“Cael. Junior enforcer.”
Cael lowered his head a fraction. Not a bow. More like a predator adjusting its view.
“He looks at people like that often?” I asked.
“No.” The answer was too quick.
“Why did he look at me like that?”
Dominic didn’t answer immediately. The silence held. I heard wind moving across the training yard and claws scraping against stone.
“He was identifying you.”
My throat went dry. “As what?”
Another pause. “As under my escort.”
“Right.”
The doors closed between us and the yard.
* * *
Hetook me to lunch.
I hadn’t asked for lunch. Dominic Graves had decided that I needed to eat. We sat at a small corner table in the staff dining room, which no other visitor was seated in. He had bypassed the visitors’ dining hall without commenting on it.
“Why this room?”
He took the seat facing the door. “Quieter.”
The kitchen pass clattered behind us. He didn’t look at it.
“Quieter than what?”
“The other one.”
I waited. He didn’t elaborate, because apparently dragons considered context optional.
I ordered a salad. He ordered nothing. The server took his lack of order without surprise.
“You don’t eat?”
“I will eat later.”
“Off camera?”
His eyes came up. For two full seconds, he looked at me as if deciding which version of the truth was least dangerous. “Yes.”
“Got it.” I picked up my fork.
I had learned something. So had he.
The salad was good. Crisp lettuce, fresh herbs, a vinaigrette someone in the kitchen had made by hand that morning. The bread came in a small basket I hadn’t asked for. The water was cold.
The room was three-quarters full of staff in compound uniform. The empty quarter was the section nearest our table.
The servers approached. They came in from the kitchen door, made the small body-correction humans made near shifters, slowed their pace by a quarter, set things down with both hands instead of one, and retreated at an angle that didn’t put their backs to him. None of it was conscious.
