Ask Cassandra

Chapter Eleven

“What are you grinning at?” Steph asked. She put a tall glass of hard cider in front of Cassie and sat down in the booth, taking a sip of her own drink. Cassie very much approved of the local hard cider.

“I got a nice email from a former client, thanking me for my help,” Cassie said. Her Agora editor had forwarded the letter to her with, “Just came in! Love it when this happens. Give me a response and we’ll post next week.” Isobel had a terrible habit of working through the weekend, but Cassie couldn’t complain too much when it came with this kind of pick-me-up.

“I wish I got thank you emails,” Steph said. “Not that people aren’t grateful when you fix their cars, but they don’t write follow-up notes.”

Cassie grabbed a napkin and a pen from her purse and scribbled, “thank you for fixing my car xoxo.” “There you go.”

Steph eyed the crumpled napkin. “Thank you. I’ll treasure it always.”

“Put in your scrapbook,” Cassie suggested. She surveyed the Black Cat, which was in the middle of the Saturday night flow. As far as she could tell, the crowd was evenly split between tourists and townies, who mostly kept a polite distance from each other. They’d been seated in the locals section, so Cassie could only guess that Steph’s presence lent her legitimacy.

“Is there a reason most of the locals are sitting further away from the band?” she asked. The band, who were setting up for the advertised 8:30 show, were two men in their thirties and a woman who looked barely old enough to drink.

Steph took a long pull on her drink. “You’ll see. Oh, hey.” She half-stood and waved at a short red-haired woman in an impressive mini-dress who’d just entered the bar. “Petra! Over here!”

The redhead came over, giving Cassie an inquiring look.

“Cassie Troiades,” Cassie said, holding out her hand.

“Petra Appleton,” the redhead said, and shook, looking thoughtful. “Yeah, okay, I get it.”

“Get what?”

“I asked Manny Pelopson out the other day, and he said sorry, he was seeing someone. So I asked a few questions and found out you’d gone to Pie in the Sky on Thursday night.”

“Wow,” Cassie said. “I don’t know if I’m more impressed or intimidated.”

Petra shrugged. “Small town gossip is no joke.”

“Petra, don’t freak her out,” Steph said.

“I’m not freaked out,” Cassie assured her. “I’m professionally nosy. Out of interest, what else do you know about me?”

Petra ticked items off her fingers. “You went to Maenad College for undergrad, Steph fixed your car your first day here, your last job was down south, you normally live in the city, you make good cornbread, you have two younger sisters and a younger brother, and you told Isaac Corey where to stick it. About time. There’s a rumor that you and Steph are hooking up, but I figured that was just wishful thinking from my informant.”

Cassie laughed. “I didn’t make the cornbread, only served it, and I’m not hooking up with Steph. Otherwise, completely accurate.”

“I’m trying to make it with one of her sisters,” Steph said helpfully. “Cassie says neither one’s available, but I live in optimism. When are you going to invite them up here?”

“I…wasn’t planning to,” Cassie said, but now that she thought about it, it wasn’t a bad idea. Laodice would swoon over the romance of a small town in spring-time, and Xena was always on the lookout for good locations to shoot content. Tantalus could certainly profit from the publicity.

“You should definitely invite them up for the carriage house opening,” Petra said.

“Oh, you’re that Appleton! Manny said you’d done an amazing job on the bid.”

“And it’s going to come with a fat bonus for finishing by the end of May,” Petra said, looking smug. “So invite your sisters up in June.”

“That sounds good,” Cassie said, and caught another thoughtful look from Petra. “Is there something on my nose?”

“Nope. Okay. You seem like an upfront kind of person, so I’m just going to ask straight out. Are you planning to stick around?”

“It’s a three-month contract,” Cassie said.

“So you’re going back to the city?” Petra persisted. “Are you and Manny going for a long-distance relationship, or is this a short-term thing? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hit on people who are taken. But the pickings are kind of slim around here and Manny’s a great guy. I don’t want to miss my shot if I have one.”

“Petra!”

“Steph, we’re grown-ups. It’s a reasonable question.”

“Okay,” Cassie said, and put her hands flat on the table. “Give me a minute to think about this.”

Petra stayed quiet as Cassie organized her thoughts, which won her a few points. Steph watched apprehensively, obviously regretting waving Petra over.

“Right,” Cassie said. “The answer is, that isn’t a reasonable question. Because you want to go out with Manny, not me, but you’re asking me, not him, which is kind of going behind his back, and also implies you think he wouldn’t react well to the question. And people aren’t library books or restaurant tables. You can’t call dibs on the next turn. If Manny and I stop seeing each other, that’ll be between us. If you and Manny start dating after that, that’ll be between you. You can’t triangulate with me for a green light. Okay?”

