"Why are you acting like this?"

"I'm not!" Jake insists before he has a chance to think his words through, and the look on Rose's face makes it clear that was a mistake. He tries to backpedal anyway. "Um, acting like what, exactly?"

It's after morning training, and Jake had tried to dawdle in the showers long enough for Rose to have gone for lunch, but of course she hadn't. She was lounging against the wall opposite the boy's showers, waiting. Now, Rose leans so close to him that a damp lock of blonde hair brushes his shoulder, and she whispers, "You're keeping secrets, Jake, even from me."

From Huntsgirl, more like, but he can't tell her that or he'll risk everything.

"I'm just scared," he admits. He pulls his eyes away from hers, studying the shape of her nose, the set of her mouth, and then the stitching of her uniform. She caught him when they were alone—she wouldn't have started this conversation if they weren't—but they hadn't planned this, and he's not prepared for it.

He can feel her eyes on him, knowing she's studying his expression for any sign she can find that will tell her how truthful that statement is and how much it's leaving out. She knows how rare it is for him to make such a confession. After a moment, she asks, "Of me?"

Of her. For her. For both of them. And of himself. And the Huntsclan…. "Of everything. I can't…. I just don't know if I can keep doing this."

She turns away and starts to walk down the hall. He knows where she is going. Their little chat isn't over; it's hardly begun. But here, the walls have ears. It's best if they wait until their whispers can be hidden amongst the conversation of machinery.

They meet in one of the maintenance rooms as often as they dare, but only for quick conversations. They won't both have enough acceptable explanations for every time they'd like to go, but Rose thinks it is safer than their usual spot and that the inconsistency will work to their advantage. Jake thinks they're simply trading one risk for another, but that's all he's been doing these days anyway.

It's only after they've done a thorough sweep of the room that Rose faces him again. "The information I have isn't enough," she says. It's clear to him what she means: all the information she'd gotten from the American Dragon. All the moves she's carefully shown him, making sure he's mimicking what the American Dragon did exactly. She asked for that information and then conducted the trade for him instead of taking the American Dragon back to the Huntsclan like any other member would have. Like she should have, if only to save her own skin.

Jake knows Rose is waiting for a denial, for reassurances, but he doesn't give them. He can't, and by the way she presses her lips together, she already knows that. "You don't have to protect me, you know."

"I don't have to condemn you, either."

"Jake, please. I want to help you. If you tell me whatever you're keeping from me, you won't make things worse. I won't be in more danger."

Yes, she would be. That's why he can't tell her.

"Where do you keep sneaking off to?" she presses. "You were supposed to meet me yesterday, and you never showed up."

"I forgot," he answers, honestly enough. He'd gone to meet Susan; he'd forgotten about his meeting with Rose. "I've been tired lately."

"I know. You've been practicing without me." He frowns, and she adds, "It's not just fatigue. When we have practiced, you've been better."

Susan's instructions have been simple ones. Careful ones. Basic moves, hardly more complex than anything the American Dragon had shown Rose. Susan says it's because she can't demonstrate, but while that's no doubt perfectly true, the real reason is that she doesn't want to give him anything that the American Dragon isn't already trained to counter.

He can hardly blame her. He might be pretending to be a prisoner, allowed just enough freedom to pull off meeting with her thanks to some more sympathetic members, but as far as she's concerned, he already helped the Huntsclan capture the American Dragon once. Susan wouldn't want to give him anything so useful that he may be able to do it again, now that she is on her guard.

It isn't only training tips, though. She's talked to him about his diet and standard care routines—largely because of his pretense of friendship with 99—and warned him about what to expect as his powers develop; it must be painfully obvious to her that he hasn't had them long, though she may think that the reason for his apparent capture. Still, she's coached him in aerodynamics to improve his skills in flight, and he's beginning to find it easier whenever he takes to the air. Mostly, she's talked to him about the importance of control—commended him, too, for the control he's already demonstrated—and offered more techniques to calm himself, to focus. She's said that she expects he finds it harder now that he is no longer free, but he can't help but wonder if she knows that he never had an elder to guide him.

He hopes not. He really doesn't know enough about dragons to spin a proper lie. His branch of the Huntsclan has focused their efforts on the dragons of New York City, and he's not ranked highly enough to have been taught more than cursory info about the others. After all, should a spy manage to infiltrate the Huntsclan initiates, the elders would hardly want that spy to easily discover precisely how much is known about dragons and their ilk worldwide.

He isn't even sure Rose knows.

She hasn't told him.

Of course, it would be treasonous for her to tell him.

No more treasonous than helping him, though.

Would Susan's act of helping him be considered the same? She may not have taught him any magic, may not have given him any secrets about how to find or fight other dragons, but giving him any information at all might be seen as treachery. She's betraying the trust they've put in her, even if she refuses to set up a meeting between him and the American Dragon.

Rose is still watching him, waiting for an answer, and Jake sighs. "It's not safe for you to come every time I practice controlling this." Its truth makes the excuse a convenient one, if not something Rose will entirely believe. "We can't afford to be caught together when I'm like that. But I'm still practicing, and that's why I'm improving. I can't risk not improving. You know that."

