He is her son. Her little Jake.
For all that Susan had hoped it was true, for all that she'd convinced herself nothing else made sense, she hadn't expected to get confirmation of what she'd known in her heart so soon.
"You have to let me go," he says, and it all starts to fall apart. He drops his hand back to his side, his dragon features retreating. "Please! You must."
He is her son, her little Jake, and she doesn't know if she can trust him with her daughter's safety.
With his sister's life.
He must read something of her thoughts in her face this time, some trouble in her expression that she isn't able to hide. "It'll be safer if you do," he tries again. "For all of you."
She isn't sure he realizes the threat in his words.
"I can't," she says, and that much is true. She doesn't know what he believes, what he thinks of any of this. She knows he's her son, but she knows nothing else. "You know I can't."
He takes a step back, eyeing the bars, and she shakes her head and tells him that they're magically reinforced. Even a dragon would be contained within this particular cage.
She doesn't tell him a determined dragon wouldn't be contained for long, even if Fu did more than sprinkle a strengthening potion on the bars before Jake woke.
His hands clench into fists, and she isn't convinced the desperation on his face is a mere mask. "I'm missing," he says deliberately, "and they'll notice. They'll come. If you don't let me go, they'll find the American Dragon."
"They would find her readily enough if I let you go and you told them where she is," Susan counters. Just because she doesn't want to think that something might happen, she'd be a fool to dismiss the possibility. Jake's family is one of bond, not blood. They are little more than strangers to him. She cannot afford to forget that terrible truth.
"Then make sure I can't tell them. You can do that. I know you can do that. Make sure I can't tell them and then let me go. I'll lead them away. I'll—"
"99," she says, even though it hurts to say his number when he's willing to accept her name for him, "if you're so certain the Huntsclan is already coming, then you should also know that it's already too late. We're out of time."
She says it more to see his reaction than anything else. As tests go, it's a thin one, woven with as much lie as truth. Last time they'd been in this position, the Huntsclan hadn't been looking for him—not yet—but if this time is different, then they don't have the luxury of sitting around with a quiet cup of tea and figuring this out.
The Huntsclan will recover missing agents at all costs. They would be happy to find the American Dragon in the process, to learn her face and her family. A memory potion isn't the solution Jake believes it to be. Even if the Huntsclan doesn't know how to reverse its effects, they'd know its work for what it is. They would know that Jake has stumbled into something worth hiding, something worth investigating, and her father's shop would never be a safe place for them again.
He wouldn't even need a hidden recorder or secret scrap of paper full of scribbled code to tell them the truth.
They'd be able to put the pieces together themselves.
She isn't sure they'd accept him back into the Huntsclan after what would surely be seen as a misstep on his part, even if he doesn't remember any of the details of what happened. If they did welcome him back into their ranks, it would hardly be without question, and between the surveillance and probing questions….
Memory potions don't erase everything.
To take away everything necessary to keep Haley safe, they'd have to…. It would be too much. He's just found his family, whether or not he fully realizes what that means, and she can't take that away from him. She won't abandon her son the moment she gets him back, the moment he knows everything and she has the proof her father wants and—
"It's better than staying here," he bites out.
There are tears in his eyes, and she doesn't know if they're real.
She isn't sure it matters. Not to her. Her father wouldn't trust a word of this, but she's not her father.
"They'll expect information, and I know too much."
He isn't wrong.
On the other hand, from what Haley has told her, he doesn't know much more than Huntsgirl. Susan has told him about himself, about the family they were supposed to be, but aside from this shop and her connection to the American Dragon, he doesn't know anything of importance the Huntsclan would not feasibly already have access to, should Huntsgirl decide to break her silence. They care about specifics. Concrete facts. They use information like daggers to be turned against those foolish enough to flaunt it.
"They'll find me either way. You say you want to protect your daughter, so why are you willing to sit here when it would mean practically handing her over to them?"
He is saying more to her about his situation now than he ever has before, in all their meetings, and she suspects that if nothing else, he is being truthful about the Huntsclan's actions.
They know he's gone, and they're coming.
