Page 41 of A Queen and Her Knight

Zarrin blinked his wide eyes at him, looking pleading and youthful until that look suddenly hardened. His chin came up. “I can’t help you care for them if you don’t tell me how, Ian Forrester.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” Ian responded childishly, but uncrossed his arms. “Is that why you came here?”

“You won’t speak in the coffee shop.” Zarrin paused, then tucked his hands into his coat pockets. “Perhaps understandably, with humans near. And you avoid the mansion. You don’t invite me here.” Briefly, Zarrin stuck out his lower lip in a pout. “Only Zazzie.”

“Azar needs space away from the mansion.”And her stubborn treasure. Ian pressed on when he could see Zarrin forming an objection. “You don’t need my permission to be here, or an invitation for that matter. I couldn’t stop you.”

“Couldn’t you?” Zarrin asked shrewdly. “I wonder.”

Ian’s heart began to pound. He crossed his arms again. “What is that supposed to mean? Don’t tell me you’ve decided I’m a superhero the way Martin has.”

The smooth question was a mistake.

Zarrin perked up to give Ian a sly grin. “Martin might have more reasons to think admiringly of you than I do, it’s true.”

Ian sighed loudly with annoyance as though he couldn’t feel the shiver in the wind.It’s time, it said again. A thorn in his heel and a voice in the dark. A longing to make Ian uncomfortable as nothing else could.

Zarrin might have felt it too. He studied Ian for a moment, his grin falling, then said, “I looked up more about you, you know. Or, creatures that might be like you. And had our antiques restorer stay out of Alfie’s things, soIcould go through them.”

The shiver touched Ian’s skin. He never felt the cold, but he did now. “And?” he asked as evenly as he could.

“You are not dragon, Ian Forrester. But, like the trees that speak but don’t use words, that are not happy but also notunhappy, you are also notnota dragon. Alfie was given an egg, wasn’t he? An egg with a child that he raised. Dìzhèn wanted Everlasting protected and was most thorough about seeing it done. And…” Zarrin briefly looked uncomfortable “an egg is often a gift of a great love, not always possible between a dragon and someone other. Even for the powerful.”

Ian let his heart pound and didn’t try to calm it.

“You don’t want to speak of those things,” Zarrin continued after a while, in a mournful voice he had no call to use. “Joe said you might not.”

“Joe knows.” Ian said it flatly. Of course, Joe knew. If Zarrin did, Joe did. “Look, we… I was raised not to speak with others.”

“But I’m not others.” Zarrin was still mournful. “I’m… perhaps a cousin, and we’re supposed to work together.”

“I know,” Ian spoke through gritted teeth, then forced a breath in and out. “I know that,” he said, marginally calmer. “I just… am not used to it. But, like I said, I can’t stop you.”

Zarrin leaned toward Ian as though Ian was a redwood who needed whispering to. “Dragonfire did not slow you much, Ian Forrester. There is enough of us in your blood to make you a threat. It’s no wonder the rest of the family chose to pretend Alfie had only been a secretary. They couldn’t ignore his presence entirely, not with this, not with her still so strong,but they could do their best to cloud the truth. Your magic,” he gentled his voice when Ian tensed again, “hid you even from Bernard’s senses. Could I stop you? Perhaps, now that all this has responded to me. But am I meant to? I don’t think so. And would I want to?” Hurt entered Zarrin’s liquid eyes. “No. I thought us friends, and if not friends, cousins.”

“Cousins?” Ian’s brain finally caught up with that word, bringing him back a step. “I don’t have…. I’ve never….”

“I’ve met injured wolves less skittish than you,” Zarrin observed, no pleasure in the statement.

“It’s not your job to take care of me,” Ian insisted, feeling his chest tighten. That was how Martin described anxiety attacks. That wasn’t good. It couldn’t be.

“Oh, Ian.” Zarrin shook his head. “I don’t know how to do this, either. It’s scary, isn’t it? Bernard says…. Well, he would say many things, but he’s just as scared as we are right now. You don’t… you don’t look well.” His hands emerged from the pockets, grasping the air nervously. “Can I come in? Please? I can take you home or call Martin for you.”

Ian was distantly embarrassed by the longing to hear Martin’s voice that went through him when Zarrin said the name. He could hardly say he didn’t need help now. Zarrin, with whatever it was dragons felt, knew how much Ian wanted Martin. Martin found it hard to believe, but his presence was calming. At least, it was to Ian.

“Martin is allowed here,” Ian said finally, breathing hard. “They welcomed him here.”

Zarrin nodded to accept that. “And me?”

The ground would rise up to meet him if it could. Zarrin might know that. Or might feel it but not understand what the feeling was. He was new to this and had no one to teach him anything.

A neat trick they’d pulled off, Dìzhèn and Alfie.

Ian put his head down and thought of Martin, and his comics, and all his excited talk of crossover events and unexpected team-ups. He thought of Marie, the injured wolf Zarrin had found, and her graphic novels.

Ian wasn’t a superhero, but he could read more than the creaking of tree branches and the sighs of the wind.

“They want you here,” Ian admitted. But that wasn’t really what Zarrin was asking. “I don’t want you here,” he answered honestly and hated that Zarrin flinched. “But I could. Maybe. I just….” Did superheroes feel fear? Martin would say they did. Martin would say that’s why he admired them. Ian braced himself. “It won’t be easy for me.”

---