“He’s not my friend,” Luke’s voice answered. “But my friend would want me to watch out for him.”
“Hey, loser,” said Elliot, coming up to him with his pile of books and a blithe air. “Sorry for keeping you waiting.”
“That’s all right,” said Luke indulgently. “Do you want to go to the last bookstall?”
Don’t be mean, Elliot told himself.
“No,” Elliot said. “I’m all done.”
The kissing matter was not the only complication offered by the play. Nobody liked their costumes.
“No,” Luke said, waving the flouncy white shirt as if it were the head of his enemy. “No way. Add buttons.”
“How many buttons?” asked Myra.
“How many have you got?”
Luke sat down disconsolately on the edge of the stage, to stare into the distance and dream of buttons. Adara sat down beside him and began to speak of her vision for their love scene. She put a hand on his knee.
Elliot looked at them from behind his curtain. “Would either of you help me with my trousers?”
“No!” snapped Luke, going pink around the ears.
“In your dreams,” said Adara, tossing a scornful look over her shoulder. He leaned out from behind the curtain slightly in order to wink at her.
“Maybe. You can never tell what weird things will happen in dreams.” He raised his voice. Everything was playing into his hands. He was a genius. “Myra! I need help with my costume, and the mean blonds are bullying me!”
Myra came bustling over, her mouth full of pins, and slid into the changing space behind the curtain with him.
“Luke’s not mean.”
Elliot smiled down at her adorable naiveté even while she helped him do up his trousers. “Luke’s got everyone fooled.”
“He’s not the only one,” said Myra, and gestured at Elliot, who thought this appreciation for his manly charms was a very good sign. “Do you want me to get the paints?”
“Wait, are we actually painting my chest?” Elliot squawked.
He squawked incautiously loud, and Adara and Luke, united for once, burst out laughing. Elliot put his hand outside the curtain to make an obscene gesture.
He studied Myra, whose face was crestfallen. “As long as you’re the one doing the painting,” he said to her in a low voice, and he thought for a thrilled moment that she blushed.
Later Elliot went out to inspect her handiwork in a mirror and found Adara, whose costume was a more practical version of Luke’s, tying up her flouncy shirt to bare her midriff. Elliot glanced at her, appreciative, and Adara was in a good enough mood to catch his eye and wink.
“I’m sure Adara is a very nice person underneath it all and she means well and everything, but I have a few problems with her,” said Luke later, when everyone was back in their normal clothes and looking thankful about it. “The first problem is that I don’t like her.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Historically, I have not been opposed to mean blonds,” said Elliot.
“Um, mean people are awful?” Luke pointed out.
Elliot rolled his eyes: if Luke was going to be ungrateful whenever Elliot expressed affection, he wasn’t going to bother.
The camp was alive with rumors of the Border guard mobilizing to enter elven territory without permission. Elliot knew Luke wanted to go: knew that nobody would listen to Elliot’s objections, that they might even think he did not care about Serene. Nothing was decided yet. Elliot was throwing himself into the play and trying not to think about it until the night of the play had passed.
But then the night of the play came, and Elliot saw Luke’s parents and Louise in the audience. He was certain that they could not all have come for their posts to watch Luke: he was sure the Sunborns had been summoned.
Elliot did not allow Red Rose to falter. He continued plotting with Radiant’s evil stepsister.
The play was received very well. Adara was absolutely magnificent. Luke had hostage eyes throughout and might as well have been carrying a sign that said THIS IS ALL STUPID PRETEND! HELP ME! but he looked the part. Each new scene backdrop got applause, with Myra glowing in the wings. Elliot even thought people liked him.
It was going wonderfully, until the penultimate scene where Red Rose’s treachery was exposed and Jewel and Radiant shared their first kiss. When Luke muttered “Radiant, Radiant, wherefore art thou Radiant?” Adara actually kissed Luke on his startled mouth.
Red Rose was meant to turn bitterly on Jewel: Elliot yanked Luke away.
“Lovely child, you think the world is so bright,” said Red Rose: they were the only words he ever spoke to Jewel in the play, as if men didn’t talk to each other. “You have not learned yet that the light of the world is men burning. The years will pass and you will know what it is to be consumed.”
Jewel was meant to look annoyed by Red Rose’s spite, and it was the one thing that Luke had ever managed to do believably. Now he couldn’t even do that. He looked upset.
Elliot turned, and Red Rose gave Radiant a parting kiss: Elliot made viciously certain that it was a real kiss too.
Red Rose was never seen again in the play, fading out as if his character arc was not as important as any other character’s, as if his purpose was more about being alluring than anything else. Elliot had decided to at least make his exit meaningful, so as soon as he had kissed Adara he leaped from the stage and into the audience.
The audience started applauding. Elliot made his way over to the Sunborns, where Rachel was patting the seat behind her and Luke’s father was shaking his head slowly and sadly over the whole business.
“Move up one, rearrange yourselves, I want to sit next to Little Red,” said Louise, and Rachel and Michael shifted with good-natured grumbles.
Louise sat next to him and kissed him smackingly on the cheek. “You were very sexy,” she told him. “Well done. Luke looks like he wants to die, and it is hilarious!”
Elliot cackled with her. After the play was done, a surprising amount of people came over to Elliot and told him he’d been good, though none as memorably as Louise.
Best of all, Elliot seized a moment to ask Myra to meet him on the balcony outside Mr Fleetwood’s office. Tonight was the perfect time to ask her to be his girlfriend.
Tonight was the night Elliot would die. It was absolutely freezing on the balcony. He should have stopped to find a shirt, but it had seemed such a good idea to woo Myra with his chest painted in the green and red and blue and gold patterns she had inscribed on them, glancing up at him through her eyelashes as she painted, checking that he was okay.
“Elliot, you are shaking so much it looks like you’re about to have a fit,” said Myra.
“I am great, never better,” said Elliot, when Luke’s jacket landed around his shoulders. Elliot clutched it. “Thank you so much,” Elliot said, heartfelt. “Now please leave.”