Her father might never have said as much, but she knows he's expecting it. Even if her father doesn't believe this boy is her son, he was born with the Mark of the Huntsclan. He's not some simple initiate within his first year whose loyalties are tenuous and whose knowledge is purposely kept rudimentary; he was raised by them and is expected to die for them. He is valuable.
That means she doesn't need to go upstairs to know that Haley and Jonathan are helping Lao Shi and Fu pack up as much evidence of dragons frequenting this place as possible. They don't have time to scrub the shop of all traces of magic, but if the Huntsclan doesn't realize how important the shop is, if they think it perhaps belongs to a wizard or someone else who dabbles in the magical arts, then there is a chance—
"I don't know who they'll send after me, but they'll find me here," Jake insists. "I never left my assigned area. This is the first place they'll look!"
"Do you want to go back?"
Her question is quiet, but it's enough to stall whatever words were hovering on his tongue. He closes his mouth and frowns at her.
"You grew up with them," she says, even though the truth of it fills her chest with ice. She takes a steadying breath and continues, "You have friends there. Family. You're tied to the Huntsclan by more than a mere birthmark, and I cannot pretend you aren't." She hesitates, but he says nothing. "Yet, you asked me for help. You defied them to meet with me."
He huddles into himself, holding his arms as if her words alone are enough to chill him. "They'll find me."
"That's not what I asked."
His mouth twists. "It doesn't matter. It's the truth. They'll find me. Whether I want to go or not doesn't matter. They'll find me, and they'll find out about you, and you can't take that risk if you want to protect the American Dragon."
"Jake," she says, because the name is still so sweet in her mouth, "you must know we would take precautions in either case."
Something in his expression hardens at her words. "Precautions," he spits out. "Right. I can imagine the precautions you'd want to take. About the same as the Huntsclan would if we caught a spy."
We.
It hurts, and it shouldn't, because it's far too soon for her to think that he might say they in this context. They might be coming, but he is still a part of them. He is more a part of them than he is a part of her family, even if he is a dragon.
"Are you a spy?" she asks, as it's easier to question him and keep him talking—finding out as much as she can in the process—than it is to think about the fact that he might never want to stay with her or accept her as his mother.
"I might as well be." It's a whisper laden with leaden certainty.
There's a thump from upstairs, loud enough to have them both looking instinctively towards the ceiling. When she looks back, she sees that Jake has shifted into a fighting stance even though he is behind bars. She doesn't think it is the Huntsclan, not yet, but they can't be certain of anything.
She can't be certain of Jake's loyalties, whatever he is telling her.
She wants to think the best of him, and he must know that.
He might believe that he is her son. He might not. He might want to be called by the name she and Jonathan had given him; he might not, whatever he's told her now. She can't afford to compromise Haley's safety by taking him at his word. She can't trust that he believes her, that he wants to escape to protect them and not to betray them, that he'd rather swallow a memory potion and face the consequences coming to him than risk his own family—
—but they aren't his family, they aren't, not yet.
Wishing will not make it so.
She knows that almost better than anyone.
She spent her childhood wishing she could be the daughter—the dragon—her father wanted. She spent her teenage years and young adulthood wishing she could find a way to tell Jonathan the truth. After they were married and had decided that they wanted children, she wished for a child, and then she spent years wishing that she understood what had happened to her son.
She knows the truth about Jake now, and Jonathan knows the family secret, but she has never been the daughter her father wanted, even if he never said she was lacking for anything in his eyes.
He never needed to say it.
She had been unfit to bear the mantle of the American Dragon, had agreed to let Haley take it up while so young in part because of that, but he had needed to put so much work into building up a network to protect his new country because she hadn't been able to do it.
She'd studied.
She'd learned as much as she could about the dragons and their responsibilities, about the magical world, about potions and magical artefacts and everything else she could find that didn't require an active magical spark within her, and she hadn't stopped after she'd fallen in love with Jonathan.
It can never be enough—or at least she has no reason to think so.
She still has to try.
She must always try.
"You're right," she says, and Jake isn't quick enough to hide his shock. "You might as well be a spy. Meeting with you was always a risk, but it's a risk I chose to take. I want to protect my daughter, but I also want to protect you, and that means letting you go."
"Finally!" He relaxes from his stance and crosses the short distance to the door of the cage, but she makes no move to unlock it. Comprehension dawns, and he nods. "The potion first?"
