Susan's feet ache long before Jake stops. He's brought her to the coastline, where the city has given way to the wild, and he spares a moment to survey the land before picking what still looks to be a treacherous route towards the water.
She follows anyway.
When it becomes evident that she'll have to wade to get to wherever he is going, she strips off her socks and shoes, stuffs them into the top of the duffel, and rolls up her pants. He already has his own shoes containing his balled-up socks hung by their laces around his neck.
The icy water is as much a shock to her system as the stinging salt. She hisses and flinches back, but when she sees him looking back at her, watching and waiting for her decision, she keeps going.
If he thinks this is enough to get rid of her, he'll have to think again.
She fears spelunking might be in her immediate future when she finally spots the cave, but it's larger inside than she'd realized from its mouth. She stands just inside, waiting for her eyes to adjust in the diminishing light, but she can hear him moving ahead of her with ease.
There's a click, and soft light fills the cave. Jake is standing on the rock next to a camping lantern; a modest of array of supplies are visible behind him. "Come on," he says when she doesn't move. "We can't risk lighting a fire, but it's dry up here, and I'm sure I can find the blankets Huntsgirl left."
"How long have you two been using this place?" Susan asks as she searches for the best foothold on the slippery rock.
The hand that appears in front of her face is unexpected but appreciated. His grip is strong, and he helps her up with apparent ease. "As long as we've needed it."
It's not an answer to her question, not really, but she hardly expected one. It is, however, a confirmation of her suspicions: this isn't merely a lesser-used field base for the Huntsclan or a cache of supplies to be accessed when needed in the field. He and Huntsgirl are the only ones who are using this place.
If they're lucky, they're also the only ones who know of it.
"I'm assuming there's more than one entrance."
He shrugs, but she doubts it's because he doesn't know. She can't imagine that he and Huntsgirl would choose a spot where they could be penned in.
She drops the duffel, settles so her back rests against dry rock, and starts massaging the warmth back into her aching feet. She'll need bandaids over her blistering heels before they set out again, but it's a small price to pay for staying with her son. There's a chance Jonathan packed some of her medicine, she supposes—the simple healing potion was one of the first ones she was ever taught to brew, and years of experience have only perfected it—but it's not something she wants to pull out for something as minor as this if he did.
If it comes to a fight, she'll have much more need of it later.
Jake disappears into the dark, but she can hear the soft whisper of rustling fabric as he moves. When he edges back into the light, he's carrying two blankets, and he gives her both. "I'm warm enough," he says when she tries to only take one. "I'll be fine."
He'll be warmed by his inner fire, he means.
She thanks him and gestures to the duffel. "Are you hungry?" She might still need to do a full inventory of it, but she knows it'll contain food.
He shakes his head and sits opposite her. "I want answers."
Susan has never met a teenage boy who hasn't been hungry after foregoing food for as long as she knows he has, but she doesn't press the point. She finds a granola bar for herself and sits another atop the bag in easy reach in case he changes his mind. She takes small bites and chews slowly, waiting to see which questions he'll ask first.
"What does this binding mean for me?"
Ah, yes. She'd been expecting that one sooner rather than later. "When a dragon agrees to be bound by their blood, their own magic holds them to their words—and to the spirit of the agreement."
He bites his lip. "I couldn't leave. When you were upstairs."
"You agreed to let me come with you."
"I agreed to let you protect your family. You could arguably do that better if you weren't following me."
"Arguably, but not necessarily—especially when I'm counting you as family. You specifically said that I could come with you, and you knew that was my intention. As I hadn't violated our terms, your magic would have held you until I told you I didn't wish to come or my inaction endangered you."
His expression tightens. "So I have no say in interpreting our terms if you feel it violates the spirit of our pact?"
"You have every say," she corrects. "It is your own magic which binds you, not mine." It is also his heart, not his head, which will hold him to the spirit of his agreement. She is betting that he is, at his core, someone who tries to be a good person.
It is a bet her father would never take with someone who has been raised by the Huntsclan.
Honour is not something he would expect to find in one of its agents, but even if he did, he would not risk that their definition of good would match his own.
She knows he was surprised by Huntsgirl's actions, and she suspects—now that they know the truth of 99—he believes those actions make sense.
She also suspects he is still weaving a narrative to fit the story he expects, but she knows she is no different.
She wants to see the best in the boy that is her son, and she's a fool if she thinks she can keep her heart from colouring her interpretations of his actions.
"For how long? Until you release me or break your side of this?"
She nods, for that's true enough, and he scowls.
"So I can't break it myself? My magic won't let me? But you can?"
"Every binding can be broken by either party under the right circumstances," she says carefully. "Even bindings that you were born into."
He stiffens, one hand starting to rise to his face before he purposefully drops it back to his lap without a word.
