Chapter Forty-Four I Could Totally Tap-Estry That
The first thing I notice is that he just came from feeding and preparing no fewer than six monster enclosures, and there’s not a scratch on him—not even from the chricklers.
The second is that he doesn’t look happy at all.
As soon as the door closes behind him, his eyes meet mine from across the room, and for one second, I get a glimpse of pure, pissed-off misery. I start to ask him what’s wrong, but before I can get the words out, the emotional shutters come down, locking me, and everyone else in the room, out.
Not that anyone else seems to notice. Then again, this is how he always looks to them.
“How’d it go?” Mozart asks as she hands him a bottle of water.
Jude shrugs. “Fine. But I can’t stay. I have—” He breaks off, swallowing back whatever he was going to say.
Mozart, Simon, and Ember exchange a look, but they don’t say anything as the song reaches the chorus—and neither does anybody else.
I wait for him to say more, but he doesn’t. He just leans back against the wall and drinks the water down in two long swallows. And he doesn’t look at me once.
A little spurt of hurt starts deep inside of me, but I beat it back. Because, despite everything, this isn’t about me. It’s about something being wrong with him. And I can’t help wondering if he’s not looking at me because he’s afraid I’ll figure that out.
When he’s done, Jude tosses the bottle toward the small recycling can in the corner of the kitchenette without so much as glancing its way. Seconds later, it flies straight in, not even brushing against the rim.
“Show-off,” Simon mutters with a roll of his eyes.
But Jude’s attention has already been snagged by the rolled-up tapestry in the corner.
“What is that?” he demands hoarsely.
And because I want answers from him, I do something I haven’t done with anyone else. I tell him the truth about the tapestry. And watch him closely for his reaction.
“Just something I found in that old cellar on the other side of the island. It’s what I was texting you about.” I watch him carefully, wanting to see his reaction. Does he know what the tapestry can do? And if so, is that why he was so adamant that I stay away from there?
I didn’t think it was possible, but somehow his face goes even more blank—but in a very obviously disturbed way.
“It’s really cool,” Eva starts. “It does this thing where it—”
She breaks off when I shoot her a look.
“Where it does what?” Ember’s dark eyes are intrigued as she glances back and forth between Jude and me.
Eva looks at me helplessly.
“It’s just a picture of the island the way it used to be, when it was still a resort,” I tell her. “No big deal.”
I’m pretty sure Jude’s eye twitches when I say the last part. Which has my own eyes narrowing as I try to figure out why he’s so upset. Is it that I took the tapestry? Or that Eva and I might know its secret? And what’s the big deal if we do? Why does this tapestry matter so much to the Jean-Jerks? And—apparently—to Jude as well?
“I should probably get going—” I start.
At the exact same time, Simon comments, “You know what this get-together could really use?” he asks, climbing to his feet.
“A backup generator?” Mozart answers wryly as the lights start to flicker.
I freeze, heart beating wildly as I wait to see if my manticore is going to rear its head again. It doesn’t—and, as far as I can tell, nothing happens for anybody else, either. Maybe Aunt Claudia is right and Uncle Christopher really did manage to get things fixed for the time being.
I’d like to say I’m disappointed, but after what happened to me earlier, I’m actually really relieved—at least for now.
“I was going to say a game of Never Have I Ever,” Simon tells her, and now his entire body is glowing in a way that makes it impossible for me to look away from him. Remy’s right. This whole siren thing is a trip. “But I suppose your answer works, too.”
“Give me a break,” Ember snorts. “We’re locked in a school in the middle of the fucking Gulf of Mexico. A better game would be ‘Maybe I did something bad once a long time ago.’”
I laugh despite myself, because Ember may be a tough nut to crack, but when she’s right, she’s right.
“All right, then. How about Truth or Dare? But I am not kissing Jude again.” Simon mock shudders. “He tastes like peppermint.”
“No, he—” I break off as I realize what I’m about to give away.
Thankfully everyone else is too busy laughing at the you-should-be-so-lucky look Jude is currently giving Simon to notice my faux pas. Well, everyone but Remy, who is watching me thoughtfully.
Desperate to get him to focus on something other than my ridiculous slipup, I blurt out the first idea that comes to mind. “We could play Two Truths and a Lie,” I suggest.
“Hey, now,” Simon says with a wide grin. “That’s what I’m talking about!”
“How’s that supposed to work when most of us barely know each other?” Izzy asks in a voice that says she’s more than fine with things staying that way.
“That’s the fun part! It’ll make the guessing extra interesting,” Eva tells her, and she sounds surprisingly into what was a suggestion made out of desperation. “And it’s not like we have so much else to do tonight.”
