"And do you know the normal rules of chess? Because that would give you an unfair advantage, at least to start with."
"I know a set of rules for chess, but the hrraktha version requires more pieces and a differently-shaped board, so it's hardly applicable."
"Hrraktha being..."
"My people. Properly it's—" He made a sound that shouldn't have been able to come out of a human mouth, layers of trills and clicks and growls on top of each other. "But I imagine that's a bit more difficult for you to parse."
"How did you do that? I know you're really a dragon, but you're human-shaped right now."
"I'm always me," he said, and smiled. "Shall we play?"
She let him go first, because he still had a better grasp of the rules, such as they were, than she did, and for a while they didn't talk, just moved pieces around the board in increasingly erratic ways. After a while Sauvage started putting them down in the air above the board, which seemed like cheating, so she retaliated by flicking one of them across the room. He relaxed, then, and only then did she realize how tense he'd been, and a silence that had not quite been unfriendly turned into a much more pleasant one, punctuated occasionally by conversation.
"You know," Sauvage said eventually, "I'm surprised you didn't encounter the word in the course of your research. I admit I know nothing about this library beyond what you told me, but its sphere of knowledge sounds large enough to include it." He balanced a pawn on top of a rook. "Then again, Roman didn't tell you the specific word either. As a distinction it's probably meaningless if you aren't already at least somewhat familiar."
"That reminds me," Jules said, stacking a few of her own pieces, "that book I was looking at had another name for you, apart from James Sauvage, I mean. A hrraktha name, I assume. I couldn't actually read it, but—"
"Good," he said, with such viciousness that she looked up, knocking over the chess pieces she'd been holding. It became apparent that she'd missed some very important cues in her concentration. Sauvage's expression had gone flat, empty, his hands gripping the arms of the chair he sat in with enough force to tear the fabric, and she couldn't tell if he was angry or just bitter or something else entirely. She'd never seen him angry, and hadn't thought about that much before.
"I..." She didn't know what to say, only that she ought to say something. "I just thought, because...you didn't tell me what you were when we first met, and I thought maybe you gave me the name you did because you were trying to seem more human, or...something like that. It doesn't sound right now that I say it out loud, though, does it." It wasn't really a question. She might not be the best at reading people, but sometimes they made it easy for you.
Sauvage met her eyes, and blinked, and an expression of shame descended over his face for a moment. He shook his head as if to clear away a memory. "I'm sorry, I—you couldn't know. If you knew you wouldn't ask. That is, after all, what questions are for." A pause, filled by breathing. He seemed to be waiting for something, some reaction. When a few seconds passed without a response from her, he turned away, and closed his eyes.