Page 63 of Diamond Angel

“You’ve been gone a long time.” Again, I’m not quite sure what to make of that. Is she mad? Aloof? Or just neutral? She’s not wrong, obviously. So many things have changed since I ran out of this garden in the dead of the night. “Come on. Walk with me.”

She turns and meanders down the path without waiting to see if I’m following. I linger under the willow tree for a moment, taking the chance to watch her without her watching me in return.

She’s lost more weight than the pictures showed. Her arms are slim and the peaks of her spine poke through her linen dress. She moves slower, too, as though she’s thinking about every movement before she makes it. I suppose coming back from the brink of death will do that to a person.

She leads me to a table in a far corner of the garden. The birds don’t chirp here. The table is laid out with tea, coffee, juices, a spread of breakfast pastries. But I’m much more focused on Celine.

“Have you seen Dad yet?”

“Not yet. I’m told he’s still sleeping.” She pours herself a mug. Tea, not coffee. That’s new, too. She used to hate tea. “Would you care for something to drink?”

The whole ritual feels strange, like she’s playing hostess to avoid a real conversation. “Uh, coffee, please. Black.”

She hums like that interests her, but she doesn’t actually say anything. She just pours a cup of black coffee, plates it on a saucer, and passes it to me. Then she sighs and leans back in her chair, one manicured finger stroking the edge of the wrought iron table again and again. She doesn’t take a single sip of her drink.

“It’s so good to see you, Cee,” I blurt into the weirdly taut silence. “There were times I thought I’d never get to sit next to you again.”

“Oh?” She tilts her head to one side. “I knew we’d see each other again, at some point. I was sure of it.”

I arch a brow. “You were sure of it?”

“Ilarion was so determined,” she explains with a nonchalant twirl of her hand. “I knew he wouldn’t just let the two of you disappear into the night.”

Determined.I get what she’s saying, and it’s not that the word iswrong.It just doesn’t seem to fit. It’s too dry. Too unemotional. The Ilarion who found me in that tiny, dusty town was rippling with rage, sorrow, fear, a thousand different things.

Celine, though… Shedoesseem dry. She does seem unemotional. And maybe that’s exactly what worries me the most—it sounds too perfectly calm. Rehearsed, maybe.

It’s the word of someone who’s hiding what she really feels.

Old Cee would have talked to me immediately if she had a problem about something. But New Cee seems like she’d lure me into a corner and then toy with me before going in for the kill.

“He…he could have,” I say nervously. “We could have stayed in our little corner. Dad wasn’t going to do anything else.”

“He couldn’t be sure of that, Tay,” Celine remarks, finally picking up her teacup and taking the tiniest taste. “Dad’s betrayed him once before.”

That surprises me—the judgment in her tone. The slight accusation in her eyes. She blames Dad. Or maybe it’s more that she’s taken Ilarion’s side in all this. I shouldn’t be surprised, really. She chose Ilarion over her family when she decided to stay with him.

“That was before, Cee,” I point out. “Before we… Before you were involved.”

She doesn’t frown, but her eyebrows pucker just slightly. “Trust is a hard thing to win back once it’s broken.”

My palms are starting to sweat. I feel like she’s driving towards a point. I’m getting increasingly concerned that the point is to expose me and my lies. My betrayals.

Does she know?

Everyone in my life has told me that I wouldn’t be able to keep the façade up for long. I’ve steadfastly refused to believe them, but now, faced with her steady gaze and her glacier-like composure, I feel like I’m unraveling.

“Yeah. I know.”

She takes another prim sip of her tea. “Croissant?” she offers, pushing the basket toward me. “They’re homemade.”

“Did you make them?”

She laughs. “Me? No, of course not. No, Maurice, our chef, did. Go on. You look like you could use one; you’ve lost so much weight.”

“You’re one to talk,” I gently tease, taking a croissant just so I have something to do with my hands.

She smiles and waves away my comment. “I work so much that I forget to eat.”

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