“About two weeks,” she says, sighing loudly and falling back against the headboard. “Meg will have to take my place as Desdemona. At least temporarily.”
Lexington snorts. “She’ll be so thrilled.”
Sabrina wrings her hands together in her lap. “Could I talk to just Elle for a second?”
“Sure,” Percy says, leaning his head on the mattress. “We’ll tune out.”
Clicking his tongue in disapproval, Lexington reaches over and grabs Percy by the shirt collar, hauling him to his feet. “Elle, we’ll be in the student gym if you need us.”
“We will?” Percy asks, horrified by the prospect. “I don’t like the way that place smells?—”
His words are cut off as he’s dragged from the room, and the door slams shut behind them.
I clear my throat, uncertainty swimming around my insides.
Sabrina cocks her head. “Are you okay?”
“Just swell.”
“That bad, huh?”
Groaning, I slump forward, defeat lacing my shoulders. “Am I that transparent?”
“Probably only because I’ve spent the entire semester thus far watching your every move.” She smirks, sheepish. “Not in a creepy way though—in an I-have-a-major-crush-on-you way.”
“Like Percy does you?”
Her nose scrunches up. “Yeah, I guess that is what it’s like, huh?” She looks up at the ceiling, exhaling. “He used to proclaim his love for me at every Fury Hill Fourth of July picnic. I’d sort of hoped college would open his world up to the other possibilities out there, but it doesn’t seem like that helped.”
I don’t reply, wondering how she hasn’t noticed the heat between him and Lexington.
“Actually, I encouraged him to date Kelsey, just trying to keep him away. People who get too close to me tend to wind up hurt.” She runs two fingers over her bandages, pursing her lips.
“What do you mean?”
She gives me a knowing look. “Come on, Elle. You’re not an idiot. Do you really think I didn’t know who would likely be in the Apollodorus basement the night we went down to it?”
My stomach twists. “Considering youtoldme you didn’t?—”
“I didn’t know forsure, but I had suspicions. The rumors suggested… Well. My curiosity about Death’s Teeth didn’tjustcrop up last semester. I’ve been studying them for years.”
Silence descends on us, and my eyebrows knit together. “Why?”
“My brother—well, half brother on our biological father’s side—was killed last semester in thecaves.By your brother.”
A hole opens up in my chest. I pull my hands into my lap, sure that my expression must betray the discomfort within.
“Look, don’t worry about not knowing,” she says, waving that thought off. “We didn’t tell anyone about our relationship, and we didn’t even really grow up together. Eli got to be a Blackwater. I was raised by my mother and stepfather and apparently better off for it. But Eli was always sort of a loose cannon, so when we enrolled at Avernia, Henry—our father—had me tailing him constantly because he was afraid Eli’d do something to sabotage his own bloodline. He didn’t want to fit into the Blackwater box, so he got involved with Death’s Teeth pretty early on as a way to set himself apart.”
“You can just join?”
“If you’re a founding family member, yes. But that’s why I’ve been watching them for so long. It was only a matter of time before Eli self-destructed, and Henry wanted to make sure he didn’t drag down his other son. So I’ve been trying to keep an eye on that whole situation too.”
“Who’s his other son? How many siblings do you have?”
Sabrina pushes her laptop further away. “Do you remember what the Director said the night they brought us down there?”
“I don’t speak French, so…”
