Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
Tuesday dawned clear and cold, sharp as a vampire bite.
The last two days had brought Dani no closer to a solution than she was to the moons of Jupiter.
She liked Kass. A lot. She didn’t want to hurt him.
But she wanted to help stop OneiroLabs, too, and she needed the money.
If she didn’t get it, and her scholarship review went south, she’d have to leave the Leap behind—and Kass along with it.
Fortuitously for her, Silva had messaged the group on Sunday to postpone their usual meeting; Katya needed more time to work her technical wizardries, and Silva didn’t have assignments ready for them yet.
That was fine by Dani. She needed a break from all of it, and more time to figure out how she was going to proceed.
One last date, she told herself. And then she’d make up her mind on how to move forward.
It was selfish, but she needed to feel that magic between them one more time, to cherish the memory if it was the last she’d get to have of it.
Because Dani knew that one way or another, what she had with Kass was about to change forever. She just wanted one last date before it all came crashing down.
After class, she headed back to the apartment to get ready.
This time, there were none of the butterflies of their first date’s preparations, only a solemn resignation as she went through the motions.
McKenna was out getting dinner with Oliver, with strict instructions not to mention this whole catastrophe.
Oliver knew Dani was dating someone, but they didn’t know it was Lukas Gianakos Jr., and Dani wanted to keep it that way.
She couldn’t let anyone on the team know.
She blistered herself with a hot shower, scrubbed her pores clean with an exfoliating stone, and picked out an outfit on her own: a black skater dress with a turquoise drop-shoulder sweater on top.
She kept her makeup simple, her hair in its usual braid.
One look in the mirror showed herself for who she was: a sad, soft girl who’d gotten in over her head.
One last date.
Then she’d face the music.
It was a chilly, achingly clear night, the rare kind perfect for an open gaze. Kass wasn’t at the OS building when she got there, so Dani parked herself on the front steps and took the amethyst pendulum from around her neck. She hadn’t used it for its intended purpose in a long time.
She closed her eyes and let her consciousness reach out toward the crystal.
She didn’t have the sense of detail and connection that geomancers did, couldn’t see the energetic anatomy of the stone as precisely as they could, but she could feel its gentle, curious vibration and its response to her metaphysical touch, inviting her to ask a question.
North for yes, south for no, she established. Is my name Dani?
The pendulum swung right, a stout north.
Am I going to get all A’s on my finals? She wasn’t surprised when the crystal reversed direction with decisiveness.
Should I tell Kass the truth? This time, the pendulum wobbled between north and south.
“Find out anything good?” Kass’s voice cut short the oncoming wave of foreboding. Dani’s eyes flew open to see him, handsome as ever in his peacoat, standing with his hands in his pockets and a faint smile on his face.
She wasn’t ready for the onslaught of emotions that hit her like a piano dropping from the sky: instinctive joy just at the sight of him, all the usual nerves that came with being near her crush—did she look cute enough? Was she doing something weird with her face?—but also frozen, weighted dread.
This was going to be harder than she’d imagined, and she’d imagined it being pretty damn hard.
“Not really,” she finally responded.
“Mind if I have a go?”
“Um, sure.” She held the pendulum up again. “If it swings to your left, it’s a yes. Right … better luck next time.”
“Got it.” Kass stepped forward and crouched so he was eye level with the amethyst, scrutinizing it with the intensity of a little boy watching his favorite reptile at the zoo. “Would Dani Lionet like it if I kissed her right now?”
The pendulum moved north with all speed.
Dani’s pulse roared like whitewater rapids in her veins.
She let the pendulum’s chain pool in her lap as Kass leaned in and kissed her tenderly.
Sadness and sweetness battled within her; she lifted one hand to graze the stubble on his chin and was rewarded with a low noise somewhere deep in his throat.
They parted only when the door behind them opened and a thread of students spooled out.
“Is something wrong?” Kass asked as he pulled away. He must have sensed a difference in her kiss.
I’m not ready, Dani thought. But she forced herself to smile. “Just a long day. You want to see some stars?”
