It annoyed me more and not less because I didn’t have a good reason for being annoyed. I couldn’t even come up with anything to say about it. If I’d tried to put into words what I was feeling, it would have been something unpleasant and envious and whinging like Why should you get to make easy deals that suit you perfectly to get out of the things you don’t like with the strong implication of when I never do, which wasn’t even true anymore since I had a New York power-sharer on my wrist.
So I didn’t put it into words; I just lay curled on his bed in an unpleasant stew of cooled sweat and resentment while they discussed their happy arrangement. Orion even stopped being so distracted: even if the mals did get purged back, Liesel had just cleared his slate completely of anything but hunting and eating and sleep, with the last two as optional as he wanted them to be. She even offered to help him brew up some amphisbaena bait.
The one thing I wasn’t, at all, was jealous. I was so far from it actually that I didn’t even think about being jealous until Liesel shot me an exasperated look and I realized that she’d very much have liked to make me jealous, and would have had a strong go at it if the field had been the least bit open. I couldn’t blame her. She wanted that guaranteed spot in New York enough to have seriously contemplated both Magnus Tebow and murder for it; I certainly ranked Orion higher than those alternatives. If he had so much as taken a first glance at her cleavage, she’d have been a plonker not to make sure he got a second.
But he hadn’t, and when I realized he hadn’t, I started to feel more than a bit panicky, because he hadn’t any excuse not to be taking a first glance. I’m only mildly motivated in that direction myself and I absolutely had taken both a first and a second glance at the cleavage and the bouncy golden curls and shiny pink lips. I think anyone who wasn’t really impervious would have. If you haven’t eaten anything but tasteless slop in years and suddenly someone offers you a slice of chocolate cake, so what if you don’t especially like chocolate cake; if you were interested in food at all, you’d at least think it over before you said no thanks.
Orion had no business saying no thanks. I was fairly confident he did like cake, or at least was quite ready to give it a try, and he wasn’t getting a bite off my plate if I had anything to say about it, which I did. He ought to have at least licked his chops, even if he didn’t want to dive in, and instead he didn’t so much as drop his eyes for a peek. He wasn’t a good enough actor to have been faking it, either.
Which irritated Liesel, understandably. It was like the homework; that much bloody effort deserved a smidge of appreciation. So when the all-clear bell rang, she said stiffly, “I will be going to my room now,” and cleared out before I had a chance to jump on the bandwagon and leave with her.
“I’ll be going too,” I said in a hurry, swinging my legs over the side of the bed, and Orion came over and said, “Are you sure you’re okay?” a little wistfully and then had the unmitigated nerve to have a quick peek at my breasts, which were currently under a second-day top marred with alchemy stains and soot, with the sawn-off ends of my hair obscuring the view.
“I’m fine,” I said sharply.
“I’ll walk you back to your room,” he said.
I should just have let him; Precious was in my room. Instead I said, “I don’t need help going nine doors down, Lake,” and then my stomach growled and he said, “And you threw up your whole breakfast, you need to eat something,” and jumped to grab me a sealed muesli bar only eight years past its best that he must have been gifted by some adoring fan. It wasn’t cake maybe, but by Scholomance standards it still qualified as haute cuisine. I stupidly took it and stupidly sat there on the bed eating it—so stupidly that I have the bad feeling I did it on purpose—and obviously he sat down on the bed next to me. He tentatively crept his arm round my shoulders when he thought I wasn’t paying attention, and I pretended I wasn’t paying attention, and then he said in a faintly hopeful voice, “El,” and I told myself to shove him off the bed.
I didn’t. In fact, mortifyingly I kissed him first, and then it was all up, because I’m starving, and I do like cake, and after I’d taken the first bite I wanted another, and another after that, and I put my hands under his shirt to press them flat against his warm bare back, and it was so good to be this close to someone, only it wasn’t just someone, it was Orion, and he shivered all over and put his arms around me and I could feel how strong he was, the muscles moving under his skin that he’d built over years of fighting all the very worst things that come out of the dark. His mouth was all warm and wonderful and I can’t even describe how good it felt and how much better it made everything. I was one of those poor stupid freshmen longing inside the gymnasium fantasia I’d made, only this was real and I could really have it, inside and after we graduated and forever, and the rest of my dream along with it—a life of building and creation and good work, and every prophecy of evil and destruction could go fuck right off and I could start the rest of my life right now, and I wanted to, so much I couldn’t stop, couldn’t want to stop.