Will you eat breakfast, then?”
“I suppose.” But thinking about how I met him brought up what I really wanted to do. “I want to see Ash. And I want to look for Graves.” Even though he’s probably two states away by now. I could have been even farther away, by now.
And yet. Come and find me. Did Graves really think I would?
Christophe nodded. “I expected as much. Will you tell me what happened yesterday?”
Weren’t you there? But then I realized what he was talking about.
Anna. Which brought up another thing. “What’s going to happen to you? What kind of Trial are we talking about?”
“Don’t worry about that.” He dismissed it with a wave of one hand, turning finally to look at me. The sunlight dimmed behind a cloud. “Everything is well in hand.”
No way. Jeez. “Anna really hates you.” Like she hates me. What did I ever do to her? Jesus.
“Fickle woman,” he muttered. “Look, Dru, this is temporary. Let me handle it, and then we can get down to the real business.”
Oh, so you’re going to “handle” it? A faraway, cool relief filled my numb chest. It’s about damn time someone handled something. I can’t do it all by myself. “Which is?”
“Training you. Making sure Sergej can’t get to you before you bloom, and after.”
Well, I was all over that. But still, it wasn’t comforting. “What’s the point? He’s just going to keep trying to kill me.”
Dad would have recognized the sarcasm and told me not to be fresh. Graves would have rolled his eyes and snorted.
Christophe’s smile wasn’t nice at all. He directed it at the floor, not at me. It was still cold enough to chill marrow. “You’ll notice he hasn’t come again himself. He’s frightened of you.”
I choked on a slurp of banana latte. “What?” He’s the king of the vampires, for God’s sake! Why the hell would he be afraid of me?
“You escaped him, Dru. You held him off until help arrived. You were lucky, true, but you held him off. Which was more than your mother or even Anna could do.” He was looking at me like I should have figured this out myself. “He’s sent Ash, and Ash hasn’t returned. He begged, borrowed, or stole a dreamstealer, and you still survived. He sent a Burner and has had the help of a traitor in the Order, and you are still alive.”
“Because of Graves. And you.” My chin lifted stubbornly. “It’s not me.”
“It is you, Dru. You’re not like Elizabeth. You’re a fighter. You can help us turn the tide even more.” His eyes glittered, his face set in hard lines. Even cloudy sunlight was good to him, burnishing his pale skin. “This is why you’re so important. He’s the closest thing to a king they have anymore. Kill him, and—”
My stomach flipped over. “Whoa, hold on a second. Kill him?”
“That is certainly the only solution I can see.” The sunlight dimmed even further, and the shadows under his eyes and cheekbones evened out. “But you have hard training before that’s even possible. There are other hurdles to clear, too.”
“Yeah. You could say that again. Look, Anna’s still alive, right?”
“She’s never faced Sergej.”
Wow. This was just an eye-opening conversation all the way around. “Never?”
“Not once. She was rescued from an ordinary nosferatu attack, brought in, and hasn’t stirred outside the Schola’s walls without a contingent of bodyguards and security that makes the President look like an easy target.”
“But she came to the—”
“She came to the reform Schola where she’d diverted you, yes. Why is that, do you think?”
Wait a second. What?
“She . . .” I absorbed this. The latte began to gurgle in my stomach. Have you ever burped acid, banana syrup, and coffee? It’s not fun. My lips were numb. My heart was pounding like a freight train’s wheels. “I thought we didn’t know how I’d ended up there.”
“Now I do. What did you think I was doing, other than watching your window? I’ve been gathering evidence, Dru. And even though you won’t tell me what happened between you and Anna yesterday, I can guess.”
No, I didn’t think he could guess. Not really. The dream I’d been trying to push away for weeks came back, all ash and smoke and terror.
Don’t let the nosferatu bite.
I sat there. A horrible shape was rising up out of the bottom of my mind, like a body you know isn’t human under a sheet. I pushed it away, but it wouldn’t go. There was only one thing that would explain all of this, explain everything I’d seen.
The Schola was silent, but I heard the wind outside. It was a soft spring breeze, and I wanted to yank the window open and leap out. I wanted to run. I hadn’t really been outside since I got here, and it bugged me. I needed some fresh air.
Right after I threw up everything I ever thought of eating.
“She wanted me to hate you.” I sounded about five years old. “I . . . she looked at me like she wanted to know something.”
“She did want to know, Dru. She wanted to know what you remembered. She wanted to know what you saw—”
I didn’t see. I heard. I was only five! “Shut up.” The latte dropped out of my hand and plopped on the hardwood floor. It sloshed but stayed miraculously upright. “Shut up.” I even clapped my hands over my ears. “Shut up shut up shut up!”
He grabbed my wrists, and I got a good faceful of that apple-pie smell. For some reason it broke everything inside me, and the world went white-fuzzy for a few seconds. When it came back I’d somehow ended up on the floor, my knees still jolting from landing hard, and I was hitting Christophe wildly. Not even any weight behind the strikes, just flailing.