“Why?”
“Because there’snothingto analyze!”
“Actually—”
“Can wepleasetalk about this later?” Like Arkane is still right behind us, hello?
“How much later?”
I’m saved from replying when staff comes forward to greet us at the terminal, which is more country club than airport at first glance. We walk through it like we’re walking through a hotel lobby—no pausing, no ID, no bag check, none of the things that make up the normal human experience of flying. Nobody stops us. Nobody even looks up.
By the time we reach the other side, I realize something.
“We forgot our bags—”
“It’s taken care of.”
I appreciate how seriously Icelle says it. I feel like that shows how aware she is of the privileges she’s been born with. But at the same time, it just takes my breath away, the way they seem to have their own Hogwarts-elf system going on, only this one runs on the magical art of efficiency.
I’m still trying to figure out the logistics of how any human staff could’ve pulled that off when—
“May I have a word with you, Tiara?”
Arkane’s voice is right behind me.
Oh.
Oh no.
I turn around.
He’s standing a polite distance away, hands loose at his sides, sunlight catching the fabric of his suit in a way that makes the blue-bordering-on-black go even darker at the edges. He’s not looking at Icelle. He’s looking at me, and only me.
“Uh—”
I glance at Icelle for help, because that’s what best friends are for, but Icelle’s already walking away. She’s already six feet down the curb. She’s the fastest walker in the world when it suits her, apparently, and right now it suits her, and I’m officially on my own.
“Okay,” I say weakly.
Arkane waits until Icelle’s far enough away that she can’t hear, and then he says, very simply, “I’ll be gone most of the day.”
I stare at him, because out of everything I thought he might be about to say, this wasn’t one of them. I was bracing for a comment. A warning. Maybe ayou-shouldn’t-have-kissed-me-earlier, which I’ve been pre-writing defenses against for the last forty minutes of my fake nap.
But this...
I don’t even know how to process it, and so I just do what I usually do, every time life throws me a curveball.
I look at him stonily, doing my best to channel Icelle’s RBF.
“Why are you telling me that?”
“So you don’t have to think I’m avoiding you.”
Great, just great.
Another curveball.
But there’s no time for me to process this because Icelle suddenly pops up between us—
