“The boys already left,” Jolie informed me when we reached the main floor of Valarian. “Draken stopped by while you and Miranda were finishing up.” She grinned. “They went to get drinks. As usual, we took too long.”
“You meanMirtook too long,” I corrected, and Jolie snorted.
Mir elbowed me with one of her six, bizarrely life-like, blue arms, and rolled her eyes, then the three of us were out the door in a thin layer of snow, walking past the greenhouses on the way to Malcroix Mansion.
I stared up at the sky as more snowflakes drifted downwards, and wished I’d dressed as a polar bear, or maybe a Viking god covered in animal skins. It was definitely colder this late November than it had been the previous year, and wetter. Once we made it into the hall, however, I was relieved to be blasted by heat from the numerous spells protecting the Mansion lobby from the elements. By the time we got inside Morwormer Hall itself, I could feel my toes inside the sandals again, and I was only shivering minimally.
Jolie and Miranda made a beeline for the bar.
The latter handed me a hot drink that tasted vaguely of peppermint and hard alcohol before I’d even gotten in line, andsuddenly, I had a déjà vu of the previous year, when I’d come to this thing with Graham Strangemore.
It wasn’t the same, though.
Honestly, the déjà vu felt more like a mirror effect. I think I was more bewildered by the similarities, since absolutely nothing else felt the same to me at all.
Although Iwaslooking for him.
That much hadn’t changed.
The butterflies in my stomach were significantly more intense than they had been when I’d been here with Graham. It hit me that I was anxious verging on panicked as I scanned through faces among the dancing witches and mages.
Would he be dancing with other witches all night, if only to keep up appearances? I remembered Elysia Warrington grinding on his thigh the year before, wearing almost nothing, and a harder pain came to my chest to confuse the butterflies. I forced myself to stop looking for him among the costumed mages after that, and instead looked for my friends.
I found Miranda a few paces away, talking to Luc and waving her hands in her Kali outfit, complete with elaborate gold bikini top, low-slung skirt, a belt covered in skull designs, and multiple, bright blue arms, which looked so seamless, I couldn’t tell which were the real two out of the six. Luc appeared to be dressed as Loki, the Norse Trickster God, and wore a helmet with long, curved horns, a silver breastplate, and animal skins over furred boots. He carried a staff covered in Norse engravings with a curved ax at the end.
I didn’t want to interrupt them, so I stayed where I was, sipping my drink.
I suddenly wasn’t sure I could handle this tonight.
I’d wanted to see Bones, badly, I could admit that much to myself.
But I couldn’t reallyseehim here, could I? Certainly not the way I wanted. At best, I’d be frustrated by my inability to even talk to him; at worst, I’d get paranoid enough to want to leave. Now that we’d arrived, I seriously wondered how I could’ve forgotten that, or been so delusional as to come here for him, given everything.
Worse, I was exhausted. More to the point, I wasn’t going to react well if he was in full prick mode with his royals pals, and draped in half-naked witches.
“You look like you’re having an anxiety attack,” a voice observed from my right.
I jumped and turned to find Nyx Minh standing there, dressed as a cat with little bat wings and fangs. A snake-like tail flicked over the ground from underneath her long skirt. She wore bright green contacts, nearly lime colored, with vertical pupils, and sipped a straw in a tall, striped, green and black drink that emitted orange smoke. Her entire face was made up with spells to look like a cat, but Nyx still managed to look likeNyxsomehow.
I took a longer drink of the peppermint thing, and gave her an embarrassed smile.
“I’m fine.” I lowered the goblet. “Honestly just wondering why I let Mir talk me into this, when what I really need is about twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep.”
Nyx tilted her head, observing me critically.
I liked Nyx, a lot, but I’d noticed she could be disturbingly observant, especially when I didn’t want her to be. It was easy to overlook when the whole group was together, given how quiet she was, especially compared to Miranda and Draken, but I’d often wondered justhow muchshe noticed, and whether I needed to worry about that. The look in her eerie, magic-enhanced eyes right now, for example, held a fair bit of skepticism.
“Are you seeing anyone?” she asked.
“Me?” I smiled a nervous, probably twitchy, definitely unconvincing smile. “No, of course not. Not at all. Why would you ask that?”
“Is there someone youwantto be seeing?”
I flushed. “No.”
“It just seems like you’re looking for someone,” Nyx observed.
I shook my head, making the tendrils of my hair sway from where Miranda had arranged them artistically around my face. “You’re probably just seeing me space out,” I lied, wondering if it sounded as unconvincing to her as it did to me. “I’m not sure if what I’m doing even qualifies as people-watching.”
