Ugh, those nerds were bonding over books and starting inside jokes without me. I hated their relationship.
“We can have inside jokes, too,” Siret assured me, his arm stretching over my shoulders and pulling me into his side. “Why don’t the six of us think of some tonight, after the party …without books.”
I almost choked on the tea that I had just sipped as Emmy’s face flamed bright red. I quickly put the teacup back onto the table before I could drop it and start a bout of hysterical crying from Pica, because yes, even teacups had feelings.
“Okay,” I finally managed.
“Okay,” Coen said from my other side, a deep chuckle riding his tone. “And now that we’ve settled that … what’s our escape plan from the garden?”
“The garden!” Pica exclaimed happily.
We all waited for her to continue, but apparently that was all she was going to say. She was currently staring into her own cup of tea, a small wrinkle of concentration appearing between her brows. It wasn’t exactly a frown, but it was an imperfection in her mask all the same, which had us all on high alert.
“Oh,” I finally said. “She means thegardenis our escape route. Didn’t you say it was magic-resistant?”
“It is,” Cyrus confirmed. “It will protect you to a certain degree, but if someone came at you with a blade, for example …”
“But my outfit,” I argued. “That’s resistant to physical attacks. Maybe we could find similar clothing for the rest of us? Then we’d be protected enough to escape into the garden if we need to.”
“My smart Willy,” Pica cooed, abandoning her inspection of her tea to instead pick up one of the cookies she had brought out. “So smart. So beautiful. So special. Everyone will see, just you wait. They’ll see my daughter for what she is.”
She was scraping the cookie along the picnic table, as though trying to draw with it. We all watched her for a moment, witnessing as the “thing” she was drawing slowly grew stick-thin legs and arms, protruding from a similarly shaped body. A circle for a head topped the figure, and then crumbles of wild curls were fanning out around the head like a messy halo.
Three guesses who that was.
Siret snorted, and Coen shifted uncomfortably, probably trying not to react. I waited for her to do something even crazier, but she kept chipping away at the figure, the serious look back on her face.
“She’s not your daughter, Pica,” Cyrus reminded her, his tone bland. He had to repeat the same thing almost once a sun-cycle, so I didn’t blame him for the insensitive delivery, but for some reason I was wary of Pica.
She crumbled the rest of the biscuit in her fist, tossing the crumbs to the ground in a rapid, cutting movement of her arm. When she rose to her feet, her presence seemed to swell, an electric energy drawing about her. The hair on my arms started to stand up, and I quickly jumped up before she could advance on Cyrus.
“Pica,” I muttered, drawing her eyes to me instead. “We have only a few rotations until the party, and we still need to obtain clothing for the others that will repel physical attacks. Can we do it?”
The switch in her was instant. Maybe it was my hand on her arm, or the way that I was appealing to her personally, but my attention seemed to draw out the crazy Pica that we were used to.
“Oh, my silly Willy.” Her hands slapped gently to my cheeks, framing my face. “The gods would never resort to suchdwellermethods of attack. None of them will even have weapons. If we run into the garden, they will be disabled.”
“We’ve been in Minatsol too long,” Cyrus grunted, sounding displeased. “She has a point.”
“I don’t feel comfortable being the only one with added protection,” I admitted.
“Emmy is not unprotected,” Cyrus argued, and the briefest flicker of white flashed before my eyes.
I blinked, trying to follow the colour, but all that remained was Cyrus’s mildly pissed-off expression. I had hurt his feelings.
Emmy herself spoke up then, rising from her seat across from me to stand with Cyrus. “I’ll be fine. But what about the other guests? Will any of them be harmed?”
“Just for attending?” Cyrus asked. “No, that would be a waste of energy. If Staviti bothers to attack at all—and I doubt that he will—he won’t waste his time on foot soldiers. He’ll go straight to the head. He’ll attack the reason itself and take down our main focus so that we’re left confused and scattered and without a purpose. He’ll target Willa.”
“Good to know,” I muttered dryly, though I was actually happy to hear that everyone else would be safe.
“It’s settled then,” Coen announced. “We’ll all work as a unit, keeping in groups of no more than two. Each member of your pair will be responsible for watching another member of our group. Does everyone agree?”
“Agreed,” we all chimed, except Pica, who had spun away from me to tend one of her purple rose bushes. She didn’t even seem to be listening anymore. I supposed it didn’t matter, because Staviti had proven already that he would never attack her.
“Who’s going to decide on the pairs?” I asked, sensing a disagreement in our near future.
“I’ll take Emmy,” Cyrus volunteered before Coen could reply. “We will both watch Willa, since she is the biggest target. Siret, you’re with Willa. You’re the most good-natured of your brothers, and we want people to feel safe approaching her. Yael, you’re with Rome. Coen, with Aros.”
