Chapter 51

When I emerge from the bathroom a little later, freshly showered and changed, I’m unsurprised to find that Anton has sufficiently quelled Laila’s rage. He’s quite good at that, after all – managing people. I smirk as I cross to them on the couch, taking in the breakfast spread that Laila has conjured and the little book of Earth animals in her lap.

“I’m going to kill you,” Anton murmurs to me as I sit next to him, facing Laila, who sits against the far arm of the L-shaped couch.

I just pat Anton on the head before conjuring up a cup of coffee and reaching for a donut from the table. “What are you reading, Laila?”

“A book on earth’s oceans,” she murmurs, flipping through the pages with wide eyes. “You have fascinating marine life.”

“Good choice of distraction,” I say, grinning at Anton and taking a bite of my donut, enjoying myself even despite the rather harrowing start to the morning.

“It was either that or listen to an extended lecture,” he says, glaring at me, speaking between his teeth, “on how no one will ever marry you if I continue to ‘attend to your bed,’ and how I can’t offer you my hand because I’m dead, so I risk sullying you forever. So, yeah,” he jerks a thumb towards the book. “I picked the encyclopedia of seahorses.”

“What’s a horse?” Laila asks, lifting her head up and frowning at us. “Does it live in the sea?”

I grin at her. “Laila, do you seriously think that? That Anton is ruining my reputation?”

Her curiosity turns into a glower. “You should not have other men in your bed, Juniper, even if you do not see it as a sin Orion surely will.”

“He will?” I ask, straightening my shoulders in surprise. “Even if nothing romantic is happening?”

Laila continues to frown at me. “Orion will not be interested in you as a bride, Juniper, if he believes your interests and your virtue are elsewhere – if he even gets a hint of it. And while that would not perhaps be as much of a problem if you were in your world, your life is at stake here.”

Anton laughs a little, lounging back on the couch, stretching his long arms out over the back. “Well, that doesn’t seem like a problem. He already knows that Junie here is engaged to someone else.” He turns a wicked grin on me, delighting in his revenge.

I scowl at him, knowing that he dropped that fact into the conversation as casually as he could, like a grenade he can’t wait to see explode.

And explode it does. Immediately.

“What!?” Laila shrieks, jumping so violently to her feet that her book goes clattering to the floor. “Wh-what!? Juniper!”

“Laila,” I sigh, my shoulders slumping as I hold out a hand towards her. “Please –“

“Don’t you please me, Juniper Sinclair!” she snaps, pointing an angry finger in my face. “You – you are my friend! I love you very dearly – like you’re my own sister! And you’re – you’re doing things that are going to get you killed!”

“Hey!” I say, my voice concerned as my eyes go wide. I quickly put my breakfast on the table and stand, reaching for her. “Laila, I’m sorry, I –“

“Why are you being so stupid June!” she gasps, grabbing me and pulling me into a hug like she’s desperate to lose me.

“I’m sorry!” I murmur, tucking my head down against her shoulder and holding her tight in turn. “I was just…born this way.”

Laila groans and takes me by the shoulders, pulling back a little, giving me a small shake. “Okay, well you have to stop.”

“Well, he makes me do half of it!” I say, pointing to Anton.

“Don’t wrap me up in this!”

“Oh, you brat,” I say, turning and glaring at him. “You could have found a much nicer way to break that news to her.”

“She’s right,” Laila says, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him. “That was not nice, Anton.”

“All right, all right,” he says, putting his hands up in front of him, giving in. “You’re both right – I am very bad and horrible at all times, but extra-so today. I apologize, I was not kind.”

Laila sighs, sitting down, her acceptance of his apology tacit as she reaches for a glass of her fizzy kelp water and takes a long sip.

I glare a little at Anton, a bit smug about how easily I turned the blame on him, and he glares right back. Even if he can’t help but smile a bit too, I think enjoying the drama a little bit. Anton watches me as I sit down, taking my place next to him.

“Okay,” Laila says, placing her glass firmly back on the table as I take up my coffee again. “Spill, Juniper. I need to know the details of this engagement that’s going to get you killed. And really? Orion knows?”

So I sigh, and tell her everything – all about meeting Blythe, and falling for him, and his death, and being tricked into the Game by believing I was coming here to marry him, not Orion. About spilling this all to Orion that first night in the Underworld when Orion got me drunk on shadowroot liquor.

