“I didn’t try to change shape. I brushed my hair out of my face.”
“Uh-huh.” Arabella rolled her eyes.
Konstantin turned toward her. “Why is it you don’t like me?”
“Aside from my mother getting hurt, and my sister being hurt, and my grandmother being hurt, I have four hundred and seventy-two thousand reasons. Also, you think you’re better than everybody. Maybe at home you are, but here you don’t hold a candle to Augustine.”
Of all of us, Arabella ended up interacting with MII most often. Occasionally we passed cases to them, and they reciprocated. She was the one who handled the administrative and financial arrangements, and she had developed a certain respect for Augustine and his deep-water shark ways. They shared an instinctual understanding of money and power and the best ways of using one to get the other. Augustine treated Arabella as a promising younger sister.
“This Augustine, is he an illusion mage?” Konstantin asked.
If he had done any homework at all on us, he knew exactly who Augustine Montgomery was.
“Yes, and he is better than you,” Arabella said.
Konstantin shook his head. “No illusion mage alive today, anywhere, is better than me. That’s not arrogance, that’s a fact.”
“Augustine can turn invisible,” Arabella said.
“Impossible,” Konstantin said.
“No, I’ve seen it,” I told him. “So to speak.”
Konstantin frowned.
“Let’s see it.” Arabella planted her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her hands. “Do it. Turn invisible.”
The prince narrowed his eyes.
Leon floated into the kitchen and smiled, his face happy and dreamy. “What smells so good?”
“Sweet chili chicken.”
The smile on Leon’s face grew wider. “Soft tacos?”
“Soft tacos with sweet chili chicken and skirt steak, regular tacos with marinated shrimp and beef chuck, queso, hot and mild salsa, pico, both kinds, sautéed bell peppers, grilled corn, salad, rice, beans, and chips.”
Leon rubbed his hands together. “Serious question: On a scale from one to ten, how upset are you? Is it about a seven or eight?”
“Eleven,” I told him.
“Fantastic.”
Konstantin looked at him. “Why does it matter how upset she is?”
“She cooks to relieve stress,” Leon told him. “Eleven means we’re going to get all the food.”
I handed him the steak container. “Go make yourself useful.”
Leon saluted, did an about-face, and headed outside to the charcoal grills.
A sharp wail of outrage tore through the house.
Arabella rose. “That’s my cue.”
Konstantin glanced at me, a question in his eyes.
“Our evil grandmother is awake,” I told him.
“I’m going to talk to her,” Arabella said. “She likes me. All grandparents like me.”
“Don’t let her out of the circle,” I called after her.
“Catalina, I wasn’t born yesterday.” She walked off, humming to herself.
“You put your grandmother into an arcane circle?” the prince asked.
“Yes.”
The kitchen was quiet again. Just me and Konstantin. I finished the pico and put it in the fridge. I would need a dessert of some sort. Something easy. A pie. An apple and maybe a chocolate. Alessandro loved chocolate . . .
“One thing puzzles me,” Konstantin said.
“Mmmhmm.” Did I have any heavy cream in this fridge? And if I did, how old was it?
“You can have your pick of men. Any House, any country. Why Alessandro? What’s the attraction?”
I took the container of heavy cream out, set it on the island, and retrieved Granny Smith apples from the fruit drawer. This was a dangerous question.
“Why do you ask?”
“I find it puzzling.”
In my mind, Konstantin and I crossed our verbal rapiers.
“A few years ago, Alessandro was the god of Instagram. He is incredibly handsome.”
“He is,” Konstantin agreed. “And charming.”
“That too. Maybe I’m just smitten.”
“I don’t think so.”
Konstantin had rearranged himself in the chair. His pose was languid, yet elegant, and at the same time alluring. There was nothing specific in the way he sat that communicated seduction. It was the air around him. If Gustave Courbet was resurrected in this kitchen, he would’ve demanded canvas, paint, and brushes and refused to leave until the painting was complete.