"If you truly do not wish to stay with the Huntsclan," she continues, for she has no idea if she'll get a better opportunity to tell him than this, "you don't have to. You can be free of them. You may not choose to stay with me, but you do not have to go back to them."
His hands tighten into fists. "Being part of the Huntsclan is my birthright. It's who I am."
He might not realize that he's allowed her to deflect the conversation away from their pact for now, though she has no doubt he'll realize later. It's for the best; she needs to say this while he'll let her. Hopefully, if he's so interested in breaking bindings, knowing that he can break this one and not only the one he made with her will work in her favour.
"A dragon is also who you are," she counters, "and having a birthright does not mean you cannot reject it. Choosing the Huntsclan would be a rejection of your dragon side, would it not?"
He frowns. "My dragon side?" The repetition is laden with confusion he doesn't seem to make any effort to mask. "Am I not simply a dragon who walks in human skin?"
The words make her flinch, though they're spoken with far less bitterness than she would have thought. "All dragons have two forms. It's not a matter of one hiding the other but two sides of the same coin." She hesitates and then adds what he surely must have already surmised: "My dragon side is locked away."
"I once thought you were human," he admits, staring down at his lap rather than meeting her eyes, "but then, after seeing you with the American Dragon, and the oath…." He swallows and looks up. "Why call it a side? Why not just call me a dragon? Is that not what I am?"
There's a note of desperation in his voice he isn't able to hide—or perhaps he isn't trying to hide it. "Your father is human." She hadn't said as much before, but she doesn't believe it makes a difference. It shouldn't, anyway.
Her words pull a bark of bitter laughter from his lips. "You married a hunter? It would be his side I get this from, wouldn't it?" This time, he points to the hidden mark around his eye. "And he didn't try to slay you on sight? Or is he so poor a hunter that he doesn't know the truth?"
"He is a good man," she says quietly. She has never looked into Jonathan's lineage; whether he has any ancestors in the Huntsclan hardly matters to her, as she's always judged him by who he is.
She wonders now if her father has done the research she has not.
Is the Mark of the Huntsclan even genetic? She knows there are many more who are brought into the life than those who are born to it. She has never thought to look into whether there is some familial connection—or, more likely, tens of dozens of them at their root, scattered as they are across the world; she has no reason to assume interrelations amongst them any more than they should assume all dragons are closely related. She has always thought those who are marked at birth have a magic of their own that thrives in opposition to her own magic.
She feels a fool for thinking it spontaneously generated now, but for all her research, she has never had reason to investigate that particular point before.
"So you think I'm not? Because I am part of the Huntsclan and he isn't?"
"He isn't part of the Huntsclan," she agrees, "and as my daughter said, your affiliation with it when you have known nothing else does not automatically make you a bad person. Your choices, your actions, are what determine who you are as a person."
He raises an eyebrow. "So if I decided to go back to them, as you keep saying I can if I choose to, then that would make me a bad person."
She sighs. "For your own protection—"
"Let's say I'm willing to risk it. Let's say I'm betting that I can keep this secret from them forever. If I go back, if I keep doing what I've been trained to do, then you'd think me a bad person."
It's not a question.
"If you would rather hunt your own family—"
"So you don't think they're my family, too?" The bitterness is in his voice now. "You have no idea who I count as family. You don't know me half as well as you think you do."
No, she doesn't. "I want that to change. Will you tell me about yourself? I've told you about me."
"You barely told me anything concrete the first time," he says. There's an accusation in his tone, hard and sharp and unavoidable. "You didn't even tell me my father was human!"
"Does that matter to you?"
"It—" He breaks off. "I don't know what that makes me. More of an abomination than I'd realized, I guess."
"No." Her voice is resolute, unyielding, and it's enough to bring his straying eyes back to hers. "You are not an abomination. You are not a mistake. You are not unnatural. You are just as much a dragon as you are human, and you are not less of one because of the other. You and your sister are hardly the first children born this way—"
"As hybrids?"
"—to parents who love you for who you are," she finishes firmly. She knows; that is one thing she had researched, trying to bring as much evidence to her father as she could that her marriage to Jonathan would not mean the end of the family line. Oh, she'd had doubts. After Jake's death—or what she'd thought was his death—she'd thought the accounts she'd found were wrong or mistaken, that she'd misinterpreted something, that there was something wrong with her, specifically, that meant this wouldn't work, because of what she is—
But the accounts had been true, and there is nothing wrong with her, just as there is nothing wrong with Haley or Jake.
She cannot abide the thought that he'd truly believe there is.
"I can't abandon my family," he says. "The people I see as my family, I mean. The fact that you insisted on coming with me means you should understand that."
"Will you tell me who they are?" He has an advantage over her if he doesn't, and she isn't sure he'll give it up.
