Susan unlocks the cage, shows Jake to the washroom, and gives him the concealer from her purse. He nods in thanks, understanding what it's for without her having to say it. She's simply grateful that he has her skin tone, or at least near enough to it, that it'll cover up his mark for now. She'd hate to run into someone from the magical world and have to explain what she's doing with a member of the Huntsclan. There isn't time for all of that right now.

Jake seems surprised that she's willing to leave him alone, but his word will keep him there. He cannot leave the shop without her after agreeing she could go with him. If he tries to escape without her, he'll find out precisely what being bound by one's blood means for a dragon.

Guilt twists in her gut—for all that she'd told him that dragons could be bound by their blood, she knows he hadn't entirely understood—but she hadn't been able to think of another way that might protect both her children. Even now, she doesn't know if there was a better way.

If there is, she expects it will only become clear in hindsight.

She ascends the stairs without skipping the squeaky step and finds Haley's old dragon backpack on the landing, stuffed to the point of overflowing. The toe of a sandal is poking out the top, and she's not convinced the backpack will stay zipped up as much as it currently is once someone picks it up. She moves it to the side and casts a critical eye over the living room, trying to decide how far they'd gotten. The pale pink glow of the silencing sigil on the floor by the desk would have been a mistake—Fu's, if his glittering fur is anything to go by—but he raises his paw in acknowledgement when he sees her and then returns to packing a delicate mix of paperwork and potions into a padded satchel.

"Any luck, honey?"

She starts—how had she missed Jonathan?—and turns to find her husband reshelving books on the low bookcase. Her father must have given the directive, as she doubts Jonathan would know what is too valuable to be left behind. She sits down on the floor next to him, close enough that their arms touch. "Good news or bad news?"

"Worst first."

It's the answer she expects, the one he always gives, but she still asks in case he ever changes his mind. "I need to go away with him. I don't know how long I'll be."

She doesn't need to see his frown to know it's there. "Will you be safe?"

"I'll be safer than if I stayed here."

His silence means he isn't convinced, but he doesn't press her. "I love you, you know," he says instead.

She leans her head against his. "I know. I love you, too." She finds his hand, interlaces their fingers, and squeezes before adding, "He's our son."

She feels him go still, and she lifts her head as he asks, "Are you sure?"

"He has our scale pattern. The Huntsclan couldn't fake it to that degree. Even when Huntsgirl had Haley, she wouldn't have recognized it for what it was, and that's assuming she knew to look for it." She twists to look at him then. "My cousins' patterns aren't this similar. It's our branch. Unless I've siblings I don't know about, he's our son."

"Our son," Jonathan repeats softly. "Our little Jake."

It almost breaks her heart to see the tenderness on his face. All his hope—all his love—is plain. She tightens her hold on his hand. "Yes."

"That's why you have to go with him."

Have, not want. That little choice tells her he understands more than anything else does.

"I can't leave him. I don't want to leave Haley, either, but she'll be safe without me. He won't be." She hesitates. "I think he believes me. I don't know for sure, but I think— I don't think it's all an act. He doesn't want to let himself trust me, but he's listening. I can't ask for more right now."

He frees his one hand, wrapping that one around her shoulder to pull her close, and knits his free hand into her fingers instead. "Haley's afraid."

"I think we all are."

"We've packed a bag for your father, and he's helping her collect the few things she's left here so there's no trail to our house." He gestures at the papers and books around him. "He and Fu were working on this earlier, but I'll admit I don't quite understand everything they're doing."

"They're trying to collect all evidence that dragons lived here. They can't take all their books with them, so a Huntsclan raid here would yield them some knowledge they haven't had before, but as long as they don't know it's us, it'll be okay. We'll be okay. Dragons are hardly the only magical creatures who live among humans."

"You'll be okay," Jonathan says as he pulls her closer to him. "I'm going to do everything I can to make sure of it."

She enjoys the warmth of his arms, the reassurance that surrounds her soul, for another precious moment. "I need to pack a bag for myself and our son." She doesn't have the strength to pull away on her own, and the words do not give it to her.

"Our little Jakey," Jonathan murmurs. There's a tenderness in his voice, a hope, that she hasn't heard since Haley was little and they were taking turns to get up and check on her in the middle of the night to assure themselves that she was alive and healthy. "All grown up." A beat passes. Then, "Do you think he'll see me? Before you two go?"

It's dangerous. Her father would immediately forbid it. If he turns on them, their son knowing Jonathan's face would only put him in danger.

But he's already in danger.

"Why don't you pack a light travel bag for the two of us and take it down?" It might be his only opportunity to see his son. She doesn't know when she'll be back, and she doesn't know if Jake will stay with her. "There should be an old duffel in the top of the spare room closet. Pack the sorts of supplies we always used to take when we'd go on those overnight hiking trips years ago. I can finish up for you here. There are risks to him knowing who you are, but you can make that choice for yourself. I told him about you, but I never told him your name or Haley's." She swallows but decides she needs to speak the next words, no matter how much they hurt. "He said I could call him Jake, but I don't know—"

Her voice hitches, but Jonathan doesn't press her.

He knows what she isn't saying.

He gives her another hug and a soft kiss before pulling away. "I'll never stop loving you," he says, and then he's on his feet and walking to the spare room where Haley stays when she spends the night at the shop.

Susan sits for a few heartbeats more before she picks up his work, but it hardly seems like she's done anything at all before Haley is hugging her. "Did he say anything more to you?"

Susan lifts her head to meet her father's eyes. "He's your brother," she tells Haley. "I saw his scale pattern."

