“Something wrong?” Eli said, his hand coming up to rest against my lower back.
I gaped at him, incredulous that he could be so clueless.
“What?” he said, frowning.
“Just … just don’t, okay?”
“Don’t what?” He cocked his head.
I clenched my teeth. Stupid handsome, confusing boy. “It’s just … hard to take you being all … touchy and stuff. Not after…” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “After that kiss,” I blurted out.
Eli’s hand fell away from my back, and I opened my eyes to see him run his fingers through his hair hard enough to draw back the skin on his forehead. “Dusty, if you only…”
“What?” I said, shivering again. Even hearing him say my name made my body react in ways I couldn’t control.
“It’s just—”
He broke off as Selene arrived.
“What’s up?” she said, sitting down across from us.
I tried to smile, hoping she wouldn’t sense the tension—fat chance, of course, considering this was Selene. She looked between Eli and me, puzzling it out.
“I’m trying to figure out this text,” I said, before she had a chance to ask any probing questions. As much as I wanted to know what Eli was going to say, it needed to be a private conversation. I held up the phone. “It’s from Paul.”
“Awesome,” Eli said, putting a little distance between us.
Pretending not to notice, I examined the message and started making notes, decoding each word through simple trial and error.
Finally, I determined that it read: Meet me by my locker after first period. Alone.
“So what does it say?” Eli asked as I set the pencil down.
“Nothing. He just wants me to meet up with him after English.”
Eli cleared his throat, the sound suspiciously close to a growl.
I braced for him to tell me not to go, but he didn’t. Before I could wonder why, he changed the subject to what had happened to Britney. He wanted a blow-by-blow account, full of the details most people would’ve thought meaningless, but from which Eli was sometimes able to glean clues.
Selene and I told him what we could. When we finished, Eli spent a good five minutes in brooding silence while Selene and I focused on breakfast. The look on Eli’s face as he contemplated the details we’d given him could only be described as inward. He was present physically but checked out mentally, lost down whatever path his thoughts had taken him.
Finally, that inward look broke, and he picked up his goblet and took a drink.
“Well,” I said, “what did you figure out?”
Eli set down the goblet hard enough that milk sloshed over the side. “Not much, but at least we know where to start looking.”
“How so?” I knew better than to be skeptical. Eli had a knack for this detective stuff. He was the only person my age I knew who had a good idea of what he wanted to be when he grew up. I kind of envied him that. For me, I just wanted to survive the next two years of high school.
Eli tapped the table. “Britney. We’ve got to figure out what she was doing that got her caught up in all of this.”
“Yes, that makes sense,” Selene said.
Eli pointed a finger. It was crooked, bending inward at the last knuckle. “But that means the two of you need to ask Melanie about the Terra Tribe. I’ll give it a shot with Irene Stark. Between the two of them, we might figure out what the group is up to.”
Selene nodded. “I’ll see if Mellie can stop by the dorm tonight or tomorrow.”
The bell rang a few minutes later, and the three of us made our way to English class. I barely paid attention to Miss Norton’s impassioned lecture on Alexander Pope’s inappropriate characterization of sylphs in The Rape of the Lock. My thoughts kept returning to Paul as I wondered what he would have to say.
When class ended, though, I finally understood why Eli hadn’t protested.
“What are you doing?” I said as he made a right at the bottom floor of Finnegan Hall instead of the left that would take him to our second-period spell-casting class.
Eli’s brow furrowed. “Going with you.”
I sighed. “You can’t. We both know he won’t talk with you there.” As Eli started to protest I placed my palm against his chest, fingertips barely touching him. He sucked in a breath. The raw sound of it sent a quiver through my belly and down my legs, and I pulled my hand away. “I need you to run interference with Mr. Carbuncle. Make up some excuse if I’m late.”
As I started to leave Eli caught my wrist and turned me back toward him. “Paul’s dangerous, and you shouldn’t be alone with him.”
I pulled my hand free of his grasp, trying to strengthen my resolve. “It’s a hallway. Full of lockers and students. I won’t be alone.”
A muscle ticked in Eli’s jaw. “I promise I’ll behave.”
“Not trying to kill him isn’t exactly going to get him to talk.” I flashed him a bright smile. “I’ll be fine, Eli. And we both know how important this is.”
That muscle ticked twice as fast, but then his expression relaxed and he exhaled. “Okay. But if you’re more than five minutes past the bell, I’m coming after you.”
For one awful second, I was tempted to tell him that even if he did come to rescue me he wasn’t likely to succeed. Paul’s magic was strong and came to him naturally—something I’d learned in just the few short minutes after Marrow had broken The Will. But Eli was struggling with even the most basic spells. He didn’t have the same problem I did, with his magic being explosive and unruly. His was just weak, like a shower with low water pressure. It would be a no-contest.