Page 87 of Prey It By Ear

I don’t like it, but I also cannot interfere with her class if I don’t think the woman is being abusive.

One minute after eleven, the studio door opens. Dolly moves with the slow, careful steps of someone whose muscles are on the verge of mutiny. Her hair is up in a rainbow clip, but most of it has escaped, and there’s a faint flush across her cheekbones that tells me her morning routine was brutal. She has a reusable water bottle in hand and is draining it with the dogged focus of a runner at the finish line.

I watch the transformation of her face when she sees me waiting for her. The exhausted, neutral face lifts first in the eyes, then in the set of her jaw, and last in the tiniest upward curve of her lips. The change isn’t showy—there’s no bounce or audible squeal—but her whole body language shifts. Angling towards me, I see the line of her shoulders relax as she approaches.

“Rennie,” she says, and I’m right—she’s surprised. Her voice is a little hoarse, the way it gets when she’s been pushing herself, but it’s relieved.

“You did not expect me,” I say, keeping my tone dry and a little arch.

“No, I figured one of the crew would be here.” She steps into my personal space, just shy of contact, and looks up at me with fondness. “You smell like dirt and… is that basil?”

“Night-blooming basil. It’s the only thing that can vie with the dragon’s sweat after a hard morning.” I whisper it, just for her, and I see the light in her eyes flicker, then steady.

“I miss you guys during the day,” she says so quietly I almost don’t catch it. “I miss how easy our little family is and how much laughter there is.”

“As I miss you, ma petite.” I reach up to tidy the worst of her loosened hairs, then rest my hand lightly at the back of her head for a moment. She closes her eyes, and her breathing slows. There is no urgency to this—it’s just the comfort of knowing someone else is here, present and invested.

We stand in the corridor like that, silent, for a handful of breaths. I hear a few other students pass behind us, but they don’t stop or gawk. Dolly finally opens her eyes and grins, wide and irrepressible.

“I need food and then maybe a hug—but mostly food.” She cocks her head at me curiously. “Did you just know I’d need rescue or did someone tip you off?”

“I had a feeling,” I say. “Also, you left your banana bread on the counter again, and Fitz would have eaten it if I hadn’t rescued it first. Chess packed you an extra.”

She makes a face, but it's a fond annoyance. “He’s a fiend. I’ll eat it before we even get to the library, I bet.”

“That’s the plan,” I reply. “We have a table waiting there for your break. I can tell you about the garden.”

She slips her hand into mine, then leads me toward the exit. “Now that’s a lunch I can get behind,” she murmurs. “Food, flora, and my Frenchman. C’est magnifique⁠*!"

We head out into the late morning, the sun finally burning away the grey, the corridor behind us echoing with the sound of lessons ending.

Sometimes I think the sun actually follows her because who the hell wouldn’t?

* It’s magnificent.

I Want To Hold Your Hand

Delores

I like the patio best before the sun gets high enough to make it too exposed. It’s barely past eleven, and already the stone is radiating up warmth while we eat. The walls of the library and annex close around the patio so tightly that I could probably jump from one side to the other, if I wasn’t already way too into the lunch Chess packed for us. The little patch of Renard’s garden running along the southern wall is almost obvious with its damp soil, deep green spikes, and the gleam of new moss where he watered it before we sat down.

This is the first year since Apex that he’s bothered with a garden, and it makes me happy to see him working on it.

There are only two chairs, and they don’t match. The table is a scarred old bistro number that isn’t fancy, but the food is pure Chessie homemade, so it’s fine. He made sweet potato and feta wraps, a container of seed crackers, and a little dish of tapenade with a side of cut veggies so pretty I almost don’t want to eat them. There are also two enormous mugs of what turns out to be spiced tea, not coffee, because he’s trying to fill me with beneficial herbs and stuff now. I don’t mind, especially since he sent a few meat sticks as well to make certain that I get enough protein.

I poke at my wrap, tearing off pieces with the deliberate slowness of someone who is absolutely not looking at the person across from them. It’s not that I don’t want to see him; it’s just easier to keep my eyes on the line of new plantings, where the pale-stemmed moss is already pretending to be settled in, even though Renard said it needs weeks to really grip.

My gargoyle eats like he does everything else—slowly, keeping his hands perfectly clean with monkish patience. He’s been talking about the garden, but I think that’s to get me comfortable and chatting. I don’t know why that is, but it seems like my very internal mate has something to talk about and doesn’t want to come at it directly.

“There’s a logic to planting,” he says, “but not the kind you find in books, ma petite. At least, not for these seeds. I cannot recall the Old Fae names anymore, but the moss is from the ancient hybrid lines, so if it takes, we will know by how it changes color at dusk.” He points at the moss, then the herbs, and then the border of tiny white flowers. “It must fuse with its neighbor, or it is useless. They will not bloom for another two weeks, I think. Maybe three, if the cold returns. But once the rootlets have bonded, you cannot pull them apart except with fire.”

I nod, more to show I’m listening than because I have anything to add. “So you’re making an anti-vampire mat on the wall?”

“Call it that if you like. If nothing else, it is pleasant to look at and very few things are pleasant in September, as you have noticed.” He watches me, and I can feel the scrutiny, but he doesn’t push. Instead, he sips his tea before telling me which plants he found, where the soil came from, how Chess bribed a campus groundskeeper with baklava to get a bag of volcanic sand for drainage.

Instead of paying attention as closely as I should, my eyes keep flicking to the new plantings, counting the leaves or the white dots of the herbs instead of holding his gaze. It’s stupid, but I don’t have the energy to pretend I’m not still rattled from last night. I definitely do not want to discuss that, and with Rennie being so talkative, I’m a tad worried it’s going to come up soon.

Maybe that’s what he wants me to spill my guts about? I’m not sure.