Page 44

“No. You didn’t. Fire doesn’t turn green because it likes a girl. It doesn’t double and calm at the same time. It doesn’t run both ways.”

“Then what did it do?”

“You tell me.”

“I don’t know.”

He laughed once, without humor. “Right. Of course. Why would the impossible girl know the impossible thing.”

The words should have annoyed me. Impossible girl. But they didn’t, and that was inconvenient.

He paced the length of the little yard, then turned back. “We tell no one.”

“Obviously.”

“I mean no one. Not Pippa. Not an instructor. Not your ice prince with the gloves.”

“He is not my anything.”

Kit’s smile flashed, too quick and too sharp. “Good.”

That landed and we both heard it. Kit looked away again. Interesting. Dangerous. I put it in a mental drawer and slammed the drawer shut and stood on it for good measure.

“We need to know what just happened,” I said.

“Knowing is exactly how people get caught.”

“Not knowing is how things get named and claimed by someone else.”

Kit stopped. He understood that better than I expected him to, and his face shifted, the charming surface giving way to something older and more pained.

“Fine,” he said. “We find out quietly. But until we know what the green means, it stays between us.”

Between us. The phrase warmed me more than the fire had.

“Fine,” I said.

“See how useful it can be to stop thinking?” Kit teased.

A voice came from the wall. “Bad idea.”

I spun. Linden Fenwick leaned against the yard’s open side as if he had been grown there by the damp, book under one arm and blond hair falling into his eyes, expression unreadable.

Kit didn’t startle at Linden appearing out of nowhere. I made a mental note of that.

“Fenwick,” Kit said. “Lurking again. Good. We were short one haunted corner.”

“You’re usually short several things.”

“Was that a joke? Billie, mark the date.”

“How long were you standing there?” I demanded.

Linden’s eyes moved to my hands, still tingling and still slightly curled around the memory of flame. “Not long enough.”

“That’s not an answer,” I bit out.

Kit grinned. “He’s like this. You’ll grow fond of it against your will.”