Alice rolls her eyes. “Fine. As you’re already apparently better acquainted than I had either expected or planned, I suppose a formal introduction is in order. Cora, this is Calvin Archer. My brother.”
“Yourbruh,” seems to be all Cora can say.
“Let’s lay it all out for efficiency’s sake,” Alice says.
Cal snorts. “Quite. Why waste time softening any blow?”
It’s lucky she’s so practiced at ignoring him. “He’s been a part of the plan from the beginning, as he was already well placed as a feature writer atThe Herald.”
Of all things, Cora is starting to look relieved. “So... you know?”
“There’s no Württemberg resistance movement, there are no emerald mines, there’s no duchess or prince—well, actually, the prince is real,” Cal recites, fixing Cora with a gentle—one might even call it affectionate?—smile.
Alice leans forward, suspicious.
“I write it all up in the paper as fact,” he adds, “jeopardizing the core principles of my very livelihood, knowing full well it’s a load of hooey. That, as of today, the only authentic elements of this plan of ours are a single Colombian emerald and a marriage proposal.”
Cal whirls on Alice again, livid. She stalks away to stare out the window.
“One that you, apparently, intend to see through?” he goes on. “Ah, bless you.”
Alice glances back to see Béa’s brought him both tea and those spice cookies he asked for, the traitor.
“I don’t understand,” Cora says. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Cal keeps his eyes fixed on his sister. “Because Alice asked me not to. She likes to keep things separate, you see. Clean. You’re not the only pawn on the board, Cora. God forbid any of us get the full story. Only she can hold it all in her mind, like Athena toying with us mere mortals.”
His voice has taken on a poetic tone. It’s too much. Alice picks up an embroidered pillow and chucks it at his head.
He swats it away. “Oh! Very mature!”
“But why did you talk to me?” Cora’s voice is so soft, Alice can hardly make it out. She’s never once seen the girl look so vulnerable. “Wouldn’t it have been easier just to stay away?”
“I suppose it would have.” Cal frowns, considering the question seriously. Then he grins. “But not half as fun. It gets pretty lonely out there, you know.” He nods to the street view. “Staying in my lane. I suppose I thought if my sister wouldn’t speak to me, at least I could get little glimmers of how things were going for her through you.”
“So you used me.” Cora’s voice is flat, unreadable.
“I mean, perhaps, at first, but... then, no, no, that’s not what it was at all. I liked you. Still do. Quite a lot.”
Cal and Cora stare at each other in silence.
“You know what’s at stake here, Calvin,” Alice puts in quietly.
He turns back to her, his cocky smile wiped clean. “I do.”
He slumps, apparently chastened. Alice thinks for one blessed moment that he’s succumbed to the overriding logic of her strategy.
Then he stands. “But there’s got to be a better way, one that doesn’t involve throwing a lamb to the wolves.”
Alice snorts. “Harry Peyton is hardly a wolf.”
“I think... he’d be the lamb in this analogy,” Cora reluctantly admits.
“Listen, you’ve said your piece.” Alice sighs. “But we are running a risk having you in here for this long. Take your... your spice cookies—”
“They are calledpfeffernusse!” Dagmar shouts from all the way in the kitchen. Lord, the woman really does have ears like a bloodhound. “Not spice cookie.”
“Do what you’re best at, dear brother.” Alice wraps thepfeffernussein a cloth napkin. “Pick a moment no one is watching and go.”
