Page 77 of House of Marionne

Jordan reaches for me, but I step back.

“I need a minute.” I rush to my bag, pretending to look for something just to have a moment to catch my breath. What’s come over me? I know the answer, but it’s so ridiculous, so unwise, so dangerous, I don’t believe myself. Once my breath eases, I return to the dance floor and fall in line with the group routine. This one doesn’t require as much one-on-one, which helps my pulse simmer down. Jordan glances over at me every few minutes, but when I catch him looking, he promptly looks away.

We finish the session, and I can’t bolt for my things fast enough.

“Quell?” Jordan follows.

No, every second I’m around him confuses. I walk faster.

“Quell, listen . . .”

“Look, I have a lot of enhancers to work on.” I force myself to face him so he knows I mean every word. “I don’t have time to talk, really.”

His expression is a far cry from last night, and the shock of it snaps my lips shut. The frustration and contempt have melted away, and I’m reminded of the first time he looked at me this way. When he saw that I’d emerged.

“Have lunch with me.”

“No.”

“Quell, I think you’re . . .” He tugs at his shirt. “What I’m trying to say is . . . I know I’m hard on you.” He sighs.

I twist my bag strap into a knot.

“Can we start over, please? Lunch, we can eat wherever on the grounds you like.”

“Me making a choice for us for once?” I shift on my feet, but the humor doesn’t buffer as I hoped it would. I stare back at him, and my insides do weird things. He slips his hands in his pockets, waiting. My skin tingles remembering the way his arms felt, he felt, around me. How I could live in that feeling, die in it, and I’m not sure I’d have any regrets. I’ve never felt more alive. I gnaw at my lip, trying to chew off the foolishness on the tip of my tongue.

“Say yes, please.”

It’s just lunch. I nod, reshoulder my bag, and follow Jordan out the door.

TWENTY-FOUR

The cafeteria is too crowded, so after we grab our food, I ask about checking out a glass building just past the gardens.

“The conservatory is off-limits, so we should have privacy.”

“Then how can we get in?”

He dangles a ring of keys, and I remember he oversees security.

The conservatory is a tapestry of flowers and herbs. Delicate white flowers cover plots on the ground, and winding greens hug its windowed perimeter. Above, light pours through its glossed windows, the sun chasing away any lingering chill of morning. We stop near a pair of stone benches next to a fountain of a mother and two girls hugged against her legs.

I settle on the seat with him but not quite next to him. I need my head on straight if I’m going to get through this lunch without raising his suspicion. Distance is good. He pulls a bag of colorful candies from his pocket and pops a green one in his mouth.

“You’re going to eat that before your actual food?”

He bites into his lunch. “There, happy?”

“I was just asking. It’s weird, right? To go from sweet to savory like that? I don’t know.”

He gazes off in the distance somewhere. “We weren’t allowed sugar growing up.”

A laugh that’s more shock than amusement spills out. “Wait, are you serious?”

He pulls another bag of candy out of his pocket and shows me two more in his leather satchel. He pours candies into his hands and I expect him to offer me some, but he doesn’t.

“I’m not actually hungry yet either.” I pull my dagger out of my bag and pile the twentysomething stones I have next to it. I don’t have time to waste.

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