“Huh,” Petra said. “Yeah, okay.” She sat quietly for a moment. “I’m sorry.”

Cassie nodded. “Okay. What are you drinking?”

Petra looked taken aback, but pleased. “Vodka soda.”

Cassie scooted out of the booth and started towards the bar. Behind her, she heard Steph’s voice go sharp, and smiled. Petra probably deserved a talking-to, but she didn’t want to be the one to deliver it. And it spoke well of the woman that she’d listened to what Cassie had to say, and then apologized.

Also, Manny had one hundred percent not mentioned that a hot and forthright woman had asked him out, and Cassie was trying to sort out her own feelings about that. He’d turned her down, so it didn’t violate their agreements about not cheating or dishonesty, but it turned out it was something she would have wanted to know.

Did she want more with Manny?

When she listened to herself, she had to conclude that the answer was yes.

Ugh. She was going to have to be brave.

This was the problem with being an advice columnist. She was almost obliged to act on the advice she would have given herself—although, as Steph had so astutely pointed out, that advice would have begun with don’t sleep with your boss.

Honestly, the part where she was starting to fall for him probably served her right.

The bar was crowded, and it was a minute before Laura could take her order. “Sorry,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. “What can I get you?”

“Two vodka sodas and two ciders, please,” Cassie said. If the wait was any indication, they’d all be better off with double orders. She tipped Laura, and gathered the drinks, watching her step as she started back towards the booth.

The singer let out an unearthly wail.

Cassie jumped, but didn’t drop her burden. She did wince when the guitarist came in with a discordant tumble of harsh notes, but by the time the drummer joined him, she’d braced herself against further surprises. The townie reluctance to sit near the band was explained.

A few claps and whoops were starting near the stage as some of the out-of-towners moved in, apparently specifically there for whatever this was. The tourists who’d come for a drink or two shared startled glances. Those with seats near the stage started looking behind them.

Cassie walked carefully, but she didn’t have eyes in the back of her head, so when someone walked right into her from behind, she stumbled heavily. The glasses didn’t fall and smash, but most of the liquid jumped out of them, tipping directly down her front.

“Hey!” a masculine voice said. “Watch where you’re going!”

“Excuse me?” Cassie said, and turned on him. “You walked into me.”

And then she froze, because the face glaring at her was directly from her nightmares.

The year before, Cassie—or rather, Cassandra—had answered a letter from a woman in serious distress. She was accidentally pregnant, but had decided to have and keep the child, partly because she’d believed herself in love with the father. The second she’d showed him the positive test, he’d proposed. She’d said yes. He’d showered her with attention, encouraged her to quit her job, and promised to take care of her.

And then he’d changed. His rich grandfather wasn’t pleased that his only grandson had knocked up a stripper, but he was clearly equally unwilling to miss out on a possible heir to what turned out to be a very impressive fortune. The fiancé, she thought egged on by the grandfather, had tried to get her to sign a terrible prenup that would give her no support and limited custody in the event of a divorce. He’d sulked for days when she refused to sign. When she’d mentioned at a family dinner that she meant to study and look for work in a new field after the baby was born, the grandfather had been patronizing, then furious. Apparently, mothers in his family didn’t work.

She’d told him that the mother in her family would.

Then things got stranger. Her phone wasn’t always in the same place she’d left it. She’d started wondering if she was being followed in the street. She wanted the fun boyfriend back and a loving father for her baby, and maybe it was all just pre-wedding weirdness, but she was seriously starting to question the wisdom of the marriage. What should she do?

Cassandra had told her to dump him, immediately and unequivocally, with some harsh words for both the fiancé and his grandfather. Cassie had been personally worried as the weeks went by without any response, but eventually she’d received another email from the young woman, who’d just walked out of her rehearsal dinner. The grandfather had made a threat that implied she was an obstacle who could be removed, and she’d left. She had no job, no support, she was just a few weeks from giving birth and had no idea of what she’d do next, but she was still grateful to Cassandra for the advice.

The next day, the society pages had been full of the broken engagement of Cressida O’Brien to millionaire playboy Dammond Argive. And some enterprising internet sleuth had drawn parallels between that dramatic exit, and the Agora column of a few months before.

Dammond had tried to sue—first Cassandra directly, then Olympus Publishing when he couldn’t find out who “Cassandra” was. He’d demanded that at the very least, the columnist should be fired.

Cassie had never been so relieved to be anonymous, but she’d fully expected to lose her job. Instead, the newly-appointed CEO of Olympus Publishing had gone into bat for her. Hera Rheczack had not only protected Cassie’s identity, but her only steady source of income.

