Chapter 6: Move Your Hand

The silence lasted too long. Zoran knew it because Caspian’s smile sharpened, Monroe looked unimpressed, and the conversation nearest them had gone quieter without anyone admitting they were listening.

Excellent.

He had crossed half the ballroom to correct one irritating thing and had apparently created three more.

“I want you to move your hand,” Zoran said.

Caspian brightened, clearly handed the answer he wanted.

“That was not the question.”

“No. It was the relevant part.”

Monroe made a sound that might have been a laugh, then stepped away from Caspian, making the argument pointless.

“There,” Monroe said. “Crisis resolved. You can both return to whatever heirs do when they aren’t managing my personal space.”

Agatha Winterbloom covered her mouth with her glass, but Zoran ignored her. He also ignored the immediate, unreasonable relief beneath his ribs now that Caspian was no longer touching Monroe.

Ignoring that was considerably harder.

Monroe gave him one last look, equal parts irritation and challenge. “Try surviving the rest of the evening without issuing orders at me.”

“I’ll consider it.”

“Generous.”

Monroe turned away with Winterbloom. Zoran did not follow, but his dragon’s attention stayed fixed on Monroe until the crowd swallowed him. Zoran forced his attention elsewhere, but Caspian remained beside him.

“Interesting,” Caspian said.

“No.”

Caspian’s smile widened. “I didn’t ask anything.”

“You were about to.”

He laughed softly. “You know me too well.”

“Unfortunately.”

A faculty member called Zoran’s name before Caspian could become more insufferable. Good. Zoran had actual obligations, not time for whatever absurdity Monroe had turned the evening into.

He joined the heirs and senior guests near the raised platform. This part was familiar. People noticed where he stood, whom he acknowledged, and what he said. One day, he would represent more than his family. Tonight, representing the Dragon Crown should have required very little thought.

A speaker began the formal welcome, praising Night Moonveil’s role in preserving stability between the great bloodlines. Then came the familiar history: the old royal collapse, the chaos that followed, and the Dragon Crown restoring order.

Zoran had heard some version of it since childhood. Tonight, another voice intruded.

Why is the dragon record considered more reliable?

He saw Monroe again in Fen’s classroom, staring at two contradictory accounts as if the difference mattered personally. The speaker returned to familiar ideas of order, stability, and recovery. So why had Monroe looked at that history as though someone had lied directly to him?

Applause pulled Zoran back. Two students passed behind him as the crowd shifted.

“—heard Ashencroft and Tideborne nearly argue over Monroe.”

“They didn’t argue.”

“Then what would you call it?”

Zoran kept his expression neutral. Idiotic. There had been no fight, no scene, and certainly nothing over Monroe . Caspian had simply been touching him.

Zoran stopped that thought before it became any less useful. Across the ballroom, Caspian caught his eye and raised his glass with a knowing smile.

Wonderful.

Apparently, the evening had not finished embarrassing him yet.

Caspian found him again near the edge of the ballroom after Zoran had endured three conversations about academy politics and one elderly dragon asking whether his father intended to attend the winter council.

None of those conversations had been difficult. Then Caspian leaned against the stone railing beside him and said, “You know I flirt with half the academy.”

Zoran kept his attention on the ballroom below. “A personality defect.”

“And yet you only look murderous when I flirt with Monroe.”

“I did not look murderous.”

“Of course not.”

That easy agreement was considerably more irritating than an argument would have been.

“You’re confusing irritation with jealousy,” Zoran said.

Caspian hummed, unconvinced.

Zoran refused to defend himself further because there was nothing to defend. Monroe was attractive. Fine. His pulse gave one hard, traitorous beat at the admission. He wasn’t blind. The sharp mouth, the gray eyes that always seemed one insult away from amusement, the irritating confidence—he had noticed all of it.

That did not require analysis. Attraction was an observation, not a crisis. His dragon was the crisis.

Finding Monroe attractive did not explain why the creature tracked him across rooms, why their shared magic had felt unnaturally easy, or why another man’s hand on Monroe had provoked a reaction Zoran had no reasonable claim to. Beside him, Caspian’s amusement faded.

“For what it’s worth, there is something odd about him.”

Zoran turned before he could stop himself. “What?”

“My resonance didn’t work properly.”

Zoran’s attention sharpened. “Properly how?”

“Usually, people respond to the resonance somehow. Their attention shifts, and their emotions follow. There’s always a reaction.”

“And Monroe?”

Caspian frowned, searching for words. “It was like listening to several melodies at once and none of them agreeing on where the song was supposed to go.”

He paused.

“I tried twice. Briefly. He resisted the first time, so I pushed a little harder the second.” Caspian’s expression turned more serious. “That only made it worse.”

“What does that mean?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t still be interested.”

Zoran looked back toward the crowd. So it was not only his dragon. Caspian’s magic had reached for Theo Monroe and found something it could not classify either.

That changed things. It still did not explain Monroe, but Zoran was no longer the only one who had noticed that something about him did not fit.

By the next training briefing, Zoran had decided Caspian’s discovery changed nothing practical. Theo Monroe was still hiding something. The only difference was that more people were beginning to notice.

“Ashencroft.”

Zoran stopped near the edge of the training floor. Professor Flint stood several paces away, watching the students disperse. More specifically, he was watching Monroe.

“His records say late-awakened,” Flint said.

Zoran followed his gaze. Theo was gathering his things beside Winterbloom, looking entirely too ordinary for someone who had already managed to confuse both a dragon and a siren.

“That’s what his records say.”

Flint glanced at him. “You don’t sound convinced.”

“I was paired with him in the ward assessment.”

“Exactly.”

That earned Flint his full attention.

The professor folded his arms. “Late-awakened students compensate. They hesitate and overthink structure because the magic isn’t instinctive yet. Monroe adjusts too quickly.”

Zoran remembered the defensive exercise. Theo’s corrections had been precise, and the mistakes had appeared only after he realized Zoran was watching him and Flint had noticed too.

“I want a cleaner measure,” Flint continued. “I need someone whose limits I already know.”

Zoran understood immediately. “You want me to test him?”

“Yes.”

Flint looked across the training floor. “Monroe.”

Theo glanced over, then approached with visible suspicion. “Professor?”

“I’m assigning you for the next combat assessment.”

Theo’s expression tightened slightly. “Against who?”

Flint glanced toward Zoran.

“Ashencroft.”

Theo followed his gaze. His grip tightened once around the strap of his bag, and for once, he had no immediate answer. His eyes settled on Zoran instead, sharp with calculation and, if Zoran was reading him correctly, irritation.

With Monroe, the two usually came together. Zoran held his stare. Whatever Theo was hiding, Flint had just given Zoran permission to find out how well it could fight.