“It didn’t get me anywhere anyway,” she says, sliding one of the record books all the way out. “Hopefully you’ll have better luck.”
I watch her flip to the index, barely stopping myself from grinding my teeth. “What are you checking now? Something else about the Tadroses?”
Am I allowed to know this much? I’m trying to keep her alive, for fuck’s sake.
“Maybe.” Her golden-brown brow pinches in concentration in a way that shouldn’t be so compelling. “I’m wondering who the Hearsts have been associating with in the past year. Here we go—they’ve got a few entries.”
I wait while she flips through the pages, admiring the intensity of her expression more than I like to admit. There’s a determination in her that I wouldn’t have thought Elodie was capable of.
Where would she even have needed to cultivate that kind of grit when she’s gotten everything in her life handed over on a silver platter?
Everything except getting to keep that life at all, I guess. She had to fight hard just to stay alive last night.
Hell, according to Salvatore, she nearly got herself drowned to savehimtoo. I can’t imagine him admitting that unless it was true.
The thought of the other matches in our union cuts through my appreciation with a wobble of my nerves. I’msupposed to find some kind of balance with Salvatore Cosgrave? With Professor Raith, who lectures like he’s mocking us more than educating us?
I barely know Asher to make anything of him, but the other two are bad enough. What kind of demented family did fate have in mind?
I can imagine how my parents will wince simply finding out that I’m one of four mates around my core match. Does that leave Hannah with the entire weight of the Worth name on her shoulders?
My father’s voice, imagined but far too believable, rings through my head.“You know fate makes mistakes with our family every now and then. She’s got three other matches—she can’t complain if you do what’s best for you and set your own course. All you need is your glim.”
That is what he’d say. But he wouldn’t mean what’s best forme—he’d be thinking about what’s best for the Worth legacy.
I don’t feel I can say what’s best for either just yet.
Elodie lets out a soft noise that makes my pulse jump in alarm. “What?”
She turns the book so I can see. “Kenneth’s parents invested in a new venture with the Kingsleys and the Somersets this past fall.”
The Kingsleys and the Somersets… Is she worried about her friends?
There’s no reason she shouldn’t be. Friendships in the lucent upper class are really more strategic alliances, subject to change with any shift in the currents.
But leaping to conclusions isn’t going to solve our problems.
“We don’t know if any Hearst other than Kenneth realizes what he was up to—let alone encouraged him,” I point out. “People go into business together all the time. Have you seen any sign that Stella or theSomerset twins have it out for you to the point of murder?”
Elodie shakes her head, but with a trace of hesitation. “I don’t think so, but… how can I be sure? I didn’t see any sign that Kenneth wanted to butcher me, but here we are.”
I can’t stop my arm from rising, my hand from cupping her elbow with what I intend to be a comforting squeeze. It’s a safe contact, her sleeve and my glove warding off skin-to-skin contact, but a jolt of heat radiates into me the second our bodies meet.
Elodie looks up, with a flicker of the hunger that entranced me the other day in the club.
My groin twinges. My chest aches with the need to press my mouth to hers.
And what, risk defacing the school library with whatever my glim might be?
I’m not sure I could restrain the temptation even with that caution in the back of my head, except Elodie jerks her gaze away from mine a moment later. The implicit rejection, no matter how fair, hits me like a splash of frigid water.
Is she ever going to really wantme? As more than a furtive sort-of hook-up in the back room of a secret club, as a man standing at her side before the whole world?
There’s no way her dad and grandparents wouldn’t prefer for her matches to all be the respectable pale tones of the vast majority of lucent high society. I’ve got a hell of a lot more than a fashionable tan.
What chance is there that Elodie doesn’t share their views?
“I guess I’ll have to keep an eye on them and see,” she says, jerking me back to the subject at hand. “We shouldn’t spend more time together than we need to.”