And now Dammond Argive was inches away, glaring at her. He was tall and well-built, with an expensively “casual” haircut and crafted stubble. If not for his reputation and the permanent sneer stamped upon his finely chiseled features, she might have thought he was handsome.

As it was, she froze. The singer wailed again, in an odd echo of her internal alarm.

“You stopped right in front of me,” he snapped.

She hadn’t. She’d been moving slowly, because of the drinks, but she had been moving. Evidently, it hadn’t been fast enough for him, because he’d ploughed right into her back.

“I—” she said. “No, I didn’t.”

“Whatever,” Dammond said dismissively, and she could see him getting ready to shove past her. Then his eyes moved over her shoulder and stopped, arrested.

“You okay, Cassie?” Petra said, and Dammond’s face flipped from surly to charming in the second it took him to assess the diminutive redhead.

“Your friend and I bumped into each other, but it’s all okay,” he said smoothly. “Here, let me buy you new drinks.”

“No, thanks,” Petra said, taking two of the glasses from Cassie so that she had more freedom of movement. Cassie was beginning to recover from the original shock. Dammond had no idea who she was. Not only was he ignorant of Cassandra’s identity, but Cassie Troiades was a complete non-entity in herself.

“I insist,” Dammond said. “Can’t have you going thirsty.”

Petra ignored him, which instantly gained her more points, and looked at Cassie instead. “Oh damn, girl, you’re soaked.”

Cassie looked down at her splashed sweater. She liked clothes that made the most of her curves, but the wet wool clinging to her skin was both uncomfortable and unflattering. “I think I’d better visit the ladies room.”

“I’ll send a bottle to your table,” Dammond said, still very obviously talking to Petra. “Or maybe you’d like to come drink with me?”

“Maybe another time, Dammond,” Petra said. She put the drinks down on a nearby table, and hustled Cassie into the bathroom.

The spill didn’t look any better under the brighter lights, and Cassie was beginning to smell like a distillery. She stripped down to her bra and dabbed herself mostly dry with paper towels while Petra attended to the sweater.

“Do you know that guy?” she asked, hoping she sounded casual.

Petra rolled her eyes. “Dammond Argive. Rich asshole from the city.”

“He wasn’t talking like he knew you.”

“Oh, we’ve met three or four times. He just hasn’t bothered to remember my name. He hits on me every time he sees me and then forgets I exist.”

“Uh, wow. I’ve known you five minutes, and you’re not exactly unmemorable.”

“Sure, but you’re not Dammond. There are babies with a better sense of object permanence. I’m not sure he grasps that other people are real when he’s not around.”

“Damn,” Cassie said mildly.

“Sorry. He just pisses me off. We get a bunch of obnoxious trust fund kids every summer, but Dammond’s always been the worst. A few years ago he started coming first thing in spring instead. He claims Weeping Rock is better without the tourists, and is totally oblivious about the part where he is one.” She brightened. “On the other hand, he probably has sent a bottle of the good stuff to our table. Here you go, I think this is as dry as I can get it.”

Cassie took the sweater, which had gone from dripping to merely damp, and struggled back into it. “How long do you have to live here before you’re not a tourist anymore?”

“Three generations or so,” Petra said. She looked thoughtfully at Cassie. “Unless you marry in.”

“Okay,” Cassie said. She wasn’t sure whether Petra was warning her off or encouraging her, but either way she didn’t want to have that conversation. “I think I’m good to go.”

Dammond had sent the bottle, and Steph had already poured them all a glass of something that tasted like liquid sunshine. The band was playing a new song, something less shrieky, though there were still weird harmonies and dissonant chords. Every now and then, the listeners at the front would whoop or clap at something musically significant, although Cassie couldn’t figure out what they were responding to. She began paying more attention, and blinked at a sudden moment of convergence, where the singer’s voice shimmered above and through a complicated guitar glissando, like the moon passing behind thin cloud.

“Wait, are these guys actually good?” she said, taken aback.

“Yes,” Petra said promptly, just as quickly as Steph said, “No.”

Cassie laughed.

“Well, they’re geniuses,” Steph conceded. “Lexie who runs the music department at the high school explained their music to me once, and it all made sense while she was talking, but it turns out I still don’t like the sound.”

“My cousin might like them,” Cassie said. “She’s a musician.” Paris and the Archers made most of their money at corporate gigs, playing while people ate canapes and hobnobbed, but Paris’s own tastes were more wide-ranging. She’d taken teenaged Cassie to more than one baffling jazz show before Cassie had been forced to admit that when she’d said she liked jazz, she’d meant the popular big band songs, not avant-garde improvisation full of musical references and jokes she couldn’t even recognize, much less appreciate.

She leaned out of the booth and snapped a picture of the band’s poster, helpfully on display, and sent it to Paris.

