“I can’t say her name. Like, I look at the page and I know it. I can hear it inside my head. But the moment I actually try to think it or say it, it just disappears like it never existed.”
Arjun’s eyes go wide. “That sounds like you’ve got a concussion!”
“Maybe, but I never hit my head hard. And it’s not like this is happening with all names.” I say his and Fifi’s just to prove that I can. “And I’m Penelope. So what is going on with this book that makes it so impossible to say this woman’s name?”
“I don’t know.” He looks uneasy as he reaches for the book for the first time. “Maybe we should close it.”
He’s probably right, but that doesn’t stop my hands from curling protectively over the edges anyway. I know I’ll have to close it eventually. I even know I’ll have to give it up to win the scavenger hunt. Just not yet.
Not now.
Before I can try to explain what I’m feeling, Fifi springs up from the bed. “I know someone we can ask about this!” she exclaims as she races to her side of the room. “And he even speaks ancient Greek!”
“Who?” I ask, then stop dead as I watch her pull out her bag of gumballs and pop a red one in her mouth.
Of course. Why didn’t I think of Frankie? He definitelytops the list of people I think might know about peacocks and the people who wear their feathers.
He’s also super responsive, unlike my muse. Fifi hasn’t even chewed the gumball enough to be able to blow a bubble with it when her muse suddenly appears.
He’s sitting on top of Fifi’s desk, swinging his legs and drinking a bottle of Gatorade the same exact color of his suit. Today’s suit is bright blue, and so is the gemstone pierced through his right nostril. His shirt is leaf green and his tie is one shade lighter, and it’s got candy hearts all over it that say things like “Muse and Tell,” “Don’t Muse With Me,” and “Muse Me Yet?”
The last one is my favorite, but all the sayings are pretty adorable. And so is Frankie as he bats his eyes at Fifi. “You chewed?”
I crack up at his play on “you rang,” and he shoots me a smile of appreciation before focusing his attention back on my roommate.
“I did.” But before she starts trying to explain anything, she leans over to the trash can near her desk and spits her gum out.
“Wow.” Frankie pretends to stab a knife through his heart. “You planning on using me up and throwing me out like that gum?”
“Never!” Fifi pledges. “I don’t like the red ones, but I adore you. And that suit. All it’s missing is a feather boa.”
“What is this, amateur hour?” Frankie demands. Seconds later, he reaches into his messenger bag and pulls out alime-green boa, which he uses to tickle Fifi’s nose before he drapes it over his shoulders. “Better?”
“Perfection,” she answers.
“Right back atcha!” He makes a little clicking sound out of the corner of his mouth before pulling his legs onto the desk so he can sit cross-legged. “Now, what can I do to help? Inspire your English paper? Make someone fall in love with you? Start a war in your honor?”
“I’m going to assume you were just teasing with that last one,” she tells him with a frown.
“Of course I was,” he agrees, right before he glances at me and mouths, “No, I wasn’t.”
Which makes me laugh, despite everything that’s happened. Then again, I’m pretty sure that’s what he was going for.
But Fifi just rolls her eyes. “Come on, Frankie! We have a real problem.”
“Oh, yeah?” He lifts his brows, turning serious. “And what exactly is that?”
Fifi nods toward me and I take her cue, holding the book up so he can see it.
Just that easily, the smile drains from his face—and his eyes. “Is that what I think it is?”
“I don’t know,” I answer.
“Don’t play games, Penelope. Not with that book, of all things.” He springs off the desk before stalking toward me. “Where did you get it?”
“Does it matter?” I counter, not wanting to sell Kyrian out.
He narrows his eyes at me. “What do you think?”