"A pact," she says, thinking he would find compromise on both their parts more agreeable than her demanding an oath from him. "A binding one. By your blood."
"By my—?" He doesn't understand. "What?"
"Dragons can be bound by their blood."
His eyes narrow, but she doesn't let her expression change. "They can't."
"Can't they? Then you will have no problem agreeing to go along with me."
He steps back from the door, wary now. "Agreeing with what?"
"I'll let you out of here if you bring me with you—and, more importantly, if you do no harm to my family." To your family. To our family.
"And?"
She hadn't intended to add more conditions before they began negotiating, but with a small nod of acknowledgment at his prompt, she says, "And you let me do what I can to protect my family."
He shakes his head. "No. That's too vague. It gives you too much free rein. You could…you could use that as an excuse to take care of me."
The words are sarcastic, scornful. She smiles in response and decides to deliberately misinterpret his meaning. "Yes, I would, because even if you choose not to accept me as your mother, I know you are my son. As such, you are part of my family, someone I would pledge in turn to protect to the best of my ability."
"You can't protect me!"
"I can try if you'll let me."
He stares at her for a moment and then says carefully, "If you let me out of here, I won't turn around and attack you or your family, and you can do what you must to protect them—including coming with me until you decide it is time to part ways—unless it involves harming me or my family, in which case I will be free to take action against you."
Something in her chest tightens further. It is a confirmation she doesn't want that he does not necessarily see them as family.
She lets a smile quirk her lips upwards anyway. "Do no harm to my family yourself and do not intentionally make the path easier for anyone else. Is that amenable?" He nods. "Good. Now, I don't want to follow you directly to the Huntsclan. That will hardly give me much opportunity to protect my family."
He doesn't take the bait. "Then don't follow me."
"Don't go directly to the Huntsclan."
"It wouldn't matter. They'd find me anyway. I've told you that."
"Don't go back to them, and I'll bring some supplies for both of us."
He cocks his head at her. "Wouldn't you do that anyway if you insist on trying to protect me?"
She gives him a genuine smile this time. He is better at this than she'd imagined he might be. "Humour me."
"I won't make it my first stop. I need time to figure out a plan, especially if you protecting your family involves slipping me a potion."
"I won't give you anything without telling you its contents. Truthfully."
"Answer any question I ask truthfully, or at least as truthfully as you can if you don't know the truth."
"I already have."
"You haven't. You would've told me who you suspected I might be if you had."
No, she wouldn't have. Answering a question truthfully can be done without answering it fully. Lies by omission are one thing, but though they may overlap, carefully exploiting loopholes can be quite another. It is simply a matter of not offering up more information than necessary. That is how fools hang themselves. "Very well. I will answer what you ask truthfully."
He is silent, even though she is getting the better end of the deal. He is getting the freedom he asked for, the right to defend his family from her actions, supplies she would have shared anyway, and truthful answers to his questions. He is agreeing to leave without doing any harm to her family or helping others to do so, and he is allowing her to come with him, to gather information, and to do whatever she can to protect her family. That is worth more to her than anything else right now.
She would ask that he name those he counts as family, but she isn't sure she wants to know the answer. She's agreeing to let him take action against her if she moves against them; he is not barring her from trying in the first place. She wonders if he realizes the difference, important as it is.
Then again, whether he likes it or not, he is a dragon and she is not.
He might not see himself as superior, but he might be mistaken enough to believe he could take her in a fight.
He has been training all his life, but so has she, and she has fought enough sparring matches against all sorts of magical creatures and humans alike to know that youth is not a sure match for experience, whatever the arrogant may believe.
She is also practiced at using words as her weapons, as she is now.
"We agree, then," he says as he offers her his hand through the bars.
She takes it. His hand is warm, calloused, and unfamiliar; before, he had always been careful not to touch her unless he was wearing gloves. She resolves to learn the familiarity of his hand in hers if he'll let her. "By my blood, we are agreed."
He doesn't ask about the proper response. He may not believe one exists. Perhaps that is just as well, since the magic in her blood is not enough to bind her to her words; though she will honour her agreement, he must take her at face value. Still, the response he gives is adequate: "And by mine."