“Heads up,” Steph said, and Cassie leaned back just in time for Dammond Argive to show up again. This time he had an entourage, two men about his own age who had the same air of unthinking entitlement, and an older man in a dark suit who was practically screaming “bodyguard” with every sweeping glance around the bar.

“So,” Dammond said, smiling at Petra. “Are you enjoying the champagne?”

“Yes, thanks,” Petra said, and her voice was cool and unconcerned, but Cassie could feel her leaning further back into the booth.

“And my sweater isn’t damaged beyond repair,” Cassie said helpfully, and angled her body to block Petra more thoroughly. “Apology accepted!” She was ignoring the part where Dammond hadn’t actually apologized.

Dammond’s eyes flicked over Cassie, paused a moment on her breasts, and then went back to Petra. “Have we met before?” he asked. “You seem so familiar, but I’m sure I would have remembered you.”

“I like your sweater,” Cassie said, and leaned into him with clumsy enthusiasm. “And your tie! Cool crest thingy!” She flicked the knot of his tie.

“It’s my old school tie,” Dammond said, looking more irritated than smooth. “So, I was wondering…”

“Oh my gosh, vintage! I love vintage, don’t you?” Cassie beamed up at him, letting her eyes go slightly unfocused behind their glasses. “This place has just the cutest antiques.”

The two younger men were exchanging smirks, and Dammond was clearly aware of it. He was wavering, trying to figure out if the potential of hooking up with Petra was worth the annoyance of dealing with this drunk airhead. Petra was silent, and Cassie caught the movement as the redhead started scrolling through her phone, apparently bored.

Dammond looked thwarted, but he might need a push.

“Where did you go to school?” Cassie said, and tapped the tie again. It was… Wait, it was familiar. Hot damn. “I went to Maenad for college, but before that I was at Wilios High. Charge, Stallions, charge! Did you play football?”

“Lacrosse,” Dammond said, and pulled back from her waving hand. “At Argos Academy.”

“I bet you looked cute in the uniform,” Cassie said, and watched Dammond realize, with some outrage, that she was hitting on him.

“Okay, so…have a good night, ladies,” he said, and walked off. One of his friends was barely concealing a snicker, and the other wasn’t bothering to hide it. The bodyguard gave Cassie a cool look and she shivered—that man hadn’t been fooled by the bubbly idiot act—but followed Dammond back to his own booth.

“That was amazing,” Steph said. “It looked like all your brains had fallen out the hole in the back of your head.”

“Kill ‘em with kindness,” Cassie said, and took another sip of her champagne. It tasted like victory. Dammond’s party were gathering their things and moving out of the bar, loudly declaring it to be lame.

“I owe you one,” Petra said, and Cassie shook her head, dismissing the offer.

That crest had looked really familiar. She wasn’t positive it was the same one, but it had reminded her of the crest on the blazer of twelve-year-old Chris in the school photo, carefully taped into the back of Perry Pelopson’s secret record book. She flicked out her phone and looked up Argos Academy.

A private prep school, of course, from K-12, promising graduate success to the children of the well-heeled. She looked carefully at the crest emblazoned on the front page. She’d have to check the photo, but she thought it might be the same. And schools meant records. Schools meant yearbooks and alumni registries and possibly current and up-to-date contact details for their graduates. They wouldn’t want to give Cassie most of that, but at the very least she could probably get a last name, and if she was lucky, and it wasn’t Smith or Jones, she could start trawling social media and public records. She had a subscription to a database a lot of freelance archivists found helpful, and if that didn’t work, she could ask Laodice a few questions, because Olympus had access to a lot of databases.

She could do this. She could find Manny’s uncle, and maybe put Aerope’s fears to rest.

She looked up, once again aware of herself and where she was, and blinked at her companions, who had clearly been politely ignoring her while she dove down the research rabbit hole.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Whatever that was, it looked intense,” Petra said.

“Dammond Argive doesn’t know it, but he just did me a massive favor,” Cassie said. “I feel like celebrating. Who wants to get drunk?”

Jim and Theo were right; the thaw was here. Manny looked at the crisp blue sky and huffed a plume of visible breath into the cold late morning air.

“Are you a dragon?” Orestes asked.

Manny looked at his nephew. Orestes was eight, old enough to know dragons were make-believe, but maybe young enough to wish otherwise.

“No, of course not,” Electra said, with all the confidence of ten. “Dragons aren’t real.”

Geni came out to join them on the back patio, blowing on her hands. “Mom says that if you guys are going to run around outside, you need to put more clothes on.”

“Okay,” Orestes said.

“I’m not cold,” Electra said. “Besides, Uncle Manny’s setting up the grill, and that will be warm, so there.”