Haley chokes out words Susan can't understand before beginning to cry into her shoulder, something Susan understands very well.

They're strangers in the same family, with no clear path ahead, and the first thing Susan must do is separate her children.

"I need to go with him," she continues. "He needs my help. You'll have to stay—"

"—with me," Lao Shi says. He must see the shock on her face before she opens her mouth. "We must all tread our own paths. Your husband will remain here. He cannot join us on the Isle of Draco."

"Dad—"

"Fu Dog will remain as well. He will meet with Marty and his other contacts to give us what information they can—and to ensure the safety of your husband."

She frowns. "What if the Huntsclan finds out who he is to us? We can't put him through that." More to the point, she can't imagine her father risking that.

"They will not."

She doesn't like his certainty.

"You can't know that."

He inclines his head slightly and amends his words. "I strongly suspect they will not."

She sees Jonathan cross from the spare room to the washroom with a half-filled duffel bag, no doubt planning to raid the cabinet for its remaining first aid supplies, and she holds Haley tighter instead of calling out. Jonathan must already know he's not going to go with Haley. That's why he hadn't tried to reassure her that he would take care of their daughter in Susan's absence; they were both passing their responsibility of that onto her father.

She hugs Haley closer still and kisses the top of her head. "I love you. Take care of your gramps for me, okay?"

"I will." Haley sniffs and squeezes tightly in return. "Love you, too."

"Go say goodbye to your dad; it won't be long until Fu finishes."

Lao Shi sits opposite her when Haley flies away to find Jonathan. He doesn't need to verbalize his disappointment and doubt for her to hear it.

"I'm certain," she says. "Scale patterns don't lie."

"You left him alone."

"We have an agreement. He's bound to it. He won't attack us."

"He does not need to attack us directly. Does the river not wear down the rock? Does the sun not scorch the earth? If he—"

"He's bound by his blood to do no harm to my family, and he's bound not to make it easier for others to do so, either. You taught me better than to leave open such a gaping loophole."

His lips press together into a thin line for a moment. "Mistakes are almost always made where they are not expected. You know how easy it is to be underestimated and how tempting it is to overestimate your own abilities. You are not as practiced at phrasing pacts as you once were, and one ill choice is all it will take to destroy it."

"Please, just trust me."

"I trust you, as I always have. It is him I do not trust. You may have bound him, but he is already bound to the Huntsclan, and so old a bond is not easily broken. Should he become unbound, you should not assume it is in your favour."

Susan sighs. She knows he's right, and she knows new bonds are especially prone to becoming untethered before they've set, but she doesn't want to hear it now. She wants support, not criticism. "I don't want a lecture. He's my son, and I'm going to stay with him." Besides, bonds are more tenuous when one participant is not committed to it. If she can convince Jake that his best hope of family is with her and not with the Huntsclan, that bond may crumble on its own.

She isn't willing to count on that, though.

Family is not bound together by a few mere moments any more than the ropes of experience are made up of single threads.

"I know I cannot stop you from leaving, my little lotus flower. I only wish that you think with your head and not your heart. He is Huntsclan Agent 99, not your son Jake. That boy is lost to us."

She purses her lips. She should know better than to hope for anything else from her father. "You won't give me your blessing."

It isn't a question, but he answers anyway. "You do not need me to give you something you have always had."

She frowns. "Pardon?" He's never approved of her. She's the one the magic skipped, the one who married a human despite his vocal and repeated disapproval, who could not give him the grandson she knows he's always wanted, however proud he is of Haley.

She's never had his blessing.

"I have not always been happy with your choices—"

"Have you ever been happy that I married Jonathan?" He hasn't been. She knows that. He can't pretend otherwise. Even now that Jonathan knows and accepts the truth, her father has been reserving judgement, as if Jonathan's character hasn't already been tested. It's an old argument neither of them has managed to win.

"—but I have always been happy with you. I have tried to dissuade you from making mistakes, to encourage you to bloom to your fullest, but I trust you."

"Your trust isn't your blessing—"

"It is a sign that you have it. If I did not trust that you would find a good partner when you so clearly wanted one, then I would have acted against you instead of merely expressing my disapproval of your first choice."

"Dad—"

"It was not enough." He touches her hand. "I know now that it was not enough, and I am sorry. Please know I would never take your choice away from you. We all make our own choices."

"Thank you." It isn't anything she ever imagined him saying. "I just wish—" She wishes his blessing were tied to his approval as well as his trust, but she doesn't want to get into another fight with him about Jonathan now, nor start one about Jake. 99. Her son. "I wish we had more time to talk."

"There will be time enough when we are together again. For now, know you have my blessing. You always have."

He starts to get to his feet, but she leans forward to hug him. "Thank you," she repeats. "Stay safe. Take care of Haley. I love you."

She doesn't want to leave them.

She wants to take Jake with her and escape with them all to Draco Isle until this is over.

But the Huntsclan must never be allowed to find the island, and she isn't sure her son would ever be allowed there while there is reasonable doubt as to his loyalty. It's more than just a sanctuary; even when the Dragon Council doesn't meet, its libraries are full of material that hold knowledge too precious to fall into their enemy's hands. Any dragon there would burn it all and take its loss than to see it be given over to the Huntsclan.

She spent a lot of her childhood reading in those libraries while her father met with the Council for one reason or another.

No tome or scroll held any answers when it came to unlocking her magic, at least not in any language she knows, and as she grew older, she stopped expecting one would.

She kept looking, though.

Now, she'll need to look for something else.

She has to find a way to free her son from the Huntsclan, and she has to do it without the help of anything she can find in a library.