Shadowspell

There went that annoying little stab of jealousy again. I fought it down ruthlessly. “What about that guy I saw you with the first night I met you?”

It had been my one and only meeting with the Student Underground, and Kimber had been hanging out with a Fae boy who I thought at the time might be her boyfriend. Though come to think of it, if he’d been her boyfriend, she’d have talked to me about him by now. And it wasn’t like they’d been all over each other or anything.

Kimber leaned over the table and lowered her voice even more. “I assume you mean Owain. He’s a friend, but…” She stared at her tea as she swirled the cup around. “The members of the Underground all know I’m younger than them and treat me like a kid. Owain flirts a little, but I know he doesn’t really mean it.”

“Do you want him to mean it?”

She frowned in thought. “No,” she said at last with a resigned sigh. “He’s a nice guy, but he doesn’t really … do it for me, if you know what I mean.”

That I did. “But Keane does?” I prompted, hoping I was keeping my highly annoying and inappropriate jealousy deeply hidden.

Her smile turned mischievous. “I’m not sure yet, but I think it’s a possibility.”

“You’re nuts,” I replied with authority. “Or a glutton for punishment.”

“If I only liked to hang out with people who were agreeable, what would I be doing here with you?”

I threw my little wooden stirrer at her. She laughed and ducked. She needn’t have bothered, not with my lousy aim and the poor aerodynamics of wooden stirrers. I tried to imitate Keane’s fierce scowl, but that was hard to do when fighting laughter.

Kimber sat up straight, still giggling. But then her eyes focused on someone or something behind me, and the laughter died.

“Shite,” she said.

I looked over my shoulder to see what had bothered her. And that’s when I saw Ethan threading his way between the tables toward us.

My heart made a strange, fluttery feeling in my chest, and my breath caught in my throat at the sight of him. When I’d first met him, his looks had struck me speechless, but I’d been in Avalon long enough now that I was getting used to the otherworldly beauty of the Fae. So it wasn’t his looks that made my insides start doing backflips.

I licked the taste of Faerie Rose tea off my lips and put my cup down. I’d been prepared to have to face Ethan eventually, because I knew he wasn’t through with me, but I certainly wasn’t prepared to face him now. Then again, there’s a distinct possibility I was lying to myself and I’d never have been prepared.

Out of the corner of my eye, I checked on Finn and my dad. My dad tolerated Kimber, despite her being Unseelie and Alistair’s daughter. He was less fond of Ethan, whether for political reasons or just because Ethan was a guy. I half expected Dad to chase Ethan away—or have Finn do it for him—but they both held their positions.

Great. No rescue from that quarter. I turned to Kimber, hoping she’d help me shoo her brother, but the traitor smiled sadly at me, then pushed her chair back and headed into the shop, claiming she wanted a different kind of tea. I glared holes in her back as she retreated.

I heard the scrape of metal on stone as Ethan pulled out a chair and sat, but I refused to look at him. I picked up my tea and sipped it just to have something to do.

Ethan sighed heavily. “Tiffany—the girl you saw me with at the party—is an ex. Very ex.”

I snorted. “Yeah, I could tell by the way she was hanging all over you.” I stared into my pretty pink tea, but couldn’t bring myself to take another sip. I’d have to unclench my jaw to do that, and I wasn’t about to.

Ethan sighed again. “She’d been drinking. She hung all over the next three guys she danced with, too.”

I finally found the courage to look at him. His teal blue eyes had a haunted look to them, and for half a second, I almost felt sorry for him. Maybe I hadn’t really seen enough to justify being so jealous. Then I remembered the way Ethan had looked at the redhead—Tiffany—and I knew I wasn’t making something out of nothing.

He must have seen my opinion of him in my eyes, because he squirmed and dropped his own gaze.

“I’d probably had a little too much to drink myself,” he admitted. “I don’t claim to be a saint, but trust me when I say that two months dating Tiffany was about one month too long.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “Yeah, it looked like you were hating every minute of being on the dance floor with her. If this is the best you’ve got, you might as well leave.”

To my surprise, Ethan actually blushed a little. “I can’t make myself not notice when a girl is sexy. When I first started going out with her, that was all I noticed. But I was with her long enough to know what she’s like underneath the pretty trappings, and it isn’t pretty at all. I can’t help liking the way she looks, but I have no interest in her. If I’d known you were going to be there…”

His voice trailed off, probably because my glare was ferocious enough to be scary. If Ethan thought it was okay to flirt with other girls just because I wasn’t there, it was one more piece of evidence that I was better off without him. Now, if only I could convince myself of that fact …

Ethan sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. He dropped the hangdog look, raising his chin and meeting my eyes with something that looked like a challenge.