Geni rolled her eyes. “I’m just telling you what Mom said.”

“Orestes can go and get his coat,” Electra said magnanimously, and watched avidly as Manny filled the grill with charcoal and set it alight. Manny kept an eye on her. Electra wasn”t always the best at risk management.

After a while, she tucked her bare hands into her armpits. “Do you miss Grandpa?” she asked.

“Every day,” Manny said.

Electra nodded. “I don’t miss him every day, but I think my dad does.”

“That’s sort of how it works,” Manny said gently.

And Electra turned horrified eyes on him and said, “One day my dad will die.”

Manny instinctively looked back through the patio door, but he was the only adult in sight.

“And then I’ll miss him every day,” she continued, looking aggrieved. “That’s not fair!”

“No,” Manny said. “It’s not fair.”

Electra stared at him, jaw set stubbornly, and he had the absurd feeling that he might offer to fight death for her, or something equally impossible and stupid, just so that she’d never have to deal with this stuff.

“It won’t happen for a long, long time, long after you’re a grown-up,” he said instead, but that wasn’t much better, because he was an adult, and so was Augie, and their mother was older than both of them, and they were all still having a tough time with bereavement. “I—Do you want a hug or something?”

“No,” Electra said, and then she darted in and hugged him anyway, her skinny little arms barely making it around his trunk, and her face pressed against his side. Manny patted her springy curls. He felt completely helpless, but apparently this was enough, because after a moment Electra let go.

“I’m going to help Orestes find his coat,” she announced, and ran back inside.

Manny wondered if he should be following to give one of her parents a quick update on the conversation, but he heard an engine and the crunch of gravel, and a second later, Cassie’s car parked in the back parking lot.

She got out and turned towards the house, then looked at the guesthouse. Then back at the big house again, indecision clear on her face.

Manny realized that she hadn’t spotted him yet, standing still on the patio, and waved. “Hi,” he called, and she spun and waved back.

He covered the distance between them at a quick walk, happy to see her in a way that felt both completely natural and utterly terrifying. Closer up, she looked a little rough, her eyes bloodshot and her hair less bouncy than usual.

“Good night?” he said, grinning.

“Oh yes,” she said, her voice a little husky. “Steph introduced me to Petra Appleton. Damn, that woman can drink.”

“Petra? Uh, did she happen to say—”

“—That she’d asked you out? Yes.” Cassie coughed, and reached back into her car for a water bottle. “It’s cool. I have been given provisional approval.” She drank thirstily, and Manny watched her throat bob. “You haven’t spoken to your family yet?”

“Not yet, no.”

“Okay, good. I didn’t mean to come back before this evening, but last night I came across something that might be helpful for our investigation, and wondered if I could check the archives. Is that okay?”

“Sure, it’s fine,” Manny said, more curious than anything else. He rather liked the sound of our investigation. “My niece just had the epiphany that all mortals must die. Nothing else can be even a little bit inconvenient for at least ten minutes.”

Cassie laughed, and then winced.

“Not that you’re inconvenient,” Manny added. “Just how hungover are you?”

“Someone is ringing a bell in the back of my skull,” she said mournfully.

“Then I’ll have mercy,” Manny said, and snuck her through the house without trying to introduce her to any of his louder family members. Chrys and Electra were discussing the rules of a game at the top of their lungs, and Cassie winced again as they passed the living room.

Once they got to the attic, she went straight into the archive room, and came out with the now-familiar green record book, opening it to the page where the twelve-year-old Chris beamed from his school photo.

“It is the same crest,” she said, comparing the photo to something on her phone.

“I think you’re going to have to take me back a couple of steps,” Manny said, and Cassie explained.

“Oh hell, I’ve met Dammond,” Manny said. “He’s a good customer, unfortunately—buys a lot at the cellar door.”

“Well, he did us a favor. A first name and a birth year isn’t much, but a school is a lot,” she said. “I’ll drive to the city tomorrow and see what I can get out of the Argos Academy.”

“In person?”

Cassie nodded. “No school administrator worth their pay is going to give me anything over the phone or via email, but you’d be surprised what I can charm out of people one-on-one.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Manny said, and Cassie smiled at him.

It was an amazing smile, she was amazing, and he couldn’t help but lean over the table and gently press his mouth to hers. She kissed him back, her lips soft and her breath minty. Manny melted into her for a moment then pulled back, resting his forehead on hers.

“I don’t think we’re a ten-week fling,” he said quietly.

Cassie’s cheeks were stained pink. “I don’t think so either,” she said. “We should probably talk about that.”

“Yes. Tonight?”

Cassie nodded, still blushing. Manny grinned at her, delighted by how shy she suddenly was, by how much he liked her, by the bubbles of joy rising up in his throat. She liked him too, and they were going to talk about making this real.

