Page 20 of The Reveal
Their expressions are solemn. They both nod.
I decide that really, it feels better to lean back against the sink, where I keep meaning to wash Gran’s dishes. That or my knees might give way beneath me.
“How do you know about all this stuff?” I think to ask Savi, because that’s better than thinking too much about Sparta. In the Peloponnese. In ancient fucking Greece.
Maddox directs her attention to her coffee.
“I make it my business to know things like that,” Savi tells me in her lovely, cultured voice. “If there’s a king in the mix, you can bet that there are subjects. And I prefer to be an informed one.”
I hear a sound a lot like a snort, but when I look over, Maddox is coughing. “Wrong pipe,” she mutters, and pounds on her own chest.
“I know who he is,” I tell Savi. And also Maddox, who coughs again—pointedly, I think—and looks like she’s trying too hard to appear innocent. Which, obviously, has the opposite effect.
“Do you have any idea why Ariel would want to talk to you?” Savi asks.
“None whatever,” I reply, and the crushing anxiety about all this is making me feel something akin to giddy. I laugh. “I make it a personal policy to spend as little time around vampires as possible.”
“Solid plan.” Maddox raises her mug in my direction. “The good news is that this particular vampire doesn’t need to summon random human girls to feast on. I’m not even sure if he bothers to feast on humans any longer. He’s next level.”
I stare at her. “How is that good news?”
There is a thudding sound, and then Briar slams her way in through the back door, looking assaulted by the sight of us.
“Why did I smell fresh werewolf in the yard?” she demands in a surly tone. She glares at Maddox. “Did you bring one of your dogs here?”
Maddox only bares her teeth in reply.
This could be a moment for me to tell everyone thatyes, speaking of local kings, Ty Ceridwen was here last nightandwill likely be here again, given his relationship with Maddox. But I don’t.
I don’t know why I don’t.
I’d like to think it’s because Maddox and I are friends now. Or getting there, after last night and the hot chocolate.
But a part of me worries it’s because of who she is. Not the werewolf part. I can’t really process thewolfof it all. I mean the other part. The high school part, where I was like every other kid there, sitting around daydreaming that I could one day be as cool as she already was.
This makes me so unhappy with myself that all I can think to do is make myself an overly big breakfast. My feelings on toast.
Maybe what I’m really worried about is that it will be my last.
But I don’t eat it. It’s like I can’t. I slide it directly into the trash.
Maddox and Briar clear out. I can hear them muttering at each other as they walk outside, and it does not sound like anything leading to hot chocolate. Savi stays behind, looking as effortlessly perfect as she did before.
She is not in baby-doll pajamas or even the sweats and flannel and ubiquitous beanie Briar appeared in. I’m tempted to think that she’s fully dressed for her day, but I suspect that the hoodie and drawstring trouser set she’s wearing is made of the finest cashmere and, more, is what she considers lounging attire.
“There are certain precautions you should take,” she tells me, and something about her direct gaze makes me want to sit a little straighter at the table with the remnants of my feelings on plates before me. “The fact that he chose to summon you to him indicates that at the very least there’s the expectation of a conversation. That could be interpreted as good.”
“Meaning he won’t kill me on sight.”
“He could do that anywhere.” Savi says this more matter-of-factly than Maddox did, and oddly, it’s more comforting. “Or have one of his many minions do it. What’s more interesting is how you came to attract his notice.”
“Yes.” My voice sounds faint. I tell myself it’s the not eating, but I’m still not hungry. “Very interesting.”
“You don’t know why?”
I sigh. “I really don’t.”
Savi frowns. “I would warn you against being armed. It will be tempting, but there’s no possible way that you will be able to fight him. I think going before him unarmed is more of a power move.”
