He handed both over with a polite nod, then stood there, hands folded neatly in front of him. His gaze moved once around the room, assessing.
“Well,” he said at last, clearing his throat. “I should be going.”
Eloise, who had just lifted her glass, paused mid-motion. “Won’t you stay and have a drink?”
Caliban blinked. It was subtle. A fraction of a second too long. Then he inclined his head, and his otherwise perfect composure relaxed.
“I would be honored,” he said.
I looked between them, faintly amused. Artemis’s mouth twitched like she was filing this away for later.
Caliban accepted the glass Eloise handed him with careful courtesy, as though this, too, were a diplomatic exchange of some importance.
And just like that, the tension in the room faded.
30
ARTEMIS
From the way Eloise and Caliban were arguing in my living room, you’d have thought they’d known each other for years instead of minutes.
“I am telling you,” Eloise said, waving her glass, “that the 1978 version is superior because it understands restraint.”
Caliban sniffed delicately. “Restraint is not the same as depth. The later adaptation is far more thematically rigorous.”
Arthur leaned over. “What are they discussing?”
“Something nerdy and important,” I said. “We should probably leave before it gets violent.”
Eloise’s eyes flicked toward us then, sharp and far too perceptive. A slow, knowing smile spread across her face.
“Well,” she said, setting her glass down with sudden decision, “this whiskey is tragic.”
Caliban looked mildly offended. “It is perfectly acceptable.”
“Acceptable is not the same as good,” she said briskly, already grabbing her coat. “I have better at my place.”
Caliban hesitated. “Your place?”
“Yes,” she said, linking her arm through his before he could object. “Come argue with me over something worth drinking.”
He allowed himself to be steered toward the door with the long-suffering dignity of a man who suspected he was being maneuvered but hadn’t quite decided if he minded.
Eloise paused in the doorway just long enough to glance back at us, her expression bright with mischief. “Don’t wait up.”
The door shut behind them.
Arthur and I stood there for a moment in the sudden quiet.
“Well,” I said.
“Well,” Arthur agreed.
In my bedroom, everything felt suddenly quieter. Closer.
I turned on a lamp and started changing into my pajamas, peeling off the clothes I had borrowed from Arthur and worn all day. I was mid-motion when Arthur made a low growl behind me. I froze.
“Artemis,” he said with barely contained emotion. “You are magnificent.”