“Come and meet my family,” he said, and Cassie tucked the record book into her bag and came downstairs with him without protest.

Most of the family were gathered on the back patio, where Aerope was guarding the grill against Augie’s attempted incursions.

Augie stopped trying to tell his mother what to do as soon as he saw Cassie, shaking her hand with firm bonhomie and sneaking Manny sly looks he obviously thought were subtle. Chrys hid behind her father’s leg, and Orestes and Electra were politely puzzled by the appearance of this strange grown-up, but Geni had obviously put a few things together, and she shook Cassie’s hand with solemn good manners and said it was very nice to meet her.

Ness came out of the kitchen then, carrying a tray of bread rolls in one hand and an enormous salad bowl in the other, and she gave Cassie a raised eyebrow as she set them down. “Hello,” she said.

Cassie was looking faintly puzzled. “Hello,” she said. “We’ve met, haven’t we?”

Ness frowned. “You do look familiar.”

“Oh!” Cassie said, and snapped her fingers. “Yes, you’re Ness Laconia, aren’t you? You work at Olympus Publishing? Your sister Helen is married to my cousin Paris.”

Ness”s eyes went wide. “Your cousin is Paris Chen?”

Aerope dropped the tongs.

“Yes. She introduced us when she played at the Winter Ball last year.” Cassie looked uncertainly at Ness, and then at Manny.

Manny stared back at her without a single useful response forming in his brain. There was a distant ringing sensation in his ears.

“It was a brief introduction, no reason you’d remember,” Cassie said. “And of course I’m not wearing a ballgown right now.” She plucked at her coat and made a deliberately rueful face, trying to smooth over the awkward moment. Manny’s heart hurt for her.

“My sister works at Olympus, actually. Laodice Troiades? She works in the Bridal—” Cassie stopped and looked around. “Okay, what’s going on? What did I say?”

Augie took a step forward, his face dark, and that shook Manny out of his trance. He had to speak up before Augie could say anything awful, because Ness would defend Helen, and Augie would rage about Paris, and this was not the first impression he’d wanted Cassie to have of his family.

“Ness’s sister was engaged to me first,” he said. “Helen left me for Paris. Your cousin?”

Cassie looked taken aback. “I’m sorry,” she said tentatively.

“Oh, that’s the nice version,” Augie said, his face like a thundercloud. “Paris eloped with Helen, six hours after she’d married my brother.”

“Be quiet, August,” Aerope said sharply.

“Aunt Helen and Uncle Manny were married?” Electra asked, and Manny could have felt sorry for his brother at the moment where he realized he’d just shared an inconvenient truth with his children, but his own brain was still buzzing.

“Nice, Augie,” Ness said bitterly, and she turned on her heel and went inside the house.

“Really married?” Electra asked.

Aerope bent down by her granddaughter. “Only for a little while, a long time ago,” she said reassuringly. “Before you were born. Shall we go inside and play a game?”

“But I want to know about the wedding,” Electra said, twisting to look at Manny.

“Go inside with your grandmother,” Augie said flatly, and handed Chrys to Aerope. Geni took Orestes’s hand and tugged, and Electra gave her father a dubious look and followed them all inside, looking over her shoulder.

“I didn’t know,” Cassie said faintly. “Neither of them ever mentioned it.”

“Well, they wouldn’t, would they,” Augie said, sneering. “Helen strung Manny along like a dog on a leash, and then Paris snapped her fingers and Helen wrote him a Dear John note on the back of a receipt. She ran away still wearing her wedding dress. Not the kind of thing you brag about if you’ve got any decency at all.”

“Augie, please,” Manny said.

“No!” Augie wheeled on him. “You’re my little brother, and that was supposed to be the happiest day of your life, and they fucking ruined it. You hired Paris for that wedding band gig. She knew whose wedding she was playing at and she knew she should have said no. Helen had every damn opportunity to tell you, and she wrote you a shitty—” He broke off. “You’re not like me,” he said, almost plaintively. “You’re good. You didn’t deserve that.”

“It wasn’t about what I deserve,” Manny said, touched despite himself. Augie had been very, very angry that night, but Manny had thought it was wounded familial pride. That Augie had been upset for him was a new revelation.

“When did all this happen?” Cassie asked.

“Over a decade ago,” Manny said wearily. “It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong. I just wasn’t expecting that connection.”

“Over a decade,” Cassie repeated. Her face went smooth, hiding some reaction he couldn’t read. “I see. Well. I think I’d better head to the guesthouse after all.”

“No, don’t go,” Augie said gruffly. “I’m sorry I yelled. Manny’s right, it’s not your fault.”

