“Yeah, well, I’d rather be an Ice Queen than a thug any day,” Greer snaps back.
“What’s. Going. On?” I say, louder and more specifically.
With my sisters fuming at each other over my shoulder, I look at Nick.
He shrugs. “Gretchen wants to go after the Gorgons. Greer wants to go to tea.”
“Go after the Gorgons?” I ask. “Really? We know where they are? We know how to rescue them?”
“Yes,” Gretchen snarls. “But apparently we have to wait until after tea.”
“I told you I have responsibilities,” Greer says, her voice cracking, full of uncharacteristic emotion. “I cannot just abandon them.”
No wonder Gretchen is frustrated. If she’s learned how to get Euryale back, she’s eager to do that as soon as possible. I’m eager too. I don’t have the close relationship with Sthenno that Gretchen has with Euryale, but I want to rescue her.
“Greer,” I say, “I think this is a little more important than—”
The look in Greer’s silver eyes stops me cold. I’ve never seen this look on her face. I never thought I would. She looks … desperate.
It’s like the image she works so hard to present to the world is shattered.
“Please,” she says. “I need this.”
“No,” Gretchen barks. “It’s ridiculous.”
“Gretchen,” I say, feeling torn between my sisters.
Before I can say more, Greer interrupts.
“I promise,” she says. “Give me this one day, this one event—” She squeezes her eyes shut like she’s trying to hold back tears. “Then I will commit myself without reservation. I just—” She pauses again and opens her eyes. “I need this one last piece of my normal life. Please.”
Behind me, I sense Gretchen softening.
As much as we want to go after the Gorgons right now, when Greer agreed to join us, to embrace her destiny and ours, we promised to try to work around her regular life when we could. She’s only asking for a day. Hopefully that won’t make a huge difference to the rescue, and it will keep Greer in the right mind-set. Going in with her angry and resentful can’t be a good thing.
“We can wait a day,” I say to Gretchen. “Can’t we?”
Behind me, Gretchen grumbles. She may not like the situation, but she understands.
“Fine,” she snaps, covering her sympathy with attitude. “But as soon as your tea party is over, we go in. Agreed?”
Greer nods. “Agreed.”
She reaches out her hand to Gretchen, who reluctantly takes it. I sigh with relief. I’m not a big fan of conflict in the first place, but between my sisters … Well, we’ve already got enough conflict in our lives—we don’t need any extra between us.
“Wonderful,” Greer says, with a bit of her false cheerfulness returned. “You are welcome to stay here tonight. I’ll be gone quite early to go set up. The tea should be over by four. I’ll be back by five at the latest.”
Gretchen grumbles again, but nods.
“Great,” I say. “I need to get home soon. Curfew. But I’ll be back here tomorrow afternoon.”
Greer says good night and leaves us in an awkward silence.
“So,” I say, trying to break the ice, “we’re going to rescue Sthenno and Euryale tomorrow? That’s great.”
“Yeah, it’s peachy keen,” Gretchen snaps. “I need some fresh air. Can you stay with him?”
She jerks her head at Nick.
“Sure, but—”
“I’ll be back in twenty minutes,” she says. “I need to clear my head.”
“Oh. Okay.”
If she’s fast I won’t miss curfew.
Then, just as quickly as Greer before her, Gretchen storms out. I wonder if they realize how much they have in common. Strength. Confidence. Stubbornness. The ability to make a dramatic exit.
“Wait, huntress miss, wait.” The little monkey creature pops up from behind the couch and rushes out after her. “Wait!”
I shake my head. When we met, Gretchen wouldn’t have let even the most innocuous monster stay in this world any longer than it took to connect fangs with flesh. Of course, when we met, she wouldn’t have jumped into the abyss after a boy either. A lot has changed in a very short time.
I expected to find Nick bloodied and battered when I came back down, but other than a darkening spot above his eye, he looks pretty much whole. Which is another mystery.
“You’re a great mediator,” he says. “That could have turned into a nasty fight.”
I shrug. “We have bigger things to fight than each other.”
“You can’t always make everyone happy, you know?” He sounds way too insightful. “That’s not always possible.”
“You sound like you know something about that.”
Now it’s his turn to shrug. “When you have mixed loyalties,” he begins, and then seems to realize how bad that sounds. “When you care about the cause and the person, then things get … complicated.”
“I can imagine.”
Ring-ring-ring! My phone sings out from my bag.
“That’ll be my mom,” I say with a small smile, grabbing my bag from the floor next to the couch. “Can you be quiet for a minute?”
He looks around, like What have I got to talk about?
I pull out my phone and punch the answer button. “Hi, Mom.”