"I also know how hard all of this is on you, and that's why I want you to talk to me."

"I do talk to you!"

"But you also avoid me when you think I won't notice. Except I have noticed, and I'm not the only one. People know something has changed between us, Jake, and they know something's changed with you. The longer this goes on, the less likely they'll believe anything I say about you."

Jake swallows. "What have you said?"

"That we had a fight. That I'm trying to get you to see my way of it and you're being stubborn. It's not far from the truth."

It's not, and he takes her admission of that for the warning it is.

"Don't you trust me anymore?"

It's Rose asking the question, open and honest and raw, but it's Huntsgirl whose eyes harden and whose lips press together when he doesn't answer immediately.

"It's not you I don't trust," he says. She's still listening to him, and he knows that's all he can hope for. "It's just…. They watch you even more closely than they watch me. You're their protégé."

"And is my ignorance supposed to be for my safety or yours?"

"Both," he whispers, and he doesn't think that's a lie.

"It doesn't matter. It's too late. If they find out about you, they'll know about me, too. You won't be able to pretend I didn't know anything. And…and it's not as if you can protect me from the dragons if they decide to try something."

He frowns at her. It's not a jab at his dragon abilities—improvement or not, they both know he has much more work to do—but it doesn't make sense that she'd downplay her own skill. She's Huntsgirl. Despite the trade she made before, the dragons would be fools not to fear her. "What do you mean?"

"She knows my face." Rose's admission is quiet, almost lost in the hum of machinery. "That was her price."

Her price.

The American Dragon.

For everything she'd shown Rose that night.

"You're compromised." Somehow, Jake never expected that. He never thought Rose would take such a risk. She's on track to be an elite agent, to go undercover. To hide within normal society as the dragons do and see what she can find out about the dragons and the creatures they try to protect. If the Huntsclan elders find out that the dragons already know her identity, she'll never be allowed in the field unmasked. She'll be lucky to be sent out again with her mask.

She certainly won't retain her status as Huntsgirl.

"But you're supposed to transfer to the high school this year," he says. "The one with the teacher they've been watching. To see if he's found any legitimate leads."

She says nothing.

"But you can't…. Compromised agents are reassigned!" He can't keep the panic out of his voice. He can't stop it from rising above a whisper. He knows he should transform an ear, to listen as a dragon would to make sure they're still safe, but he can't focus enough for that right now. Rose is compromised. Compromised. "We both know what that really means!"

No compromised agent who is 'reassigned' ever returns. Or ever sends any more reports. Or is ever heard from again, even just as a note in someone else's report. They've both done more than enough paperwork, cross-referencing included, to know that.

Rose reaches up to trace the mark that snakes around his eye and counters, "We both know I was compromised a long time ago."

From the moment she found out about his secret. From the moment she kept it. By putting her loyalty to him above her loyalty to the Huntsclan….

But this is different. This is her identity. He can pretend to be someone else. When he meets with Susan, he does so as a dragon hiding in human skin, not as 99, not as a member of the Huntsclan. Rose…. Rose can't hide behind another identity like that. Beneath the mask of Huntsgirl, she is just Rose, and her face is more valuable to the dragons than her name.

Whenever he had tried to imagine what she'd traded away, he hadn't imagined it would be this.

"Neither of us is safe," Rose says, "and you can't protect me."

She's right. He can't protect her, not if the Huntsclan finds out that she's compromised, and one rumour is all it would take. The tiniest whisper that the American Dragon is looking for someone who matches Rose's description, and—

"You threw your future away for me. You shouldn't have done that. You should have left me."

"I wouldn't be any better off if I'd done that, and you'd be worse."

He shakes his head. "You can't be a field agent now."

"I can if the dragons think they can trust me. That's what I'll tell the Huntsclan if the elders find out. I'll show them how useful it would be to them."

"Playing at being a double agent is dangerous. You're good, but you're not that good."

"It's no different than what you're doing."

"I'm not that good, either!"

"I know." Her agreement hurts more than it should, slicing through to the truth of the matter. "You aren't. We're both in over our heads. It's sink or swim, but this won't take me down. I won't let it."

He is weighted by more secrets than she, but they might both flounder in their lake of lies.

"I won't lose you to this." Her voice is fierce, sharp. She looks like she'd be willing to fight the Huntsclan elders singlehandedly if they tried to deny her, and he doesn't envy anyone who might challenge her.

Still, he hears the following silence for what it is. She's confided in him; she's waiting for him to do the same.

Only he can't.

"I don't want to lose you, either," is all he says.

He might as well have struck her. She schools her face, but not before he catches a glimpse of the depth of her hurt, her anger. She's risked everything for him, and he can't bring himself to trust her with everything he knows. Not yet. He doesn't want to ruin things between them, doesn't want anything to change beyond repair, but it might have changed already.

Because he didn't trust her when he should have.

When she leaves without another word, he tries to tell himself it's because they can't risk staying here any longer. He tries to tell himself that an actual fight between them will make her cover story more believable. He tries to tell himself that this is for the best.

He can't convince himself of his own lies.