“What if we don’t want to know more about each other?” Ember growls. But when Eva’s face falls, she quickly backtracks. “Ignore me. I probably need to eat something.”
Mozart picks up a bag of chips and tosses it at her face. She catches it, then flips her roommate off before opening it and shoving a handful in her mouth.
“Okay, then,” Simon asks, grabbing another drink, “who’s going first?”
No one volunteers, which doesn’t actually surprise me. It’s one thing to listen to other people’s secrets—it’s another thing to tell your own. I half expect Mr. I-Can’t-Stay to leave now, but Jude doesn’t move.
Instead, he just watches and waits—though I’m not sure for what. I’m pretty sure it’s not the game we’re playing.
As the wind howls by the cottage, rattling the windows and shaking the chairs on the front porch, we all kind of stare at each other questioningly before Eva finally says, “I’ll go.”
She does, however, take a long, slow sip of her soda before actually starting. “First one—I was born in Puerto Rico, and when I finally graduate from here, I want to go back there to live. Second, I’m terrified of heights. And third, I have no idea what element I draw my power from.”
None of what she says surprises me—and I know immediately that her being afraid of heights is the lie. Just last week she was hanging out on the roof of the cottage, weaving twinkle lights around the gutters to “give the place a little pop of fun.”
And I’m not the least bit surprised about the fact that she doesn’t know what element is hers—she’d barely had a chance to explore her powers before she got sent to Calder Academy. She was sent here because she was trying to do the most basic, elemental spell a witch can do—light a candle using magic. Unfortunately, the spell went terribly, terribly wrong, and she ended up burning down her entire apartment complex. Several people died, and a lot more were injured. Eva’s been terrified of fire ever since.
“I say the element thing is the lie,” Simon guesses. “I’m sure witches can just feel whatever element they have an affinity for.”
“Says the mermaid who spends as much time as possible in the water,” Ember teases.
“Siren,” he answers emphatically. “Not the same.”
“You have a tail, gills, and live in the water,” she shoots back. “Sounds the same to me.”
He doesn’t say anything else, but he does keep looking at her. At first, I think it’s because he’s annoyed, but then I actually glance at his face.
And I can’t help thinking how good Simon looks, eyes dark and brown skin awash with light. Also, he smells really, really delicious. I lean forward to try to catch more of his scent and realize that somehow, it’s all of my favorite things. Vanilla, cardamom, honey, lemon, all rolled together in a way that makes me want to scoot even closer to him. And this time when he says, “I’m a siren,” it feels like the words somehow seep through my very pores.
I take a deep breath, pull his scent deeper inside me, and—
“Knock it off,” Jude growls, and suddenly he’s not across the room anymore. He’s crouched down beside me, his hand on my shoulder as he gently pulls me back until I’m once again sitting up straight.
I start to get offended, thinking he’s telling me to stop when I’m not actually doing anything. But when he leans closer, I get a whiff of his own warm honey-and-spice scent and I realize Simon’s is just a poor imitation.
I take a deep breath before I can stop myself, and suddenly Jude is right there, inside me. Filling up all the places that have stood vacant, dormant, for the last three years. Then he lifts his face to mine, and I fall straight into his kaleidoscope eyes. And keep falling and falling and falling.
“And that, my friends,” Simon tells us with a little click of his tongue in the corner of his mouth, “is the difference between a mermaid and a siren—even one whose powers are locked down.”
The words remind me where I am, and I jerk my gaze from Jude’s. Only to see everyone else in the room slowly blinking as if awakening from a trance. I glance at Simon, who wiggles his brows at me, and it finally occurs to me what happened. Ember was messing with him, and he responded by showing her exactly what a siren can do.
Even before Ember says, “You are such a jerk!” and throws a chip at him.
He catches it with a grin. “Hey, I was just providing an educational demonstration,” he tells her before popping the chip in his mouth.
“I think you should have to go next. Punishment for that little ‘educational demonstration.’” I use my fingers to make quotes around the words.
He shrugs. “Sure. But first Eva has to tell us what was the lie. The element thing, right?”
“Actually, it was the heights. Being high up doesn’t scare me at all.”
“So you like to fly?” Ember asks, suddenly looking very interested in the conversation.
“I’ve never been. I didn’t really know a lot of shifters in my old life, before I came here.”
“I’ll take you,” Ember offers. “When we graduate. If you want, I mean.”
Eva lights up. “I’d love that.”
“Then we’ll do it.” Ember looks as close to happy as I’ve ever seen her. But the moment she realizes we’re looking at her, the normal scowl comes back in force. “Who’s next?”
