Ice and Fire

Desire

"So, dear Darrow," I drawl, savoring the taste of his name on the tip of my tongue once more. Strange it may be, but I find my appetite whetted as surely as if I've just sipped something heady.

"However did you manage to cheat? Sneak in a nervenucleic, eh? Slave your widget to a Minerva?" I raise an eyebrow. "Families should not keep secrets, you know."

He laughs sharply, piquing ever–so–slightly at the insult but otherwise not betraying offense, measured curiosity shining in his eyes as he guesses my angle. Why are you provoking me, he must wonder. Priam and Antonia wonder, too—their penetrative gazes assault me. But for once, I find myself unbothered by their attention, thoroughly uninterested in everything and anything but him.

"Oh, come now, man," he replies, with a feigned insouciance I wouldn't have thought him capable of. It approaches charm. But there is a hint, however small, of indignation in his voice. I am certain none of us miss it. "They sent the Quality Control after me."

So, his score was perfect or nearly so, like Priam's. He implied as much in our first conversation. I wrote it off as idle boasting. But apparently, I was wrong to underestimate him. Yet again.

"How could I have cheated?" He snorts. "Impossible." But he hesitates, belatedly realizing his error. He's bragging about his score—something Priam can do, but not him. He tries to redirect me. "Did you cheat, then? Your score is high."

In this moment, I have all his attention. And it feels as though I'm back in the baths, basking in the delicious heat of the water, in the welcoming embrace of billowing steam and redolent smoke. Unlike that sensation, this one doesn't soothe me, and not only because it's terribly unbecoming to visibly yearn for him—especially right now. But I do, of course. I can barely resist the heliotropic urge to lean closer.

"Me? Cheat!" I scoff. "Never." Cassandra smirks and Antonia rolls her eyes at the lie. "Just didn't try hard enough, apparently." I cock my head. "If I had my wits about me, I'd have spent less time with the girls and boys and more on studying, like you."

He doesn't strike me as a studious person. Indeed, he looks as if he spent the last seven months locked inside one of those concentration machines that facilitates freakish mass accumulation. But he must be exceptionally clever, if he did so well on his tests. Unsurprisingly, his gaze becomes calculating, as he decides what he should do with me.

It's a playful jab. It helps me—and the other highDrafts that scored poorer than him—save face. And it costs him little to let me get away with it. But I am curious to see how he'll react. His manners are certainly worse than they should be and he still stumbles through conversations in a way that betrays his low birth. But if he's truly as sharp as his scores imply, he should recognize that rising to my bait, especially in this company where I will be compelled to respond in kind, is unwise.

He disappoints me. Apparently, he is rash, too.

"You studied?" He scoffs. "I didn't study at all."

My stomach plummets. Mistake. What a terrible and downright idiotic mistake. Even Antonia recognizes it. She smirks with a schadenfreude that only she could possess for a stranger. I hear Karnus laugh in my mind. Ninny. To be ruled by your pride is one thing, but your cock, brother? Have you no shame?

I do. Far too much. And the verdict echoes inside my head. Enemy, after all. No.

No!

I refuse to believe it. I cannot believe it. This is not happening. Here we are, reunited, sharing a House, sharing a table, sharing air and warmth and all our anxieties, radiant as they are, mere centimeters apart—