Page 38 of Fire to the Stars

I brush her hand aside and nod to Lucy curled in her lap. Claire tied a white ribbon around her neck, to match the ribbon securing the ponytail draped over her shoulder.

“I’m talking to Lucy,” I say.

Truthfully, I’m not. Claire insisted we buy new clothes before we reach Jardincourt to decrease the odds we’ll be recognized by attackers who might be trailing us. I packed my uniform away in favor of a navy waistcoat and charcoal trousers. Claire picked them out. She insisted we’d blend in with Jardincourt’s fashion-minded atmosphere.

A good strategy, but perhaps not the way she intended. I won’t blend in so much as she’ll draw eyes away from me. She sure draws mine.

She wears a ruby-red dress and a cinch embroidered with black vines. The low cut accentuates the full length of her scar, as if she wants it on display. Bold of her. Most victims hide dragon-made scars for religious reasons—churchgoers consider close callswith dragons to be a warning from Diu. Claire owns her bad behavior, I’ll give her that.

She leans back and rubs Lucy’s shamelessly upturned belly. “Some boys don’t know beauty when they see it, do they, ma Luciole? Not even the handsome ones.”

Third rule of dragon hunting: Anticipate the target’s patterns and counter accordingly.

“Oh, I do know beauty. I just don’t entertain it while I’m working.”

She blinks at me. I look back at Hanna’s notes and pretend to read. Observing her flirting over the past few days has revealed a sort of rhythm to her quips. Her recipients always end up on the defensive. I wasn’t really trying to adopt her tactic—I just figured I’d counter the pattern and see what happens. I didn’t expect tosilenceher.

Leave it to the slayer’s handbook.

Silently, she turns her attention to Lucy. A self-satisfied smile settles onto her lips. Great. New territory. I need to figure out whateverthatresponse means, lest I find myself conned in someway.

The driver drawls over the clomping hooves. “ ’Bout fifteen minutes to Jardincourt. Where should I let you off?”

Claire parts the curtains for a look outside. The rolling hills level out into an easy decline, which allows a view over the cityscape. Upscale homes and storefronts made of marble and brass press against each other, clustered for the dense population, a million strong. Cobblestone draws a grid of busy streets. The sharp, gilded corners of the star-shaped Étoile Palace dominate the city center. Bells toll the time—noon—through the sunslit city.

Claire’s childlike awe makes me snort.

“Excited for the big city?” I ask.

She composes herself. Wordlessly, she turns a stoic stare back to Lucy. Is she embarrassed?

“Monsieur?” the driver calls. “Where to?”

“The Central Gendarmerie Station, please.”

There’s a pause, as if he’s wondering why we’d want to go there as opposed to Jardincourt’s finer establishments. “Very well.”

The carriage rumbles onward. The closer we get to the city, the less prepared I feel. These clothes feel less like a disguise and more like the wrong uniform.

“You keep glancing at your helmet,” Claire observes. “Why?”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s your brother’s skull, no? That’s not nothing.”

“It’s not about the skull. I’m worried about Madame Afi.”

The last time I saw her, we were in Ravinfort. She’d closed up shop early when I walked through the door with Micah’s severed dragon head. Silent tears streaked her face while she sat me down with a cup of chamomile tea. I choked through the story of how he’d turned, the way my parents had reacted, and the shame I felt for failing to slay him on the spot. Then how hard it was to steel my nerves when I brought his head to the Gendarmerie and pretended that I was glad to have killed him after all—just so I could save my badge, collect the bounty price, and waste the profit grieving in hiding until I had to force myself to rebuild my life.

No questions. No judgment—for me, or for Micah. As I talked, Madame Afi nodded to show she was paying attention and cleaned his skull with the tenderness she would’ve givena stillborn child. As if she hadn’t lost a future apprentice but a son.

“What will you do now?” was all she asked.

“Find a new lead,” I replied. “Then do my job.”

She doesn’t deserve to suffer for my transgressions. Neither does Lyle.

In the Estellio household, where legacy was everything, I didn’t realize the coldness I’d been tolerating until I met the Metekus.