“Gwenna.” The relief at seeing me is plain on his face. “You’re back.”
I nod. “I’m back.”
“And welcome to the Last Supper.” Kai, sweeping a hand at the dining room, which I approach with no small amount of surprise. It’s an absolute mess of food, emphasis onmess, a hodgepodge of everything I recognize from the deep freezer and pantry, and what seems to be ten, maybetwenty, bottles of wine on the side buffet.
“That’s…a lot of wine,” I remark.
Lanz, who’s in the corner opening yet another bottle, shrugs. “No point in holding onto the good stuff.” The cork gives with a pop, and he sets the bottle down, gesturing. “What would you like?”
“I…” My understanding of wine begins and ends with my ability to pronounce the varietals. And tell red from white, I guess. I just shrug. “Surprise me.”
He does. Red. It’s good, not too heavy but not too sweet, and I guess suits the food well enough, to the extent that anything can pair well with this utterly random assortment of options—olives, cheese sandwiches, whole-grain strawberry cereal bars, quiche lorraine, some sort of paté spread on pita bread. Callahan carries my plate and his, and I settle in the living room with the rest of them, everything glowing gold from the firelight.
We’re nervous. Almost energized. Even Lanz seems lively again. But no one seems to be able to talk about plans or problems, like we all know it’s coming and just want this one moment of reprieve. I certainly do, anyway. Kai ends up telling some story about a fencing match—meet? tournament?—when they were teenagers, which Kingston immediately follows with a corrective, more accurate version of events, and eventually culminates in the two of them trying to recreate, from memory, the exact choreography of how it went down. And they’re nottryingto be funny—Kingston’s definitely not, anyway—but something about the back and forth, the literal repartee—has me laughing,giggling,even, although probably some of that is the wine that keeps finding its way into my glass.
Then, for some reason—some reason that is probably also the wine—I decide that it’s a good idea to regale everyone with the entire plot ofThe Michelangelo Matrix,from memory, complete with voices and accents and help from Callahan to play Dr. Patton Montgomery to my Fabienne De La Croix, but the story is so ridiculous and the one-man peanut gallery of Kai, with occasional input from Lanz, is so intent on commentary that I lose the thread constantly and finally just run out of steam.
“And then, you know.” I wave a hand wildly through the air, then push hair from my eyes. “They find the Garden of Eden,they kiss under the Eiffel Tower, blah blah blah, everyone goes home happy.”
Kingston, who’s been at polite attention this whole time, nods sincerely. “Wow.”
I feel my cheeks flush. “Okay, okay. I got carried away.”
Kai, who’s been sprawled on an armchair, head flung back over armrest, suddenly pushes himself upright. “Please, Wednesday.” He fixes me with a stare, grinning lopsidedly. “You’re cute when you’re on a tear like that.”
My face flushes hotter. I glance at Cal, my unwilling scene partner, who just shrugs. “Um. Yeah. Agreed.”
And so the night winds on.
I try, tryso hard, to stay awake, to make it as late as I can, like I can somehow prolong tomorrow coming if I just never sleep, but the night winds on and eventually the wine and the food and the warmth of the fire catch up with me. I’m awake one minute, then I blink and my head’s on Callahan’s shoulder, the room is darker, everyone’s muttering about going to bed. I yawn and shake my head in protest, cling obstinately to Cal’s arm, but he justpicks me uplike it’s nothing and carries me to my room. And it is nice to lie down, properly, and the pillow is soft and the blankets are warm and so is whoever’s dropping in beside me—Kai, that little press of metal against my skin when he kisses my neck.
I both don’t want to fall asleep at all and want to fall asleep like this forever.
The rest of the night is black and solid and deep and then, too soon, there’s light in the windowpanes.
Dawn.
TWENTY-NINE
GWENNA
Only Kai isawake when I come downstairs.
“You packed?” he asks, pushing a mug of coffee across the kitchen island. His sleeves are rolled to his elbows, and there are three individual Nicotine patches on his forearms.
I accept the coffee and shake my head. Seeing my stare, he looks down at his arms.
“Smoking’s a filthy habit.” He cracks a grin. “Besides, apparently it’s a ‘federal crime’ to tamper with airplane smoke detectors.”
I laugh, in spite of everything.
“Better get packed,” Kai goes on. “Wheels up in, like, an hour.”
“Yeah.” I nod, but don’t move. Don’t even sip my coffee.
Kai frowns. “What’s wrong? No clean underwear?” He winks.
I ignore that. “No. Just…” I glance out the window, to the clouds gone the color of orange sherbet where they dip into the sun and the tall, pebbly faces of campus buildings. A lump springs in my throat. “You won’t miss it?” I say at last. “Caliburn?”
