Glimmerglass

Remind me why I’d thought coming here would be a good idea?

When we got back to the courtyard, Ethan took hold of my arm, like he was trying to prop me up, though I’d been walking just fine.

“You look exhausted,” he said.

“So do you.”

He smiled crookedly, but the expression was strained. “Some sleep will do us both good.”

He started steering me toward one of the buildings, but Kimber cleared her throat loudly. Ethan turned to glare at her.

“What do you take me for?” he growled at her.

After all that had happened, I was a little slow on the uptake, so at first I didn’t understand what they were talking about. Kimber put her fists on her hips and glared right back. I sensed that there were layers of meaning behind those glares, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what they were.

With a grunt of disgust, Ethan let go of my arm and gave me a nudge toward Kimber.

“Fine!” he snapped, and without another word or glance at me, he turned away and stomped toward his building.

And that’s when I finally got it. He’d been planning to take me up to his apartment. Just me and him. My face heated with a blush. I kept my head down so Kimber wouldn’t see.

“Come on,” she said with a wave of her hand, and I followed her while trying to come to terms with my own naïveté.

If Kimber hadn’t objected, I’d have followed Ethan up to his apartment without thinking about the implications. I mean, yeah, he was a really hot, too-old-for-me Fae guy, and even though it kind of felt like he’d been flirting with me all night, the idea that he might have interest in a not-overly-attractive halfbreed teenager was kind of silly. But still, he was a guy, and I wasn’t a kid anymore.

Kimber’s apartment didn’t look like what I pictured as student housing. Not that the apartment itself was all that special, but the interior was something else. If you hid away a few of the telltale modern conveniences—like the phone and the TV—I swear the room could have been lifted straight from some nineteenth century manor house. It was like a set from a Jane Austen movie. And I’d bet everything I owned—which, granted, wasn’t much at the moment—that the furniture was all genuinely antique, not reproductions.

The place was beautiful but strangely cold. Kind of like Kimber herself. Everything was in shades of pale blues and greens, and there was nothing that looked out of place. The magazines on her coffee table were neatly stacked. The remotes for her TV and DVD player and stereo were arranged side by side with what looked like the exact same amount of space between them. I wondered if she’d needed a ruler to do that, or if she’d just eyeballed it.

“I only have one bedroom,” she said as I stood in the middle of the room wondering what I was supposed to do now. “The sofa isn’t great for sleeping, but it’s much more comfortable than the floor.” She grinned at me, suddenly looking much more like Ethan. “I’d offer you my bed, but I’m not that altruistic.”

She seemed to have thawed since we’d entered the apartment. Her shoulders were more relaxed, and her smile looked open and easy. Either she suffered from multiple personality disorder, or Ethan made her uptight. I was betting on the latter.

“How are you holding up?” she asked with sudden sympathy. “I can’t imagine what you must be going through.”

“I’m pretty freaked out,” I admitted. “But other than that, I’m basically okay.”

She nodded in what looked like approval, then disappeared into her bedroom, emerging shortly afterward with the promised pillow and blanket.

I eyed the sofa doubtfully. It looked about as cushy as a park bench—like it was meant to be looked at, not sat on.

“I’m sorry I don’t have anything more comfortable,” Kimber said, seeing the direction of my gaze.

“It’s fine,” I told her, not wanting to sound ungrateful. “It’s better than being locked in a cell, even if that bed was nicer.” I could have done without the Spriggan attack, and it would have been nice if Ethan and Kimber hadn’t made my rescue feel so much like a kidnapping, but I was glad not to be spending the night under Aunt Grace’s thumb.

“Thanks for getting me out of there.”

She frowned and looked away. “That was mostly Ethan’s doing. I was just along for the ride.”

Call me crazy, but I got the feeling she was just a touch bitter about it. “You helped, too,” I told her.

She dismissed my claim with a self-deprecating grunt.

“You did!” I insisted. “Those Spriggans might have killed us if you hadn’t been there.”

Her face brightened. “I did kill one of the Spriggans,” she said, sounding excited by the thought. “And I didn’t even need magic to do it.” Her smile was positively brilliant, and there was a happy twinkle in her eyes.

“If you start jumping up and down and clapping with glee, I’m outta here,” I muttered, and got the laugh I’d been going for. Kimber the Ice Queen had left the building.

“I feel quite the warrior princess,” she said. “And that was quick thinking on your part, too, tangling the Spriggan in your blanket.”

The praise made me blush. “Umm, that was really more luck than anything.”

“Nonsense! We both did quite nicely under fire. We can be warrior princesses together.”

I smiled at the image. “As long as I don’t have to wear a chain-mail bikini, I’m fine with that.”