I look through the window toward it, expecting to see Adrien and Slate still standing out there, but find only a lone fireman beside the massive pot. Even the bystanders have dispersed, probably heading back to bed or classes.
“What did you mean bywild boy?”
“Slate doesn’t strike me as someone who trusts easily, and for this to work, we’re going to have to rely on each other implicitly.”
“It’ll probably take him time. I’ve known you and Adrien since I was born; we’re all strangers to him.”
“We don’thavetime,” she hisses.
A chill envelops me, almost as violent as the one that rocketed up my spine last night after I tossed a coin inside the well, and I knock my knee into the table leg. The contact reawakens the plum-colored bruise.
The velvet curtain hedging the entrance shifts, and I think it’s them. Hope it’s them. But it’s not.
“Oh . . . my . . . God . . . it’s insane out there.” Alma pulls off her coat and mittens and trots over to us in thigh-high heeled boots that she’s paired with black leggings and a thick sweater with a slanted hem.
Her outfit makes mine look so stiff and bland. Not that my sense of fashion is of great importance at the moment.
She drops into the chair beside mine, pushing her strawberry-blonde curls back and filling a mug with coffee. “You think some underground pipe burst or is it because of global warming?”
“Global warming?” Gaëlle asks.
“You know”—Alma flaps a small packet of sugar, then tears the top, and pours it into her coffee—“ice caps melting and all?”
“It’s a pipe,” I lie.
Alma shakes her head. “Incroyable.”
“How come you’re up so early?”
“Class is in ninety minutes, and I thought you’d want to practice your lesson.”
My . . .?Oh, right.I squeeze her hand for being so thoughtful. “Adrien ended up staying, so he’ll be teaching it.” Where was he anyway? “Didn’t you see him out there?”
“Nope. Just a couple of hot firemen.” She looks past my shoulder and out the window. “I mean, did you see the size of that one?” She tips her head to the uniformed man guarding the well. “He’s a little old for me but perfect for you, Gaëlle.” Alma waggles her eyebrows.
Gaëlle coughs, as though her bite ofpain au chocolatwent down the wrong pipe. “I have enough men in my life.”
I don’t really know what happened with her ex-husband—is he even her ex? All I know is that he’s not a good man. I mean, who up and leaves a woman with his son from a previous marriage and twins on the way? Someone withzeromorals.
“But they’re all under the age of fifteen,” Alma points out.
Gaëlle’s still clearing her airway, eyes so round I almost spring out of my chair. Instead, I grab a glass and fill it with water for her.
She downs it in one long swallow. “Imagine . . . death-by-pastry-flake.” She shoots us a watery smile. “The ultimate embarrassment for my boys.”
“You could put a spell on the next man,” one-track-minded Alma suggests.
“What?” Gaëlle wheezes.
“Mix up some eye of newt with a dragonfly heart and a tube of superglue to bind your next lover to you.” Alma winks to show she’s teasing, but knowing my friend’s passion for all that is mystical, I sense she’s only half-joking. “If only potions were real.”
“Maybe they are.” Nolwenn sets down a carafe brimming with orange juice and a platter of creamy scrambled eggs she must’ve just fetched from the kitchen, because a ribbon of steam twirls off the top. “Maybe Gaëlle’s a real witch.”
Alma smiles. But I don’t, because Nolwenn’s tone isn’t playful. It’s solemn, like she actually believes this could be true.
I sit up a little straighter. “Doyoubelieve in magic, Nolwenn?”
As she pulls out a chair to join us, she arches an overplucked eyebrow. “Doesn’t everyone in Brume?”