“Still,” Cassie said, and took off at what was very nearly a run.

“You should go after her,” Augie said, and Manny turned to look at him.

“That’s what you said about Helen,” he said. “Have you ever thought about what could have happened if we’d actually found her?”

Augie frowned. “She owed you more than a note.”

“A truck full of half-drunk idiots after two women, Augie,” Manny said. “No matter what she owed me, that was a spectacularly bad idea.”

“We wouldn’t have—”

“How would you feel if it were Geni?” Manny said, and he could see that hit home. Augie’s frown deepened.

“Well,” he said, sounding less certain about it. “You’re just one guy now. And Cassie probably thinks we’re all mad at her.”

“I’ll give her some time,” Manny said, and went back inside, climbing the two flights of stairs to his office, feeling like concrete had been poured into his bones.

Theo had been wise to skip the family barbecue after all.

Cassie had half-expected Manny to follow her, but she’d been grateful he hadn’t. She needed time to process all that information—the revelation about Helen and Paris, and her own realization that Manny had to be Left Behind, the guy she’d so blithely advised to not tell women about Helen.

She had to consider her options and her own next best steps.

And most of all, she’d needed to get away from that stricken look on Manny’s face.

She’d felt sorry for Left Behind, but she knew Manny. She knew how loyal he was, how kind-hearted, how endlessly willing he was to sacrifice himself to help his family. Helen’s betrayal must have struck him deep in all his most vulnerable points.

Was it better or worse that she knew exactly how badly that betrayal had hurt him? Was it better or worse that she knew he was trying to move on?

Huddled by the fire, she read over the email her editor had forwarded last night until the words imprinted themselves into her memory. I’ve met someone. Could be the real deal. She’s incredible. A future.

He’d written she acts with honesty. She trusts and respects me.

She hadn’t known, before. Hiding behind the anonymous shield of “Cassandra” had been all right when it kept her safe and protected her from people like Dammond Argive.

But keeping that part of herself from Manny, now… That would be an act of deception. He thought she was honest. She had to respect his right to know he’d revealed himself to her. She had to trust he’d keep her secret.

Cassie tried to plot out the conversation in her head, find scripts for what she wanted to say, pinpoint the possible pressure points and awkward moments, but it was all an impossible whirl of fleeting thought and heightened emotion in her head. She couldn’t give herself the advice she needed. For once in her life, she had no idea of what might happen next.

What happened next was that in the late afternoon of the first Sunday of spring, Manny knocked on her door.

“Hey,” he said, looking tired. “I wasn’t sure if you still wanted to talk. Feel free to tell me to get lost.”

“No, come in,” Cassie said. She heard the awkward formality in her own voice and hated it.

Manny seemed equally awkward. He took his time taking off his boots, arranging them neatly under the coat hooks in the entrance, and then sitting carefully in the armchair by the wood stove that had become his chair. “So,” he said. “I guess the good news is that the working relationship wasn’t actually the problem,”

Cassie tried to smile. It felt fake. “This sucks,” she said. “I can’t believe your ex betrayed you for my favorite cousin.”

“Paris is your favorite cousin?” Manny shook his head. “Sorry. Never mind.”

Cassie steeled herself. “And actually, the work thing is kind of a problem. Except it’s my work thing. Okay. I’m going to tell you something that only five other people know, and trust that you understand why that is.”

“Okay,” Manny said cautiously.

“You know I do freelance writing sometimes?”

“You’ve mentioned it.”

“Right. Well. One of those jobs is actually under a pen name. I write for a popular advice column in Agora called—”

“No,” Manny said, and he was so smart, she could see him leaping to the correct conclusion and working through the implications.

“Yes,” she said miserably. “I’m Cassandra.”

Manny took a deep breath in through his nose and sat very still for a moment. “So you… Right. I wrote to you. And you know that. Now that you’ve heard the story, you know I’m Left Behind.”

“I figured you had to be. Something like that can’t have happened to too many people.”

“I meant to tell you about Helen tonight,” Manny said. He covered his face with his hands. “I would have told you before! We both would have known everything, long before this. But you—Cassandra you—told me not to.”

“I know,” Cassie said. “It feels like one of those awful prophecies that come true because of the prophecy. Like a king hears that his son will kill him and marry his wife, so he exposes him on a mountain top to die, and twenty years later a boy raised by shepherds accidentally kills a strange man on the road and goes to a city and marries the newly widowed queen. But the king would never have exposed the prince in the first place if it hadn’t been for the prophecy.”

The fire popped and crackled in the silence. Cassie kept her eyes trained on her hands, lightly linked in her lap.

“Okay,” Manny said. “Well, on a base level, I’d say that infanticide is never a good idea.”

