Everything about this house is brightness and warmth and love, just like Aunt Rachel. So the idea of someone looking disparagingly—that means belittling; I’ve been studying my SAT vocabulary—at the kitchen is beyond insulting.
Especial y if that person is Doe.
Squaring my shoulders, I step up to Doe until we’re practical y nose to nose. She’s in my world now, and I’m immune to her fake charm.
“Listen up,” I snap, so she knows I’m serious. “I don’t know what you did to get sent here, and honestly I don’t care.” what you did to get sent here, and honestly I don’t care.” Okay, I do, but I’m not about to tel her that. “But know this: You can be your usual y hideous self with me al you want, but while you are a guest in Aunt Rachel’s home, you wil treat her with respect. You got me?”
In typical Doe fashion, she just meets my angry glare head-on, unblinking. Unfazed. Unaffected.
“Because if you do anything to insult, disrespect, or otherwise bother her in any way”—I lean even closer—“then Daddy’s exile wil be the least of your worries.” Doe doesn’t flinch.
As we hold our staredown, a blaring buzzer fil s the kitchen.
“That’l be your key lime bars, then?” she asks with a cool smirk.
“Aaargh!”
Spinning away from her, I punch the timer and jerk open the oven door.
“Don’t forget the pot holders.”
Ignore her, I tel myself as I snatch the pot holders from their hooks above the stove. She’s insignificant, like tiny little sea lice. I can’t let her get to me. Especial y if she’s going to be here awhile.
Son of a swordfish, that would be awful. Doe is bad enough in smal doses, let alone for an extended period of time. I’m not sure I would survive that.
I’ve just set the baking dish ful of key-lime-bar goodness on the stovetop when the kitchen door swings open.
“Why, is that key lime I sm—”
Quince breaks off in the middle of his teasing question when he spots Doe standing in Aunt Rachel’s kitchen. I adore seeing that look of utter shock on his face when I put it there. Not when it’s Doe’s doing.
“Dosinia?” he asks, sounding as confused as I am.
She drops her jaded, disenchanted facade and flings herself at him, shouting, “Quincy!”
It is only the questioning look he throws me over her shoulder that stops me from grabbing the stil burning-hot dish of key lime bars and flinging them at her obnoxious back.
That, and the fact that I would be beyond disappointed if the bars were ruined before we got to eat even one.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, pul ing her arms from around his neck so he can look her in the eye. “I thought you hated land.”
“Not land,” I say, circling around her to slip my arm proprietarily around Quince’s waist. “Humans.” I smirk at her dark scowl.
Then, turning a shining smile on Quince, she says, “I’ve been exiled.” She flicks a taunting look at me before returning her attention to my boy. “I’l be around a lot for a while.”
Doe in residence is not what I need right now. As if the SATs and interviews and new boyfriends and graduations and a mil ion other things weren’t enough, Daddy had to throw my squid-brained baby cousin into the mix.
Just great.
“You don’t know what she’s like, Shannen,” I complain.
“Real y, you don’t.”
Prithi, annoyed by the agitated movement of my feet, meows an echoing complaint. She spent the entire night crying outside Doe’s door. I’m pretty sure she’s only returned her attentions to me because Doe stil isn’t out of bed. I’m the only mergirl available.
“I can imagine,” Shannen says, checking over my SAT
sample test. “Lily, you spel ed your name wrong.”
“I’m distracted.” I take the paper back from her and erase al those bubbled-in circles before fil ing in a fresh set. “You should have seen the way she flung herself at Quince. Like he was her long-lost best friend, when she barely knows him and I know for a fact that she hates al humans.” Throwing Shannen an apologetic glance, I say, “Sorry.” Shannen waves me off, never one to dwel on an insult.
“Maybe she’s jealous,” she suggests, echoing Quince’s own interpretation of Doe’s behavior.
Why does everyone think this? They don’t know her as wel as I do.
Shannen asks, “How long has it been since she had a boyfriend?”
“A boyfriend?” I echo. “Doe?” Never, maybe. Doe is more the love ’em, leave ’em, don’t-bubble-message-me-I’l -
bubble-message-you type. “I don’t think she’s ever gone out with the same boy more than a couple of times.” Shannen quickly scans my revised test, marking up more than half the answers with her red pen. “Then she’s probably jealous of your relationship.”
Snorting in disbelief, I try to imagine a world in which Doe is jealous of me. Nope. Doesn’t exist. Although my relationship with Quince is completely enviable. Other than that, my life is pretty much murky. A big part of my future depends on a miraculously decent SAT score.
“Lily,” Shannen groans. This is going to be bad. “The square root of 121 is not 121.”
My head drops to the table. “I’m hopeless,” I mumble against the painted white surface of the kitchen table. “I’m never going to get into col ege.”