“Merram will step in if it gets bad,” I said.
“It shouldn’t need to get that far, because Shamino should marry a nice girl from the Kyer, let Dragonsridge burn in fire.” She gave me a pointed look.
“Potions?”
She scowled and thumbed over her shoulder. “Brown jugs. Dragons need to take them with a quarter trough, and they’ll be drowsy after.”
I used my Gift to raise the flat holding them—there was no way I could lift eight jugs of liquid at once.
Seeing my Gift only made Sylvia scowl more. I knew she’d rather administer the potions in Shamino’s absence, but her knees couldn’t walk all over the Kyer, even with Telekinesis carrying for her.
He’ll find her an apprentice as soon as this business with Tressa is settled, I told myself. Sourness curdled in my stomach.
I began my deliveries.
*Mmm. More unpleasantness?* came the smooth voice of Mettalise in my head.
I’d learned telepathic speech and blocking, though I rarely raised the barrier to my emotions. I told Mettalise what Sylvia had said. Agitation from my dragon prickled at my neck like an itchy scarf.
*Sylvia’s right,* Mettalise said. *He can’t ignore his duties like this. You need to confront him.*
*Right,* I said. *Because that’s worked so well for everyone else. One moment.*
I pulled a bell cord and a haggard mage opened the door. I handed over a potion, gave him instructions, and checked the next address on my list.
*Besides,* I said as I resumed walking, *I won’t torture both of us with that conversation.*
*No, no. I felt that! Shamino being an idiot is not your fault. No one made him court Tressa.* A wave of pensiveness. *Raul is worried.*
I delivered another potion. *He doesn’t like Tressa?*
*Hates her. He and Shamino are barely speaking. Worse, Raul says when Shamino does let him in, his thoughts and emotions feel fuzzy.*
*Fuzzy?*
*That’s the best Raul can describe it.*
I nibbled my lower lip. Once, Shamino had defied his father, Tressa’s family, and tradition for a childhood crush. He had renounced his inheritance in favor of dragons in front of the entire court. He had protested Merram’s putting me in the Quarters… Bending to Tressa’s whims was not like him.
Especially when there were sick dragons to tend.
I paused at the last name on the list: Maolmuire. I still couldn’t believe he and Jerroth had been bonded together for weeks. Maolmuire did not strike me as the comforting sort, but maybe bonding with the dragon had taken some of the sting from losing Tressa.
At the least, Maolmuire with a cold had to be a distraction.
I rang the bell twice before Jerroth answered the door. I barely recognized him. An uneven beard grew on his chin. His black clothing looked as if he’d worn it for days. Dark shadows bruised his eyes, and he stared at me blearily.
“Adara?”
I held up the jug with both hands. “I brought Maolmuire’s potion.”
He stared at it as if he’d never seen a giant bottle of medicine before. Maybe he hadn’t. “Right.”
I hesitated. Jerroth and I had never been true friends. Yet, he’d always been kind. “Um… is there anything I can do?”
He blinked, then hefted the bottle. “I pour it down his throat, right?”
“I mean for you.”
The bruises under his eyes darkened. “Come in?”
Jerroth had decorated his apartment in a stark, orderly fashion. But dirty plates sat on the floor, and a bottle of wine had spilled and left a large, sticky sheen on the bare rock. The room—and Jerroth—smelled sour and unwashed.
Should he be this devastated? I always suspected Jerroth’s love of Tressa had been true. I loved Shamino, however, and I had continued to bathe. I knew from the beginning we’d never be together. Maybe that’s the difference.
Jerroth picked a wine-stained blanket off the sofa. He himself didn’t bother to clear a chair before sitting in it.
“She’s gone,” he said, almost as if to himself. He didn’t look at me. He clutched the wooden armrests of his chair. “No warning, just a note goodbye.”
“She didn’t tell you in person?” That seemed cruel. “I feared she never loved you, but surely—”
“No, Tressa liked me. I knew she never loved me, but I’m—” He took a shaky breath. “She doesn’t love him, at least. As long as there’s no love, I have a chance.”
If Paige’s prediction was correct, Jerroth only had a week before Shamino… proposed. I doubted Tressa wanted a long engagement.
Jerroth’s eyes suddenly focused, though they still had a feverish quality to them. “You. You’re the answer. If you steal him away, it’ll give me enough time—”
“I can’t ‘steal’ anything from Tressa.”
“Yes, you could, if I coach you.” He jumped to his feet and began to pace, stepping over dishes. “You’re lowborn, but no one can complain—much—about him choosing a blue. And he’s unconventional enough to ignore the rest. He has to like you, he let you in the Quarters—he took you to the theater! If you could just—”
“Jerroth, I—”
“Please!” He dropped to his knees before me and took my hands. Mettalise perked with curiosity at my surprise, so I blocked both her thoughts and my emotions. “Adara, please, lure him away long enough for me to become worthy of her.”
He doesn’t realize that I love Shamino. Nor that Shamino had once loved me. I tried to tug my hands out of his. “If Tressa is going to leave so easily, she’s not worth it.”
Jerroth dropped my hands in disgust. “You never understand. It’s about power, it always has been. I just can’t—war takes too long, the Dragonmaster’s young, I can’t find a way—” He broke off and closed his eyes. “Why couldn’t Shamino go on as the dishonored Seneschal? Why did he join the Game?”
A vase rose into the air, and then a painting in its frame. Jerroth was so distracted by his own obsession, he wasn’t in control of his magic.
I gripped his shoulders. “Calm down. You need to let her go. I know