He shrugs. "Can't you guess?"
She can only guess one person, but she has no idea how far his network stretches beyond that. "If Huntsgirl knows the truth about you and hasn't turned against you, I would say that is a good reason to continue to count her as family."
His mouth twists. "You don't know that."
"I know she gave up the American Dragon for you, and few Huntsclan agents I've met would do that."
He cocks his head at her. "Have you met a lot?" There's a wariness in his voice now that hadn't been there a moment ago.
"I've met enough." It is almost impossible to walk in both worlds and not run into them.
Concern etches lines onto his face. "Then they'll know you. They'll think to check on you. They'll—" He breaks off and curses. "This is worse than I thought. If they realized I was meeting with you, if they were just letting me get away with it until they figured out what I was doing, then they'll have dug into you to find out why I was meeting with you, and—"
"I'm a caterer." He is bemoaning her lack of concrete facts, so she'll give him this one. "I work in this world, and all my dealings with magic are very much under the table." She would have more of a problem if they started to investigate the origins of her staff; she's not sure how well some of their cover stories would hold up to intense scrutiny, but it's been enough to fool everyone else so far, and anyone who isn't human can pass for it. "It will hardly be evident that I'm the mother of the American Dragon."
"If you seem normal," he shoots back, "then it's even more reason to wonder why I was meeting you! You don't know how they work. You don't know how far they'll go. They're not going to simply let me go, and it's not like I can just renounce them even if I wanted to."
Her breath catches in her throat, and a beat passes before she can force out the words. "You could."
"What?"
"You could renounce them if you want to."
He shakes his head. "It doesn't work like that."
"It's a start. An important start." That's true enough, too. Always the truth but not yet the full truth. How can she explain to him about bindings when every word will make it easier for him to shatter hers? Until she's had more time to talk to him, she doesn't want to risk it.
"I won't abandon Huntsgirl."
Susan doesn't really need the confirmation, but she'll take it for what it is. "I'm not saying you have to."
"You are. She has no reason to leave the Huntsclan."
"Your friendship isn't reason enough?" The question is mild, but Jake's face darkens.
"You don't understand anything," he spits. "She's the only reason I've lasted as long as I have, but our friendship only puts her in danger. Especially now. My disappearance will reflect poorly on her, and she'll—" His voice cracks. "She's Huntsgirl for a reason, but she's not infallible, and they might see this as a failing."
"I hardly think—"
"I know," he interrupts, and then the rest of his words burst out in a flood. "I put her in danger before, and I'm putting her in danger now. Even if I went back right now, she still might not be safe from the repercussions. They'll think I ran on purpose, and how can I tell them the truth? They would kill me if they found out what I am or what I've been doing, but I can't— I can't just leave her."
Tempted though she is to push her point about the possibility of renouncement, she stays silent.
He deflates. "I'd rather risk the Huntsclan finding out about me than go without seeing her again."
"She's your only family from there."
Jake doesn't confirm the observation verbally, but the way he huddles in on himself and refuses to meet her eye makes her suspect that's true.
It's not a truth her father will like, but Susan has hardly modelled her entire life choices after things her father would like.
If helping Jake means helping Huntsgirl, she has little reason to hesitate. As far as Susan is concerned, Huntsgirl earned a modicum of trust unprompted when she returned Haley unharmed. If Susan is careful about it, if she doesn't expose either of them to any particularly vital information about the magical world—
It wouldn't be easy, but it could be done.
"Why do you think it's impossible to free you both from the Huntsclan?"
Now, he gives her a withering look. "She's Huntsgirl," he repeats. "I know how much they'll be looking for me, but unless they already know what I am, she's far more important. We're not initiates within our first year; we can't just renounce the Huntsclan and walk away. At best, we'd be labelled as compromised and dealt with accordingly."
She waits for a further explanation, but he doesn't offer one.
"We can help her," Susan says, but Jake only shakes his head. "We can at least try."
"There's no point. There isn't any way we can win." He pulls his legs up to his chest and hugs them. "You shouldn't stay with me. You'll be safer if you leave. The Huntsclan will find me, and you don't want to be here when they do."
"You seem awfully convinced that there's no way we can move forward from here where you aren't happy with the outcome."
He scowls. "You seem awfully convinced that things aren't as bad as they are."
"I'm optimistic."
"I would have thought the mother of the American Dragon would be a realist."
"What's to say I'm not?"
"Every word out of your mouth since we started this conversation." He unfolds and springs to a standing position. "I'll get you some more water. You won't have packed enough."
She sighs but lets him go. Truth is, she would appreciate the drink, and she is already trying to ration the supplies she knows Jonathan packed. She starts taking an inventory of the rest while she waits for Jake to return, but she doesn't need to finish it to know that being able to combine her supplies with whatever Jake and Huntsgirl have here will make things easier. Most of her contacts are in the magical world, and she doubts any of them would be happy if she brought an agent of the Huntsclan to their doorstep or safe house.
