Amy gasped. “You were hot in your dreams? That could be a sign of a drought to come.” He started mumbling about stockpiling food and alerting the council while I continued.
“We’re arguing,” I said, “really going at it, me yelling, you just… talking like you always do, one zinger after another without batting an eye. That shit makes me angry andinspired, like… you make me want to be a better asshole.”
“Wooow.” She drew out the word, brows high. “I’m so damp right now.”
“Don’t usedampin that context. I’m begging you. Anyway, we’re arguing, and I yell something, and you deadpan something back, and it takes me a second to register that you said, ‘Are we going to fu—’?”
Amy stopped muttering and looked up with interest.
I dropped my voice. “You said, ‘Are we going todo thisor not?’?”
Courtney peered around Amy. I wished I could see into her brain, because her expression was unreadable. But if eyes were the windows to the soul, Courtney’s opened into an empty void.
“And then?” she asked.
“And then I say, ‘Well, yeah, I guess so.’ And you yank me forward and kiss me right there among a bunch of sink displays.”
“And then?” Amy whispered, literally on the edge of his seat, suddenly overly invested in our lives.
I cringed away from him. “That was it.”
Amy stood. “This is very troubling indeed. Why, I cannot make heads nor tails of it. What does it mean? Kissing and arguing? Should we be wary of those closest to us, for they are our enemies? Or perhaps our enemies are actually our friends.”
As usual, Amy’s input was exceedingly unhelpful. I’d apparently shared this mortifying tidbit for nothing.
Before I could rise, though, Courtney caught my hand. “And then?” she whispered.
Her piqued interest was more gratifying than I wanted to admit, and my embarrassment morphed into profound smugness. Maybe she’d run away this morning not out of disgust, but because she’d actually been tempted.
I leaned in. “You pull me to the break room, and you yell at me to take off my clothes, and I yell at you to take off your clothes, and then we both yell at each other to shut up.”
She swallowed hard. “And then?”
“And then we shut up.” I stood, her hand falling off me. “If you want to know more, you’ll have to find out for yourself.” I added that last part because I knew she would never, ever take me up on the challenge. I only hoped to tease her apparently desperate libido enough that, by the time we got home, she’dhappily move away as quickly as possible, lest she succumb to my apparent charms.
“Come.” Amy waved a hand over his shoulder. “We must tell the council about this.”
There was no way I would be discussing my sex dream withthe councilfor the next six hours.
CHAPTER 20INWHICHTHECOUNCILTALKSABOUTBRYCE’SSEXDREAMFORSIXHOURS
COURTNEY
No matter how many times I repositioned, my hard wooden stool found a new angle to make my tailbone ache.
When we got to the council room, everyone noticed the fact that all the cushy gold-plated chairs that had surrounded the long stone table were missing. Servants had to rummage up a hodgepodge of assorted stools, wooden folding chairs, a couch, and a giant velvet pouf, which the king immediately called dibs on, even though he now sat so low, his nose was barely higher than the top of the table.
I’d blamed the missing stuff on the Evil One. The presence of an Evil One had upsides. They were a convenient scapegoat to take the blame for all my screwups and nefarious activities. Everyone bought the lie, which succeeded in taking the spotlight off me but added to the length of the council meeting because everyone had to speculate what kinds of ghastly things the Evil One was planning on doing with the chairs. People started throwing out ideas, ranging from using the chairs as weapons, using the chairs as torture devices, and then, finally, using the chairs as chairs. This last suggestion was the one they settled on, deciding(with great thoughtfulness) that the Evil One probably needed somewhere to sit.
The whole time, I kept a shrewd eye on the king, watching him for signs of guilt. It couldn’t be a coincidence that the night he was absent, supposedly sequestered in his rooms, another person went missing.
After the chair debate, the meeting moved on to Bryce’s sex dream, and Bryce’s face discovered eighty-seven interesting new shades of red.
The phenomenal waste of time made me antsy. Right now, General Thimblepop and Winston were enduring who knew what kinds of terrors, and I wanted todosomething about it. Training was all well and good, but I didn’t feel like we were making progress.
And then, of course, there was still the looming tournament where we’d have to compete for the title of Chosen One—something that now felt like yet another meaningless waste of time. I was 99 percent sure Bryce was the Chosen One, but when I tried to secretly tell Amy that (because I didn’t want Bryce to hear me forfeiting), Amy insisted the tournament was the only way to truly know who they should trust with the fate of the world. We were nearing the end of our second day of training, which meant we only had one more full day before we had to compete.
“We can’t rule out that the kiss might be a metaphor for a kiss of death—something which will lead to our downfall,” wheezed one of the six decrepit old men seated around us.