Cassie tried to smile at the joke, but it felt feeble.

“But your advice was actually good,” Manny continued. “The real prophecy was that if I stopped telling myself and others that I was left behind, I’d stop building my life around that story. And I have. You were right.”

Cassie looked up. Manny was looking at her steadily.

“Did you already know that?” he asked. “I sent a follow-up email yesterday. Did you—Does an editor screen those or, or is it sitting unopened in an inbox somewhere, or—”

“I’ve read it,” Cassie said. “My editor passes on the good follow-ups as soon as she sees them. She knows they cheer me up. I was cheered up.”

“Well, that’s just fine,” Manny said, sounding frustrated. “You now know all my secret feelings. Okay. Cassie, I like you a lot. Do you want to be with me? I’m staying here, and I know your job involves a lot of travel, but we could try long distance, or commuting or… We could work something out, if we wanted to. Do you want to?”

“I don’t know,” Cassie said. “I like you too. Yesterday, I would have said yes. Today… Knowing this now makes me uncertain.” She scrunched up her face. “And I’m really not good with uncertainty. I don’t handle things well when I’m not sure. That’s my baggage, not yours, but it makes things harder for both of us.”

“I don’t want to stop seeing you because my ex married your favorite cousin,” Manny said.

“Your ex ran away with my cousin. It’s a big deal.” She frowned. “And by the way, how come you never mentioned how beautiful your ex was? I’ve met Helen. She’s drop-dead gorgeous. If you’d said something like, my ex is the most beautiful woman in the entire world I might have worked it out a lot earlier.”

“I guess I got used to it,” Manny said, and she tilted her head at him. “Okay, fine, yes, she’s stunning. But it’s always the first thing anyone ever says about her, and usually the last. It used to drive me crazy, all the people who stopped there, like her beauty was the only thing about her worth noticing. After a while, I sort of made a point out of not saying it. Besides, she’s beautiful, but she’s not you.”

“Oh,” Cassie said helplessly. How was she supposed to not fall for him, when he said things like that? “But wouldn’t it be awkward? The cousin thing?”

“It’s already about as awkward as it can be,” Manny said wearily. “My brother is married to Helen’s sister. Paris and Helen are aunts to my nieces and nephews. We sort of dodge anything where we might spend the holidays together, and Paris is never going to be my favorite relative, but I promise, being with you wouldn’t add much to that awkwardness. At least, not on my side.”

“Right,” Cassie said. “But doesn’t it feel like a fundamentally terrible idea? It’s so complicated, there’s so much history…”

“If you want out, say so,” Manny said. His voice was steady, where hers wobbled.

“I—” Cassie said, and then stopped. She didn’t want out. She just didn’t know if she was brave enough, solid enough to see it through. “I think I need more time.”

“That makes sense.”

“I’m going to the city tomorrow anyway.” She stuck her jaw out. “Because I’m damned if I’ll let our personal drama get in the way of solving this mystery.”

Manny’s smile was fond. “You wouldn’t be you if you did.”

“So I think, while I’m there, I’ll stay with my sister for a few days. I might call my cousin. And I’ll do some thinking.”

Manny nodded. “Of course, you’ll want to check my version of events.”

“No,” Cassie said. “I trust that you told me the truth. But I do want to know their perspective.” She looked miserably at Manny. “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t what you were hoping for. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted out.”

Manny reached across the space between them, and she gave him her hand. He ran his thumb over the inside of her wrist, and she remembered all the other times he’d touched her, in desire, in comfort, in grief. Remembered the way he’d panted her name in her ear, curled behind her in the dark bed cave, driving her wild with his hands, his mouth, her name on his lips.

He’d said her name like it was something precious.

“Cassie,” he said now, and she nearly broke, because even when she was pulling away, she couldn’t help but be drawn back in. “I’ll give you time, if you need it. I can’t say I’ll wait forever. But I can wait a while. Because you told me to stop telling the story of being left behind, and I did, and now I’m ready to let it go for good.

“I mean, yeah, Helen did something shitty. I reacted badly. It was all a big fucking mess. But it was years ago, and she’s happy, and now I can be happy for her. And I want to find that kind of happiness for myself. I want a new story, Cassie. Or at least a new chapter. And I want to write it with you.

“So take some time. I’ll be here when you decide. Whatever you decide.”

Cassie’s vision had gone blurry. She blinked hard, and felt the moisture spill onto her cheeks. “Thank you,” she whispered. It wasn’t a strong enough phrase. It didn’t do enough to convey her gratitude, or her regret for her own cowardice.

They stood up and went to the door together, still holding hands, and Manny kissed her cheek before he left.

Cassie didn’t kiss him back. If she had, she might never have had the strength to go.