Page 96 of The Black Table
“No,” I say as evenly as I can manage. “Why would it be? Have I ever showed signs of being tempted before?”
“Have you ever lost this badly in a match before?” my father counters.
I have nothing to say to that. I clench my jaw.
“It won’t be a problem,” I say. “I’m keeping her close so that I can work twice as fast.”
TWENTY-FIVE
GWENNA
Saturday nightand the library is quiet as a mausoleum. Just the way I like it.
Yet I’m still on edge, despite the quiet. Because I’m not here by myself. I’m here loaded down with notebook papers and dictionaries, reference guides and glossaries, waiting for?—
“Gwenna.”
I look up into a pair of golden-brown eyes.
“Hi,” I say, the word almost sticking in my throat.
“Hi.” Kingston meets my eyes, but just briefly. And he looks…rough. Nothing in his behavior gives him away, no cracks in the facade, but physically, he seems different, somehow.
The arm hanging in the sling doesn’t help, either.
He shoots a glance around the library, at the various late-night studiers propped up on elbows and yawning into their textbooks, blearily picking at keyboards and scribbling on looseleaf. As he does, a few of them turn, almost magnet-like, to take him in: mighty Kingston Pendragon, the fencing star laid low.
He doesn’t need to say it. I can practically read his mind.
Too many people. Too many eyes, observers.
“I know somewhere we can go,” I say, low enough so just he can hear. “This way.”
I brush past him towards the side of the room, through the passageway with the stationery cart and copier and down to the service staircase, down from the A-level to B1 and then B2. It’s dark when I swing open the door, and I fumble to the right for the timer switch on the wall, giving it a good crank when I find it.
“Archives level,” I say. “No one ever comes down here. Hence the…lighting on a timer.”
Kingston doesn’t say anything. Just nods, taking in the racks of moveable shelving, the dim, dark walls, the warm, dusty air that comes without thousands and thousands of yellowing pages and minimal ventilation. “Where should we set up?”
“Here.” I walk him to the side of the room, to what I’ve started to think of as my private table, and set down my coat and bag. I tug at one of the narrow table drawers and remove some spare notebooks and pens I left down here last time, along with my copy of the Pocket Oxford Latin-English dictionary. All the while, Kingston stares, like it had never occurred to him that I might have any sort of secret dealings outside of his awareness, no matter how mundane, and a wave of embarrassment washes lightly over me.
What kind of weirdo school obsessive keeps a cache of translation materials at the ready in a basement level of the library?
Be normal, Gwenna.
Too late.
With a final glance back at the staircase door, Kingston sets his own bag on the table. I take a seat, but he stands a moment, considering, and I realize a beat too late that he’s still wearing his coat
“Oh,” I say. “Here. I can…”
I jump up, step to his side and curl my fingers under thecamelhair collar. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t look me in the eye, just inclines his head slightly as I slide the coat from his shoulders. It falls into my arms in a heap, still faintly warm from his body heat.
“Thank you,” he says softly. His eyes are lowered, his lashes practically sweeping his cheekbones, and it occurs to me that this might be the first time someone’s ever done the all-powerful, ever-so-chivalrous Kingston Pendragon a small favor.
Because clearly, he isn’t used to it. The slight tinge of pink in his cheeks is testament to that.
Well, the honor is all mine, I think sarcastically.
