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“What’s going on?” he asked, sitting down.
“You’ve worked for Chronos for five minutes, and you figure out how to do a job on the fly. I was going to cop out because of a sing-along.”
Dune’s emotions were controlled, while mine were bouncing off the inside of my chest like a rubber ball.
“Did I make you angry by going off plan?”
“No.”
“You have the crystal ball, isn’t that all that matters?”
“No, I’m just … I don’t … this is my thing, not your thing. The Hourglass doesn’t steal.”
“Retrieve.” He grinned and pulled me down beside him. Close beside him. “You’re acting like doing jobs for Chronos is the only thing that defines you.”
I rubbed the skin above my sternum and wondered if I was too young for a heart attack. “It feels like it is. Like it always will. I’ll have to be the one to take it over, the one to carry it into the next generation, whether I want to or not. I’ll inherit all my parents’ choices, and more seclusion, more bodyguards, more attempts on my life. All that good stuff. I look at my life and the only thing I see in front of me is Chronos.”
“I don’t think that’s true, Hallie. It doesn’t have to be that way.”
“You want to know why I think my mom is such an unfortunate human? She has the lamest ability ever.”
He took my hand away from my heart, held it.
“She’s a human clock. Ask her what time it is. She knows it to the second. It was fun when I was little, but the novelty wore off. I think she resents what I can do. The point is, she made up for her lack of ability by taking over. Having the most power. Wielding it over me. I don’t want to be her. I don’t want Chronos to define me. Ever.”
“Tell me what you want.”
“To go to Newcomb. They have an amazing dance program. And then I’d dance professionally, anywhere—it doesn’t need to be prestigious—and truthfully, I want to stay in New Orleans. There’s so much art here, and so much room to create all kinds of things. Not that I’ve seen much of it in person lately. But I know what the nightlife is like in the Quarter, and I remember all the performance art in the square.” I hadn’t set foot in it since Benny died. I could barely manage seeing the statue of Andrew Jackson along the skyline if I glimpsed it from a side street. “This city breathes, and I’m oxygen starved.”
“Then do it.”
“That’s the problem,” I said. “I can’t.”
hat I knew the question.
“Ready?” Dune asked.
“Unless you’ve changed your mind about the kissing.”
He put his hand on the doorknob.
“Fine. Now is the perfect time to go down, anyway. People will be leaving for dinner, checking in, and there’s some sort of reception in the lobby.”
“Why do you want more people instead of less people?
Shouldn’t you wait until the dead of night?”
“No.” I checked my lipstick one more time in the mirror, and caught Dune checking out my bare back. “Too much security camera action if we do it that way.”
“Why does that matter? You can change your appearance.” He picked up the key card and dropped it into his pocket.
“Right. But you can’t. If you were Poe, this would’ve been simpler.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint.” He sounded so touchy I had to grin.
“I didn’t mean it that way, and you know it.”
We took the guest elevator to the second floor and wandered down the hall until we found the staff elevator. We needed to take it to the lobby so we could enter from the back.