Still, she can't figure out a plan until she knows what Jake wants to do.
At this rate, she won't be able to do that unless she can convince him he has an option besides going back voluntarily or being caught and dragged back.
Knowing he won't attempt anything until he's sure Huntsgirl is safe is something, at least. Huntsgirl is known in the magical community; if she's out in uniform, there's a good chance someone has marked her appearance. If Susan can find a way to make contact and spread the word—
No. It's not likely to help. Huntsgirl won't be staying in one spot, and she has no idea how long Jake will decide to stay here. By the time Susan got word back, assuming she managed to contact someone in the first place, it would be too late. She hardly has as many contacts as Fu, anyway. Her network isn't comprehensive enough for something like this.
She's spent too long relying on his.
When Jake returns and hands her a bottle of water before sitting across from her again, she thanks him with a quiet word and a smile and cracks it open. She swishes the first mouthful, savouring it before swallowing, and then says, "Let's just say, for a moment, that we could make sure Huntsgirl was safe."
"We can't."
"Humour me."
"Fine." He opens his own bottle and takes a few swallows.
She waits until he's finished before saying, "If you were both safe, would you consider renouncing the Huntsclan?"
"Why does it matter? That doesn't mean anything, especially not to them."
"It means everything. If you aren't happy with them, then doing something like renouncing them—something small but definitive—would be an important step in getting free."
"That's where you're wrong." He twists the cap back onto his bottle and sets it aside. "Those who bear the Mark of the Huntsclan never leave it. They can't. That choice has been made for them. Most of them take to it anyway, excelling in their training and rarely being challenged by those who joined as initiates, but I—" He breaks off. "Everyone who is marked by choice or by birth belongs to the Huntsclan. Nothing can change that."
She reaches out a hesitant hand, and when he doesn't shuffle away, she touches his knee. "You may have been raised by the Huntsclan, but you were born to us. Even if you hadn't been, you would still have a choice, even if they didn't want you to know that. There is always a choice."
"There isn't."
"There isn't always an easy choice," she corrects as she withdraws her hand and sits back, "and it may not always seem like a feasible choice, but it is there."
He mutters something under his breath she can't quite catch before he says, "You don't understand anything."
"Jake," she says, because she wants to remind him of who he is to her, "I'm trying to offer you a life away from the Huntsclan, with Huntsgirl if she wants to come. You have a choice."
"It's not a choice if what you're offering is an impossibility."
"What do you lose by trying?" she presses. "If you aren't sure how much the Huntsclan knows, then isn't it already possible that you're both" —what had been his word for it?— "compromised? Are you sure you aren't stopping yourself from taking the opportunity to break away from them because you've convinced yourself you can't? If you refuse to try, they've already won."
He blows out a breath, and she can smell smoke even though she never saw flame. "It doesn't matter what you say. I won't renounce the Huntsclan before I talk to Huntsgirl."
"You might not have a choice if you speak with her first," Susan says quietly. "She might simply try to take you back to the Huntsclan, whether or not that's what she wants to do. If you think they might suspect her of having some knowledge of your disappearance, they would surely be watching her, and I imagine she's clever enough to suspect they may be doing so either way."
"You wanted me to choose. I have." He stands again. "Try to get some sleep. I'll take first watch. For what it's worth, I won't sneak off on my own."
She'd rather talk than attempt to sleep, but she's seen the same expression on Jonathan's face before whenever his mind is made up about something and he isn't sure she'll like what he's decided. Usually, that sort of thing only comes up when he's taken a stand on something he's more convinced will upset her father than her—he even wore it the day they told her father of their engagement; she was a mess of nerves she couldn't hide from her father's knowing eye—but she doubts changing Jake's mind would be an easy thing to do.
After all, even after twenty years, her father hasn't managed to convince Jonathan he made a mistake by proposing to her, and she's grateful for that each and every day.
"Thank you."
There's a note of bitterness in his voice as he says, "You aren't going to ask me to swear it by my blood?"
She doesn't need to—unless she's very much mistaken, their current terms will already do that—so she shakes her head, but she doubts she'd ask for something like that anyway. Too many little bindings with the same person like that only make future ones more brittle, as if someone's own magic builds up a defense against them. In that way, magical bindings are the opposite of ones formed naturally.
He shrugs and turns away, and she doesn't know if he's taken it as a sign of trust or if he guessed the lack of necessity and is disappointed that she didn't say as much.
She stuffs the remaining inventory back into her duffel and positions it to use as a pillow. She swaddles herself in blankets, lies down, and finds herself staring at the rock above her and listening for every little sound her son makes instead of sleeping.
