“I can help you win him over.” Cillian’s tone is so resolute that I crook a brow.
“I don’t need your help.”
“Some people only understand a person’s worth once they see that person on someone else’s arm.” Forget resolve. The man is obstinacy personified.
“Mal’s not like that,” I find myself explaining—Gaea only knows why. “But even if hewere, someone like you wouldn’t exactly provoke jealous feelings in him.”
Cillian’s pupils shrink as anger and hurt suck the light from his stare.
Come on. Tuck your tail between your legs and leave.
But Cillian Lowry stands his ground. Which is too close to my ground.
So I inject the glow of my magic into my eyes. “Forget that I made you feel like shit but remember that I’m a bitch. Also, I’m not your date; Fiona is. Go be with her.”
I nod to the table reserved for the family, where Fiona sits like an empress while two waiters fuss over her, topping off her wine and bread.
When I look back at Cillian, his mouth is pressed into a firm line. I assume, from the effect of my compulsion. Why didn’t I think of using it earlier? Oh, right—we’re not supposed to use magic on or around mortals unless we’re under duress.
This definitely qualified.
As I circle him, I add, “See you later, Mr. Ballerina.”
Malachi and Ines are moving through the room but keep being stopped by humans and Atlanteans alike. Their latest greeter is super tall, with coiffed brown hair that looks slicked in the oil he extracts from the land back in his home state of Texas.
I’ve seen the Atlantean in pictures but have never been introduced to him because, according to Dorian and my adoptive parents, Gael Monta is slimy and has paltry morals. I suspect they think this way because he’s Ines’s husband—ex-husband?—and they love Inesoh-so-much.
The muffled sound of knuckles popping draws my attention to the side and up toward Cillian. Why did he stop next to me? Why didn’t he zoom straight toward Fiona? Could my compulsion not have worked?
I’m running through the wording I used when he finally marches off. And not in the direction of Fiona but toward the bathroom.
Contemplating the effectiveness of my compulsion works wonders at distracting me from my overwhelming jealousy.
That is, until the source of said jealousy says, “I hear you dropped out of college.”
Chapter 3
Electra
Itake in the broad Atlantean whose skin is as tanned as Cillian’s is pallid. “That’s what you lead with after a year of silence? Not even a ‘Hello, Elle. How have you been? My…how you’ve grown.’”
Malachi rolls his lips.
When he doesn’t say any of the lines I fed him, I say, “College dropouts have a higher success rate. But stats aside, sitting in classrooms wasn’t for me. Besides, I learned more about petrology from Sym’s experiment than I ever did in class.” My crude reminder of the previous summer causes Malachi to flinch. “How haveyoubeen?”
“Good. Ready to stop traveling.”
“Are you?”
“For the time being.”
Another question clings to the roof of my mouth, but I don’t set it free. Instead, I ask, “Did you unearth a lot more Tarian-haters?”
“Thankfully, no.”
My gaze drifts to Ines and her old squeeze. Is it terrible that I’m hoping for sparks?
Her closed-off posture tells me she’s on guard. Then again, that woman is always on guard—forever bracing for someone to slip up, forever poised to strike. She’s as cold and severe as Calanthe is warm and fuzzy, and about as pleasant as a winter freeze.
