Page 37

Luke leaned against the open front door, waiting patiently, hands in his pockets, and as she looked at him properly for the first time, it occurred to her that if Luke in jeans was obnoxiously attractive, Luke in a black jacket and tie ought to be illegal.

For one thing, the black made his eyes even bluer, the mere existence of the tie immediately conjured images of her fingers undoing it, and she really ought not to get started on the way the jacket fit over his shoulders and how the stark white shirt underneath did nothing to hide the planes of his torso—

He looked at her in confusion. “What?”

She refused to blush. “You, er, you look nice. No, that’s a lie. You look a lot better than nice.”

“So do you.” His voice was rougher than usual.

And he hadn’t even seen the dress yet.

Right. It was definitely time to go.

Unlike the clunky metal bucket Sera drove around in, Luke’s car actually did the things cars were supposed to, so they’d barely pulled out of the driveway before the heating was on, the seats were toasty, and Sera’s breath no longer fogged white in front of her.

She was beginning to really feel the enormity of what she was about to do.

She’d let herself get swept up in excitement and hope, in ideas and planning and making sure Clemmie knew what she needed to do, and it had all happened so fast that she’d been able to avoid thinking about how it would feel to go back, however briefly, to the world that had expelled her.

She bit the end of her thumbnail and looked out of the window, counting the minutes.

“Sera.” Luke reached for her hand, tugging it away from her mouth before she completely massacred her fingers. “It’s going to be okay.”

She looked at him, her eyes tracing the lines of his profile, the angle of his jaw, the sharp, icy blue of his eyes, and she felt such a fierce, painful yearning that it took her breath away.

He met her gaze for a quick moment, and she had to look away.

And counted the minutes some more.

“There’s chocolate in the back,” Luke said.

She smiled then. “You know me well.”

She reached behind her, feeling for the pocket on the back of her seat where Luke usually stashed Posy’s tablet on longer drives so she could reach it, but her hand hit something in the dark footwell instead.

There was a yelp. “Ow!”

Sera shrieked. Luke yanked the car onto the verge and slammed on the brakes. “What the fuck .”

A head of grey corkscrew curls popped up between their seats.

“Now before you get too cross with me,” Matilda said, uncurling from the footwell like a demon summoned from the lowest depths of Tartarus, “I didn’t plan to send us right off the road.

You weren’t supposed to find me until we got there. ”

Sera, trying and failing to calm her thundering heart, was outraged. “You could have been an axe murderer!”

“I’m not an axe murderer,” Matilda said soothingly. “For one thing, I don’t have an axe.”

“The fact that you addressed the axe part and not the murderer part is really not very comforting.”

Luke twisted around in his seat and levelled an arctic stare at Matilda, who, Sera noticed with increasing dread, appeared to be wearing a very nice frock. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Luke, she’s not wearing dungarees,” Sera whispered.

Luke sighed. “Christ on a wee bicycle, she thinks she’s coming with us.”

“Exactly!” Matilda said happily, settling herself comfortably in the back seat.

“I was lying in bed last night, you know, tossing and turning and thinking about it, and every bone in my body revolted at the thought of squandering the only opportunity I might ever have to attend an actual magical ball. An. Actual. Magical. Ball. Where did you say that chocolate was, by the way? Are there any other snacks? I simply can’t miss supper at my age. ”

“Then you should really have gone to Malik and Elliot’s for dinner, shouldn’t you?” Sera retorted.

“I’m taking you home,” Luke said sternly.

Matilda objected at once. “You can’t do that!

We’re over an hour away from the inn! Isn’t Clemmie supposed to kick up a ruckus at Albert Whatshisname’s house at ten o’clock on the dot?

Doesn’t that mean the two of you have to be at the Bibbly-Bogg house when that happens?

You won’t have time if you take me home first! ”

“Bertram-Mogg,” said Sera.

“That’s what I said. Bibbly-Bogg.”

“It’s gone eight already,” Luke said quietly to Sera, glancing at the clock on the dash.

They shared a long, exasperated, and increasingly resigned look. Sera nodded. Sighing again, Luke looked over his shoulder and said, even more sternly, “You do what we tell you. You don’t tell anybody your real name. And don’t drink anything gold, purple, or blue.”

Matilda practically did a jig of glee. “Why not? Will it trap me in Hades forever?”

“We should be so lucky,” said Sera, and Matilda flicked her lovingly on the ear.

Luke started the car and pulled back into the road.

There were a few minutes of silence and then, unexpectedly, Luke started laughing.

Sera and Matilda stared at him.

Practically wheezing, Luke said, “Bibbly-Bogg,” and then Sera, too, was laughing until she could hardly breathe.