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“Just this and another.” Lydia drained her glass and tried to set it down on a collection tray, missing the tray entirely. She giggled, trying again but not getting better results.
“Two of these?” Lenore tapped her glass to avoid confusion. Lydia confirmed.
This wasn’t right. Something was wrong. Lydia was acting way too drunk for only two glasses. Actually, she had been fairly sober until a minute ago.
Lenore took another sip of her wine, finding it mild and not strong enough to get Lydia drunk that quickly. “Let’s get you some water.”
“Look at those feathers,” Lydia said, rushing to a woman who wore a vivid green gown and white plumes in her hair.
Lenore grabbed Lydia, but not before she snatched a feather from the woman’s hair. Lydia clutched her prize, utterly pleased with herself.
“Sorry. This was stuck on your dress,” Lenore apologized, taking the feather and holding it out as a peace offering. Lydia gave a cry of disappointment. The woman accepted the errant feather with a confused expression. Lenore apologized again. When she turned around, Lydia was gone.
No. Not gone. Lydia cut through the crowd with purpose as she headed to the sculpture.
Stumbling…
Lenore stood paralyzed with confusion, watching Lydia stagger forward, tripping over her own feet, and also watching from a higher vantage. Trouble’s point of view. Information flowed at a dizzying rate. She held out her arms like that could stabilize her or freeze time. Her skin itched and burned like there was something inside her that needed to come out to put a stop to this.
But nothing could stop this disaster.
A figure bumped into Lydia, sending her forward as her limbs flailed. She fell forward, crashing into the sculpture.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
LENORE
“You know, alien jail isn’t too different from Earth jail,” Lenore said, desperate to calm Lydia. Currently, her friend hung on the cell bars, wailing and demanding her phone call and a lawyer. Telling her to quiet down only made her shout that she knew her rights. Being forcibly escorted out of the ballroom by very unfriendly, grim-faced guards and tossed into a holding cell had that effect on her. Go figure.
Lydia fell silent, which was a miracle. Her eyes went wide. Wider. Her pupils were pretty damn wide already. Now, her mouth hung open. “No way.”
“Way.”
“Professor Lenore Macintosh McCoy von Leonardstein?—”
“That is not even close to my name.”
“What secrets are you keeping from me? Are you secretly a badass?” Excitement crept into her voice, the sorrow of their detention completely forgotten.
“I’ll tell you if you come and sit down.” Lenore patted the bench next to her.
Lydia gave her a skeptical look like her offer was a trap—spoilers, it was—and pushed away from the bars and sat next to Lenore. Trouble immediately climbed into her lap.
“Who’s a pretty boy? You,” she cooed.
Lenore let them be, feeling Trouble’s sense of smug satisfaction as he basked in Lydia’s adoration. The distraction didn’t last for long. “What do you think she did? Probably something boring like didn’t pay a parking ticket and got a bench warrant issued. Jury duty? Yeah, that makes sense. You didn’t call that number on the card, and the county had to send the sheriff after you.”
“Breaking and entering, if you must know.”
Lydia gasped in pure delight. “No! Were you part of a gang of international art thieves? Is that how you paid for college? It is, isn’t it? Did you have a cool name? The Doctor. Oh, no! Your professor had a system to count cards and recruited his students. Then it went wrong, and you had to break in to steal video footage and…”
“I was a kid,” Lenore said, speaking over Lydia. She could never hope to be as interesting as Lydia’s imagination.
“You all were, honey. Just babies.”
“I was nine. It was summer, and my friends weren’t the best influence. Looking back, yeah, they were future delinquents, but they were cool.” And they liked her for some reason. Well, her Nintendo back in the days when not everyone had a console had a lot to do with it. “Anyway, there was a house on the street that sat empty for a long time. The old lady who lived there went into a nursing facility, and I think she died. Maybe. It was empty and we were bored. So we climbed in through a window.”
“Wow. What did you find?” Lydia’s posture slumped and she leaned against Lenore’s shoulder.