“I’ve been to forty-seven countries. I’m actually seventy-eight years old. And I’ve never killed anyone.” Izzy yawns as she runs a hand through her long, red hair, her expression clearly saying she doesn’t care if we manage to guess her lie or not.
“Umm, that was…” Simon looks flummoxed, like he has no idea what to say. And I don’t blame him. That was a lot to take in…and trying to figure out which one of those things is the lie is mind-bending.
I glance at Jude, to see what he thinks, but I don’t think he even heard her. He’s sitting next to me, but he’s completely focused on the tapestry in the corner, eyes narrowed and foot tapping the way he always does when he’s trying to figure something out.
“I’m going to go with the forty-seven countries thing,” Mozart says as she leans over to hand me a bottle of Topo Chico.
I lift a brow at her, but she just grins and whispers, “You’re looking a little thirsty.”
My whole face burns with embarrassment—I know she’s not talking about the sparkling water—and I drag my gaze away from Jude.
“Is she right?” Eva asks curiously. “How many countries have you actually been to?”
“They’re all lies,” Remy says as he kicks his feet out and leans back on his elbows.
“All?” Eva squeaks, and I know she’s thinking about Izzy’s last lie. “That’s not how the game—”
“Please,” Izzy says with a roll of her eyes. “I just met you people. You don’t actually think I’m going to tell you anything about myself, do you?”
“But you kind of just did,” I say because one of the things this game always proves to me is that a person’s lies tell as much as their truths do. And Izzy isn’t the only person at this school to kill someone—accidentally or on purpose. Her knife use alone makes that truth not surprising at all.
But what is surprising—and makes me wonder—is the fact that she lied about it. The only question now is were these lies just throwaways or did she pick them because she wished they were the truth?
An awkward silence ensues—one where I remember that, despite what Izzy and I went through together, I really don’t know her. I don’t know any of the people in this room, except Eva…and maybe Jude.
Oh, I used to know him. But now? The way he keeps looking at that tapestry and then glancing out the window like he wants to be anywhere but here makes me wonder how much I’ve missed in the last three years.
We all kind of stare at each other for a moment, trying to figure out what to say or do next. And then Simon must decide, fuck it, because he jumps in with a, “Looks like it’s my turn.”
He gives us a choice between I’ve crashed two dozen ships, I like to hunt for sunken treasure, and I write unrequited love poetry—all of which sound totally believable to me.
But Ember just laughs. “You’re a siren. No way is your love unrequited.”
I wait for him to make a comment about his obvious crush on her, but he just shakes his head no instead.
“I think—” Mozart starts, but Ember interrupts him.
“Really? Who in this school can’t you get if you put your mind to it? Especially considering that little demonstration you just treated us to.” She’s clearly not ready to let this go, and part of me wants to ask her how she can be so dense. Especially since Simon is looking at her steadily while Jude and Mozart look anywhere but.
Because I’m obviously not the only one who knows what he’s so clearly trying to tell her. And she, just as clearly, isn’t getting it. I just can’t figure out if that’s because she’s clueless or willfully ignorant.
Mozart clears her throat, but Ember ignores her, clearly waiting for an answer that Simon is not going to verbally give her. So Mozart clears her throat again. And again. And—
“Are you trying to hack up a fur ball over there or what? You’re a dragon, not a damn werewolf!” she demands, finally wrenching her gaze away from the siren.
“I was trying to take my turn,” she answers, eyes narrowed in annoyance.
She throws up her hands. “Well, then, what are you waiting for? Go!”
Mozart thinks for a second—whether about her statements or about biting her hand off, I can’t tell—but then she says, “I’m a dragon. I’ve been on the island three years. And…I’m a vegetarian.”
For several seconds, dead silence meets her proclamations. And then we all burst out laughing at the exact same time.
“Hey, what’s so funny?” she asks, sounding bewildered.
“You—” Simon starts but then ends up laughing so hard that he can’t finish the statement.
“I what?” The bewilderment has turned to insult.
“We just can’t decide,” I tell her, swallowing down the laughter still bubbling inside of me, “if you are terrible at this game or an absolute genius.”
Mozart preens at that. “A genius, obviously.”
“I’m going to go with vegetarian as the lie,” Ember says dryly. “Considering you had three turkey sandwiches for lunch.”
“So I’m an open book.” Mozart shrugs. “Nothing wrong with that.”
“Nothing at all,” I agree, but I’m still grinning, and so is everyone else.
The game moves on to Remy and me, but nothing earth-shattering comes from either of us—probably because we have the same problem. We’ve never had the chance to do much of anything because we’ve spent our entire lives locked up.
But then it’s Jude’s turn. And I can’t help holding my breath as I wonder what he’s finally going to share.