Caspian’s back was rigid. And even though he’d been a total dick to me and apparently not even thought about apologizing, I imagined being able to touch him. Ease him. “We haven’t heard from you since yesterday morning. Mother was worried.”
“That’s her problem.”
Wow. It was Alien versus Predator over there.
“I’ll let her know where you are,” Caspian was saying, “and that you’re all right. And I’ve had your session rescheduled for this afternoon.”
“I told you, I’m done with that.”
“No, you said you were bored. That’s not the same thing. You should go.”
Ellery’s jewelry jingled as her hands flew up and then down again, disappearing behind her back. Caspian probably didn’t even notice but I did: that hint of restlessness, uncertainty, a crack in her sullen defiance. “Well, I can’t.”
“You will go to counseling, Eleanor, if I have to drag you there by the hair.”
I shivered. He sounded like he meant it. Implacable and without warmth. I’d seen that in him before, even felt it a little when he’d turned on me the other night, but it had never been like this. With me, it had always been banked, tempered by care and the promise of heat in his eyes. For his sister, there was only a blank chill.
I would have been a distraught pile on the floor, but Ellery just rolled her eyes. “Like I’d let you anywhere near my hair. And, anyway, what part of I can’t aren’t you getting?”
“The part where I give a damn.”
It hung there for a moment like an icicle and then Ellery shrugged. “Tough. Because I’m going out with…with him.”
Me?
“You’re what?” I wasn’t sure if I’d spoken or Caspian. Maybe it was both of us.
“Yeah. We’re going shopping.”
I glanced nervously between them. Caspian was very still and very pale. And probably very angry.
Despite being an only child and growing up in town with a population of about four hundred, I wasn’t an idiot. I could see what was going on here and I wasn’t mad keen on being a nonconsensual participant in a sibling power game.
I stared at Caspian desperately. If he’d looked at me, given any sign of remembering I was there—of remembering I wasn’t just a less effective alternative to a cleaning company—I wouldn’t have agreed.
But he gave me nothing. As usual.
“Yeah, sure,” I said.
And that got his attention. Not in a good way. But before he had a chance to respond, Ellery had pulled me out of the room.
Chapter 22
Nobody was chasing us, but we ran anyway. It gave me a tingly, Ferris Bueller feeling to flee the swaggering modernity and aggressive wealth of One Hyde Park for the crumbly Victorian grandeur of Kensington.
We stopped for breath near Hyde Park Corner. Ellery slumped onto the steps of something pillared, porticoed and flag-flying, and I discovered I’d left the apartment without a coat or my wallet or either of my phones. Thank God the place was above mere human keys; otherwise I might have been homeless. Which would have been infinitely preferable to turning up at Caspian’s office again in order to tell him I’d locked myself out of the apartment after running away with his sister.
“Well…thanks or whatever.” Ellery hugged her knees to her chest, walling herself off with her own body. “But you don’t have to stay.”
“What, and go back to a pissed off Caspian? I don’t think so.”
After a moment, I sat next to her and she rested her cheek on her folded forearms, watching me. Her eyes reminded me of the marbles I used to covet as a kid, glassy with a sharp twist of color at the center.
“Are you really with him?” she asked.
“I have no idea. It’s complicated.”
“You should be careful. You seem sweet and he’s fucked up.”
