Page 21 of Rubies and Revenge

I shake my head, holding up a wine-colored leather pencil skirt next to a black turtleneck. “It’s out of consideration for you, really—wouldn’t want you to get bored.”

“So, you just walk straight into danger and wave your tiny arms around”—they act out their words, making an expression like they’re wearing stupidity on their face—“like you’re hailing a helicopter and not a bullet?”

I swing the hanger, smacking them with the leather skirt. “They’re not tiny! I have normal-sized arms.”

“You’retiny, Z.” They hold their thumb and pointer finger a hair’s breadth apart. “Tiny.”

“Well, you’re freakishly long,” I grouse.

“Thank you.” They preen like a fucking non-binary peafowl, which I imagine as far more colorful than a dandy male peacock. “I worked really hard to grow taller than you.”

I kick at their knees. “I will throw myself in front of a bullet just to spite you.”

They dodge my assault easily. “Seriously, the tiniestandstupidest.”

I lurch forward, intending to climb their back like a koala and make them submit. I get an arm around their neck the moment a knock sounds on the door. We both freeze.

“Off.” They smack my arm, but I just cling tighter. “Zarina!”

“Come in!” I call as I scramble up their back.

The door swings open slowly, as if the person on the other side is unsure they’re actually welcome. Tamayo peeks around the edge at the same time I wrap my legs around Pat’s waist, a claw grasping their perfect bun.

Pat clamps a hand around my wrist. “If you pull, I swear to god, Z?—”

“Sorry to interrupt.” Tamayo leans a hip against the door frame, one hand in her slacks pocket, a barely suppressed smile dancing on her lips. She seems both amused and exasperated at the same time.

“No, you’re not,” Pat and I say at the same time with clashing tones. I’m cheery. Pat’s annoyed.

“True. I’m not,” Tamayo says.

“Well?” I prompt.

She holds up a piece of paper, the wax seal of the Council heavy on the edge. “We have a summons.”

“And?” I readjust my grip on Pat’s hair, and they huff.

Tamayo sucks her lips between her teeth to stop her smile. It has the same affect her usual unbothered air has on me—I wantto make her lose control. I want to see that smile spread wide again, like this morning.

“Sunset tomorrow,” she says. “The usual place.”

I frown. “Mother won’t like that.”

“You’ll need this.” Tamayo pulls her hand out of her pocket, a black velvet box in her palm. She holds it out to me, and I can only stare. I know what’s inside. There’s no mistaking that box, what it means. What itshouldmean.

My grip loosens on Pat, and they catch my weight lest I tumble to the floor. I slide to my feet and step forward on shaky legs, plucking the box from Tamayo’s hand. It’s heavy. As heavy as the weight of disappointment that’s been sitting on my chest since I snuck out of my childhood bedroom last night.

Tamayo stuffs her hand back in her pocket, but not before I catch her stretch it out as if it might cramp. She grabs the door handle, retreating into the hall, but she pauses. I don’t look up, eyes stuck on the box in my hand.

“Wear the gold dress,” she says. “It matches your eyes.”

TAMAYO

Ido everything in my power to avoid Zarina Gallo for the next twenty-four hours. It’s not easy. We’re both stuck in this compound, avoiding the guns circling the outer perimeter like vultures waiting for a last dying breath. Darius and I spar in the training room. I hole up in my office and actually catch up on paperwork for the first time ever. I avoid the kitchen, the second floor, any place Zarina might suddenly walk in wearing Darius’s shirt and nothing else.

Like I didn’t buy her the entire fall collection.

When she finally slips into the backseat of the car wearing the gold dress—the one that hugs her figure as if she was stitched into it, a slit slashing up her left thigh, and the back cut so low, it’s practically missing—all that space I pushed between us snaps closed, a rubber band stretched too far. Avoiding her has only made her more potent. Her hair is shiny, and she smells of jasmine shampoo. Her red lips match her ruby necklace glinting in the low light of the streetlamps as Darius drives us across town to the firing squad. Or Council meeting. Same-same.

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