“You mean, besides the ones I saw just now?” Kass asked, sending a flamingo-pink comet across the sky of her mind. She glanced down at her lap. “Too much? I can stop saying stuff like that if you want. At least, I can try. It seems harder for me to filter around you for some reason.”
“No,” she said, lifting her eyes to meet his once more, and he raised his eyebrows at her vehemence. “I mean, no, it’s not too much. I don’t need you to filter anything. You’re perfect.”
“That makes two of us, then,” he said. “Let’s go look at the sky.” He offered his hand, and she took it after returning her pendulum to its proper place, their fingers winding together with the ease of vines around a trellis.
One last date, she reminded herself. She would savor tonight, all its bitter and its sweet. She would let herself be happy, just this once.
They took their time finding their way to the observatory, Dani leading him on a tour of the building as they went.
It was sheer pleasure to share her world with him, especially after he had shown her his at the party and then the restaurant, and he was appropriately impressed by the variety of departments under the oracular studies umbrella.
A couple of students were already hanging out in the observatory lobby when they got there, and Dani’s favorite hipster was behind the desk, looking about as pleased to see her as she felt to see him.
“The prodigal linchpin returns,” he said as they approached. “Or, I’m sorry, was it kingpin?”
“Either works,” Dani said, eager to speed through the banter. “I am here for the open gaze this time.”
“Of course you are. Not to give me the portion of your winnings that you so graciously promised.”
“Hey, I—” She’d forgotten that she’d ever said that.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said with a tight smile. Kass was looking back and forth between them, puzzled. “Not everything goes according to plan. I’d be more than happy to overlook your empty promises and let you into the gaze under one condition.”
“Are you serious?”
“Dead ass. Your friend from that night—the one with the hair—what was her name?”
Dani had to laugh at that. “If you think McKenna’s ever going to give you the time of day, you have another thing coming. There you go. You got her name, whole lot of good it’ll do you.”
“What was that about?” Kass asked once they were climbing the red-lit stairs to the observatory.
“Oh, nothing.” Dani injected lightness into her tone. “He’s just into my best friend, that’s all. Not handling it very gracefully.”
“Not at all,” Kass said, and he sounded so totally offended by it that Dani felt her crush on him increase one or two ticks, causing a twinge of pain in her abdomen. She tried to set it aside and just enjoy being with him for right now.
The gaze was well attended, which meant that while they didn’t get much time on the telescopes, they had plenty of opportunity to chat while looking out over the campus to the lights of the skyscrapers downtown.
They found a quiet corner of the observatory, which was utterly dark so as to better see the stars, and they alternated between talking and kissing and holding hands for the next few hours.
“I have to hand it to you,” Kass said as midnight came, “you’re better at planning dates than me. This is super romantic. Thanks for bringing me here.”
“I would hardly call this planning,” Dani said. “At least your activity included dinner. But you’re welcome.”
“Did you not eat dinner?” he asked, alarmed.
“Um, maybe not. But it’s fine.”
“It’s not fine!” He jumped up and pulled her to her feet after him. “Come on, this is a college town. There’s plenty of restaurants open late.”
She couldn’t argue with him—or her growling stomach—so they went and got behemoth burritos then ate them on an open quad to cap off their night with more stargazing.
The temperature had dipped below a comfortable level, but Dani would have endured a date in a walk-in freezer if it meant spending more time with Kass. If it meant delaying the inevitable.
“You know, eating a burrito in front of you this soon means I must really trust you,” she said, licking sour cream off her thumb.
“Oh yeah?” Kass had finished his in record time and was lying on one side, head propped on his hand, staring at her.
“Oh yeah.”
“I trust you, too, Dani.”
A javelin of guilt impaled her through the gut. She set down the second half of her burrito and swallowed.
“What’s wrong?” Kass asked.
“Nothing,” she said, eyes trained on the stars. “I don’t know. Everything, maybe?”
She bit her lip. She’d cracked the window: She could tell him everything right now, if she was brave enough.
Maybe he’d hear her out if she emphasized just how desperate she was to help her friend and to get the money, how she’d truly had no idea it was his family’s company when she’d agreed to do this.
She looked down from the sky and into his face; the tender curiosity in his eyes almost made her tell him. She wanted to tell him.
But she couldn’t. There was too much at stake.