Why do his final words keep replaying in my head? And that look in his eyes …
Eventually, sleep impossible, I got up and pulled back the drop-sheet on the wall that Lincoln had set aside for me to paint.
Somehow I knew I was standing on a precipice, that this was a now-or-never moment. The blank space that I’d bugged him to let me paint for so long and that sported nothing other than a solitary white lily stood before me. For the first time, I knew what I wanted the wall to represent.
By the time I’d finished painting it was 9 am. Today we would leave for New York and who knew what would follow. I repositioned the drop-sheet and cleaned up.
Lincoln woke shortly after. ‘I can smell paint,’ he said as he stretched. I tried to look away from the exposed band of skin between his T-shirt and sweat pants and felt the blush when he caught me peeking.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked cautiously.
‘Coffee,’ I said, passing him a cup. ‘Griffin wants us to meet him at Hades in half an hour.’
He groaned, taking a grateful sip, then glanced at the now-covered wall. ‘Do I get to see?’
‘Once all this is over, okay?’
He opened his mouth to argue, but must have seen the plea in my eyes, and simply nodded.
Have I mentioned, I love you?
I put my empty mug down and sat beside him casually. ‘So, Phoenix visited me during the night.’
CHAPTER NINE
‘Absence from those we love is self from self – a deadly banishment.’
William Shakespeare
Griffin hadn’t changed from the night before. He was already sitting at what had become our usual table in Hades, Dapper beside him, a book between them as they spoke in hushed tones.
Onyx was behind the bar. Shock of all shocks; he was making coffees. When he saw Lincoln and me walk in, he didn’t say anything, just passed me a cup over the bar-top. It was way too passive a gesture for Onyx.
‘Griffin told you,’ I said, taking the drink, embarrassed that everyone knew what Dad had done.
Onyx shrugged, flicking his dark hair back from his eyes.
My, my – he’s speechless.
I gave him a deadpan look. ‘You feeling sorry for me doesn’t work for me.’
‘Oh, thank Christ,’ he exclaimed with relief. ‘I thought I was going to have to pretend all day.’
‘You’re an ass, you know that, right?’
He bowed. ‘I do, thank you.’ He eyed my drink. ‘Enjoy that, there’s more rum in it than coffee,’ he said with a wink before sauntering off to sit beside Dapper.
I turned to Lincoln, a look of puzzlement on his face as he watched Onyx. ‘Do you think there’s something going on between Dapper and Onyx?’ he asked me.
I looked at them again. They did seem very comfortable around each other. Dapper had never said out loud that he was gay and to look at him he didn’t fit any stereotype – well, apart from his eye for interior design and diamanté-studded accessories. And, now that I thought about it, I’d never seen Onyx take up any of the offers made to him by the girls who hung around Hades.
‘Definitely,’ I said, realising I was happy for them.
Lincoln looked at them again and nodded. Enough said.
Griffin waved us over.
‘Time to save the world,’ I said to Lincoln, putting my ‘rum’ coffee back on the bar.
Lincoln made a show of looking at his watch. ‘Already?’
‘Ha, ha,’ I said, as we walked over to join them. But I noticed his smile faded quickly. He was putting on a good show, but Lincoln had not been happy since hearing that Phoenix had found a way into my dream. The only reason he wasn’t completely freaking out was because I’d managed to pull myself out of it.
‘Anyone else coming?’ I asked when we reached the table.
‘Just us this morning,’ Griffin said. ‘I thought we could do with a little privacy. Once we enter the Academy we may not get another chance to talk privately.’
This was Griffin’s way of saying we’d be watched like hawks once we arrived in New York.
Lincoln studied the book Dapper and Griffin had been looking at. It was old – the paper thick and worn at the edges, the spine peeling away.
‘This is it?’ he asked.
Dapper nodded. ‘It took most of the night to translate.’ Unlike many of the books, this one had not been translated into English. It had only made it to old Aramaic. ‘Could’ve used that girl’s help,’ he added, meaning Steph. But ‘that girl’ had had other plans last night and not even her utter joy at discovering Dapper’s treasure trove of knowledge would have persuaded her to postpone her time with Salvatore.
‘Anyway, the book does reference a potion named Qeres. It’s not easy to decipher but there is a list of twelve ingredients,’ Griffin said.
‘What are they?’ Lincoln asked.
‘Some we still need to get translations for, but nothing too drastic. Frankincense, myrrh, cedar oil, the blue lotus, mostly flowers and herbs native to Egypt, which would make sense, given the time this was documented.’