Chapter 11
We arrive at Endicott Estate an hour later. Our bus glides up a long driveway situated on a vast stretch of green, ringed by spruce, elm, and weeping willows. We come to a stop outside what I can only describe as an old school mansion.
I stand, and the niru goes straight to my head. It’s not that I’m drunk—Daerios and I split the bottle, and he drank significantly more than I did. The guy is like a living funnel. But the thing is, I don’t drink often. Too much spying and homework to be done.
I tried to keep my sips small. I’m on a mission tonight, and I need my head on my shoulders. But when I took my first drink—wow. Niru is delicate and fizzy, cool as a bottled summer breeze. It wet my lips, bubbled gently down my throat. I instantly wanted more.
“Good, right?” Daerios had asked when he saw my expression.
I’d bit the inside of my cheek. It was good.
Not that I was going to say that out loud.
We step off the bus, getting our first proper look at the estate.
With bay windows, a wraparound fenced-in front porch, and no less than five different chimneys, the structure looks straight out of an East Coast luxury getaway magazine.
As Daerios explained on the ride over, the Ikarith has held their annual ball here every year since 1873.
After the elves took over the final club, they changed the club’s original name, but they kept this tradition.
“Why?” I’d asked. “Why not change over to something more elvish?”
Daerios had lifted his eyebrows in amusement. “What, exactly, would that entail?”
“I don’t know. More, you know, slinking through the woods. Writing on old parchment. Flirting with mermaids.”
At that, Daerios had actually laughed.
When we reach the grand staircase leading up to the porch, Daerios offers his hand to lead me up. I ignore it, lifting my skirt and smiling sweetly as I stomp past of him.
Inside, Endicott Estate is all dark wood and ornate rugs, worn paintings and marble fireplaces.
Velvet-covered bars serve vodka sodas and niru.
Elves float through the maze of rooms, voices low, plastic glasses cupped in their svelte fingers.
An elvish band is setting up in the ballroom, their movement near-silent despite the fact that their instruments are made all of wood and metal.
The curtains are drawn to reveal fires burning out on the lawn.
“Spooky,” I say drily.
Daerios, removing his jacket, raises an eyebrow. “That’s not quite the word I would use.”
To the left of the entrance, two long tables are laden with elvish delicacies.
I recognize many of them from the dining hall: candied nuts, ripe fruit, honey cakes.
Baskets of flaky vaaska bread. Pastry cups filled with herbs and shallots.
And, right in the center, ringed by shining vegetables, an entire roast venison.
“Are you hungry?” asks Daerios.
“No,” I say.
“Oh.” He pauses. “You ate dinner, then?”
“Yes.” No.
“I see. What did you have?”
I narrow my eyes. “What is this, an interrogation?”
“I’m simply asking.”
“I had enough.”
I haven’t had enough today. In fact, if I’m brutally honest with myself, I didn’t eat enough yesterday either. Recovery is a lifelong process, and for the most part, I have no problem keeping a normal diet. Sometimes, though, the urge to restrict slowly grows louder within me.
It’s not that I’m trying to become thinner; restriction stopped being about that for me a long time ago.
Around the same time that I realized it never really was about that.
It was about everything else: the numbness; the inability to think of anything but food, which keeps your mind off other, more painful things; the sense of control over this one small thing, when everything else in your life is coming apart.
The false sense of security that that brings.
My mom’s words from our phone call come back to me.
Old coping mechanisms can flare up in times of stress and uncertainty.
Lately, my life has been filled with both.
“Somehow, I doubt that,” says Daerios.
I clench a fist at my side. “What do you care about my diet, anyway?”
He shrugs. “I can’t have my human date being the drunkest one here. Not a good look.”
“I thought that was your whole thing. Being the drunkest one at the party.”
His lips tighten. “Just because it’s my thing doesn’t mean it needs to be yours.”
“It won’t,” I shoot back.
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
We fall silent, each glaring at the other. Conversation lifts and falls around us, the elves’ voices held at excruciatingly appropriate levels. They’re so light, so musical, they seem to blend in with the tinkering of the instruments in the other room. It’s infuriating.
Cara materializes at my side, two cups of bright liquid glimmering in either hand. She hands one to me. “Are we having fun yet?”
“Is that even a question?” Berendir appears beside her with two dark wells of amber ale. “These two look like they’re seconds away from ripping each other’s faces off. Doesn’t get more fun than that.”
Cara cranes her neck. “When does the dancing start?”
“Once this crowd drinks enough to get the sticks out of their asses. Speaking of which.” Berendir shoves a glass of ale into Daerios’s hand. “This guy needs to be a hundred percent drunker than he is right now.”
Daerios rolls his eyes, but takes a massive swig of ale anyway. I hold back a smile. This is exactly what I want. The more the elves drink, the easier it will be for me to pump them for information.
Berendir plucks a cherry from his cloak pocket and pops it into his mouth. “You know what I think this night calls for?”
“Oh, dear God,” says Cara.
He leans close, grinning devilishly. “The Daerios and Berendir Special.”
I sigh. “Do we even want to know what that is?”
“Probably not,” says Berendir.
“Well.” Cara swirls her plastic cup. “If it involves getting drunk enough to make this place less creepy, count me in.”
“Ha!” I say, victorious, and poke Daerios right in the front pocket. “I told you it’s creepy!”
For a moment, Daerios just stares at the place where I touched him. When he raises his eyes to mine, I can’t tell if he’s holding back a smile or a frown.
“You two are clearly uncultured.” Berendir reaches into his pocket again, this time pulling out a candied pecan.
Cara raises her eyebrows. “Did you store the entire kitchen in that thing?”
“You’ll thank me later.” He digs out another handful of pecans and offers them to us. Cara picks one out and tosses it into her mouth. Daerios does too. “Kallister?” Berendir asks, stretching his palm out to me.
“I’m good.”
The three of them exchange glances. Stubborn Quinn.
“You know what?” I drain the rest of my niru with one gulp. “I will have a pecan.” I plunge my hand into Berendir’s pocket and dig out a handful. I shove them into my mouth all at once. “Yummy,” I say, the word mushy and garbled.
Daerios looks at me like I’ve gone insane.
And maybe I have. What else would explain my presence here, in the very belly of the beast I so despise?
What would explain the lightness, the fizzing at the pit of my stomach, a feeling at once familiar and foreign, one that feels oddly like days on the playground, nights on our bikes in the back streets, running about the backstreets of small-town Minnesota with Michael, before he was—
I squeeze my empty cup twice and say, “Excuse me. I need another.”
Before I can escape to the nearest bar, Daerios grabs my arm. I flinch away, but he holds fast. “What are you doing?” I demand.
“A fistful of pecans isn’t enough,” he says. “If we’re going to drink, we need to eat too.”
“I told you, I already—”
“I. Don’t. Believe you.”
I glare at him. He glares at me. The sugar dances atop my tongue.
The niru shimmers at the edges of my vision.
We’ve reached an impasse—Daerios has thrown down a challenge, the same way I did on the bus ride here.
And maybe it’s the wine. Maybe my inhibitions are lowered.
But the fear that clutched at my chest earlier when I thought about eating—it’s quiet.
Subdued. A mere whisper compared to the voice telling me to do this.
To pick his challenge up and shove it somewhere that hurts.
One slice of vaaska won’t kill me.
“Fine.” I rip my arm away from him and gesture to the tables. “Lead the way.”