By the end, she’s gaping. “Oh, June,” she says, shaking her head. “That’s horrible.”

I sigh, looking off towards the terrace. “What’s worse is that I’m not sure now it wasn’t all a mistake.”

“What do you mean?” Laila’s voice is very concerned.

“I mean…” I shrug. “Things with Blythe were…a whirlwind. And Anton hates him,” I say, spinning to give him a little glare.

“Yes, I hate him,” Anton says, nodding to me and then meeting Laila’s eyes quite evenly.

“What!?” Laila gapes at Anton.

“Okay, hate is too strong,” Anton says, leaning forward towards our friend as I take a long sip of my coffee. “I just think he’s…a loser. And certainly not good enough for June.”

Laila narrows her eyes at him. “How surprising,” she says, her voice thick with sarcasm, “that the man sleeping in Juniper’s bed doesn’t like her betrothed.”

I snort coffee directly through my nose at that, and then gasp, lifting a hand to my face, pain rushing through my sinuses.

“You deserved that,” Anton murmurs, completely cool.

“All right, all right,” I say, glaring at him and grabbing a napkin, wiping my face and taking a moment to regain my composure. “What I mean, Laila, is that just…being away from Blythe, and the elopement plan, makes me wonder if I was being impetuous. I just…don’t know how I feel anymore.”

“So, what are you going to do?”

I shrug, glancing at Anton again. “Well, we’re going to try to…look for him. In the Deadlands.”

“Ohhh,” Laila whispers, nodding eagerly now that she understands why I went there, which I guess was always a mystery to her. I sigh, glad that she knows everything now. It really does feel better to just be open. “Um, how are you going to do that?”

“Well, we were given some divination tools,” I murmur, looking around for them. “Anton, where did we put them?”

“Up there,” he says, gesturing quite lazily towards the bookshelf with a sparkly blue hand.

I nod, getting up and reaching for the little sack. We sorted through it on the day Faiza brought them but couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

“Well, where did you get that?” Laila asks, frowning as I pull the bag down and toss it in my hands a few times, feeling the shifting sticks and stones inside.

I smirk and turn my head towards Anton. “Oh, Anton’s priestess girlfriend came and told us.”

“What!?”

“Who’s being mean now?” Anton asks, shaking his head at me. And then he sighs and turns back to Laila, explaining about Faiza – emphasizing that she is not his girlfriend – and how she came, forbidding us to go to the Temple of Life.

“You guys have been so…busy,” Laila murmurs as I sit on the ground next to her, clearing off part of the coffee table and spilling the divination tools out onto the wooden surface. She sighs. “I mostly just…sit around and make changes to the room and worry about whether my outfits are pretty enough to make Orion fall in love with me.”

“Well, you’ve certainly succeeded there,” I murmur, glancing over at my friend and the fantastic floor-length dress she’s wearing today. It floats all around her in what looks like every shade of blue one could imagine. “You always look fantastic, Laila.”

“Well, thank you,” she says, quite perky. And then she gives a little excited squeak, slipping to the ground next to me and peering at the supplies. “Oh, I know these! We use these at home!”

“Really?” I ask, eyes wide. “Are you like…a witch, or a druid, as well as a selkie?”

Laila just laughs, looking at me like I’m a delight. “No, silly, they’re very common. Every household has them – women do it mostly, consulting on minor things to figure out the near future, help make small decisions, find lost things.”

“Lost things,” Anton murmurs, coming to the floor too and peering at the supplies – a bit of twine, several differently colored rocks, a few very small white sticks that I suspect are animal bones, and then three tiny metal loops – gold, silver, and pewter. “Like…souls, lost in the Deadlands?”

“Oh, I mean, I’ve never tried that,” Laila says, her voice a little breathless and reverent. “But…we could try? I mean, the casting can’t be very different, can it?”

“Well let’s do it!” I say, my spine straightening in my eagerness. “What do we do?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Juniper,” Laila replies, her voice soft and wary.

“Why not?” Anton asks, leaning towards her.

“Because we need…we need a map.”

“Well, we can get a map,” I say, conjuring one up immediately. I glance down at it, grimacing when I realize that it’s a map of Moon Valley, not the Deadlands, but – well, my point stands. A map we can conjure.

But Laila just slowly shakes her head. “And…we’re going to need Orion.”

I grimace, my shoulders slumping.

Because that is…indeed a stumbling point that I was not expecting.