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“How can you possibly know that?”
“Because from now on, I am to live from here.” He stood beside me and placed my palms on his chest. “No secrets, not from you, not from anyone. There is only one question. What do you want?”
Chapter 34
BythetimeJustinarrived in the morning, Will, having turned up minutes earlier, was sitting on my bed eating some leftover pasta that had been cooked by Aleks in the night.
Justin examined the two of us and pointed an accusing finger. “How long have you been here?” he asked Will. “And do you both have something very exciting to tell me?”
“It wasn’t me,” said Will, about what, I wasn’t sure.
“So.” Justin’s voice was dark. “Betrayal. And by our leader, no less. Oh, she’s trying to look innocent.”
For the second time in twenty-four hours, a man turned me to face the mirror. I laughed in surprise at the purple love bite on my neck. Aleks’s parting words of “Don’t hide it,” made sense now.
Justin’s eyes met mine in the mirror. “He came up here and fucked you into submission.”
“No, he didn’t. I went down to see him, and then we came up here.”
“What?” said Justin. “There’s a reason bints get walled up in the top of towers, you know. You clearly can’t be trusted for a minute. Even then, you go tossing your hair out the window for any passing Tom, Dick or Aleks. And now it’ll be left up to me, your magical Fairy Godfriend, to sort it all out.”
“Aleks is on our side, Justin,” I told him.
“Oh, pray tell, what did King Aleks have to say?”
I outlined his comments on the situation.
“Leave?” Justin asked sharply.
“S’right enough,” said Will. “If it stays shit like this, there’s no point in staying.”
I nodded in agreement.
“But where is the Treadwell’s broken heart?” mused Justin. “The whirlpool of despair that, only yesterday, threatened to pull us all under? What has gone on this night?” He paced over to the bed. “Hearst, you’re sitting right in the middle of the crime scene. Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Nope,” said Will, using his fingers to get the last of the pasta sauce out of the bowl.
Justin spun round to face me. “He asked you to marry him!”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Something, though,” he said, circling me beadily.
“We should be focusing on this morning’s meeting,” I said, to no avail.
“You’re moving in with him. Into the fucking palace. That’s it, isn’t it?”
I shrugged.
“See, I knew that wasn’t them split up,” Justin told an open-mouthed Will. “You’ll need to wear something with a neck, Phi.”
“I’m fine like this,” I said, pocketing my pink stone for good luck.
Justin sighed. “The last vestiges of propriety have disappeared overnight, rebellion having paved the way for total anarchy. Well, who am I to fight the turning tide? Let’s do this thing, comrades.”
“All set for the firing squad,” commented Justin on seeing the one chair placed in front of the long table where three people – Colin, Michelle and Paul – already sat. Aleks stood with his back against the barre, but he joined the others at the table as Will dragged two metal-legged seats across the floor for himself and Justin. Michelle shuddered at the scraping sound.
“Firstly,” said Paul, straightening his pages of notes as we all sat down. “We want to clear up a little misunderstanding. Colin? I think you were going to say something?”
