Dust

IX

 Gael never quit asking questions the whole way home; by the time we reached my house it was past the time for bed, and I shut myself inside of my bedroom and told Gael nothing. How could I tell him what I had seen when I wasn't even sure what I'd seen?

I sit now atop my bed, the window pouring moonlight around me like a puddle. The quilt and sheets below me sit untouched; I wear my pajamas, but have not yet submersed myself in my bed. I'm not sure if I can sleep, with my brain so awake. I can't keep the scene with Elliott from replaying over and over again every time I shut my eyes—I want, need, to know what he is up to.

With a sigh, I scoot over to my bedside table, switching my lamp on. Under the yellow light it provides, I pick up my father's blade from beside it and turn it over in my fingers. I remember assisting Gael with throwing it earlier today—his technique was not bad, but certainly needed work.

I am suddenly overcome with an idea.

Gael is human in a world not made for that, and Maris has yet to notice. As I set the blade back down, I can't help thinking that it won't be long until they do. The only way to prevent that is to make Gael blend in, make him seem like one of us. What better a way to do that than to train him?

With my thoughts centered around something else, I turn my lamp back off and throw my covers around me, resting my head on my pillow. I pleasure myself with thoughts of a hunting Gael before I slip into slumber.

"That is...this is the most idiotic idea you have ever came up with, Gemma, there's no way—"

"Damien, I don't appreciate pessimism in my household," calls my mother from the kitchen. From the same direction wafts the smell of honey biscuits and jam, as well as the savory scents of herbs and meat. It's the beginning of Dame's and my weekend off, and as my mother cooks breakfast for our little extended family, Damien sits in a huff on the couch, irritably expostulating with me.

Gael is sitting on top of the window sill, supporting me whenever Damien gives him a second to speak. "Thank you, Miss Armistead," he calls to my mother, then looks at Damien again. He draws his legs up, crossing them. "I think it's a fine idea, if I'm going to be staying for a while."

"And," I add, gripping the armrests of my father's old chair, "no one ever said you had to train him."

"Yes," Damien admits, "but—"

I emit a groan. "Ah, it's always the buts."

Damien's eyes are narrow as he looks from Gael to me and back to me again, his face shrouded in the shadows of the blinds, which are all drawn shut for his benefit. He looks about as ominous as I have ever seen him, his red eyes seeming to glow like flames in the hazy darkness of the living room. "I don't trust him alone with you and weapons."

"I have no intention of hurting Gemma," Gael announces, and there is a moment of silence before Damien erupts into laughter.

Gael and I stare at him, then at each other, then back at him again, disbelieving. There seems nothing humorous about the sentence to me, but for some reason it sends Damien splaying awkwardly over the couch, guffawing as if Gael has told the funniest joke ever. His body stretches over the length of the couch like a yawning cat's, and Damien wheezes to control himself.

Gael and I still stare at him as if he has lost his mind, and even movement in the kitchen has gone still. "Dame?" I say. "Have you gone crazy?"

"The human's sentence was funny," comments Damien, managing to sit himself back up again. I have yet to get him to call Gael by his name and not his species, but all in due time. "He has no intention. But intention is lost when a clumsy person holds a knife."