Page 132 of Life and Death

Her expression tightened. “Don’t worry about Royal. He’s always the last to come around.”

“Eleanor?”

She laughed sharply. “El thinksI’ma lunatic, it’s true, but she doesn’t have a problem with you. She’s off trying to reason with Royal now.”

“What did I do?” I had to ask. “I mean, I’ve never even spoken to—”

“You didn’t do anything, Beau, honestly. Royal struggles the most with what we are. It’s hard for him to have someone on the outside know the truth. And he’s a little jealous.”

“Hah!”

She shrugged. “You’re human. He wishes he were, too.”

That brought me up short. “Oh.”

I listened to the music, my music. It kept changing and evolving, but the heart of it stayed the same. I wasn’t sure how she did it. She didn’t seem to be paying much attention to her hands.

“That thing Jessamine does feels really . . .notstrange, I guess. It was kind of incredible.”

She laughed. “Words don’t fully do it justice, do they?”

“Not really. But . . . does she like me? She seemed . . .”

“That was my fault. I told you she was the most recent to try our way of life. I warned her to keep her distance.”

“Oh.”

“Indeed.”

I worked hard not to shudder.

“Carine and Earnest think you’re wonderful,” she told me.

“Huh. I really didn’t do anything very exciting. Shook a few hands.”

“They’re happy to see me happy. Earnest probably wouldn’t care if you had a third eye and webbed feet. All this time he’s been worrying about me, afraid I was too young when Carine changed me, that there was something missing from my essential makeup. He’s so relieved. Every time I touch you, he practically bursts into applause.”

“Archie’s enthusiastic.”

She made a face. “Archie has his own special perspective on life.”

I looked at her for a moment, weighing her expression.

“What?” she asked.

“You’re not going to explain what you mean by that, are you?”

Her eyes narrowed as she stared back at me, and a moment of wordless communication passed between us—almost like what I’d seen between her and Carine before, except without the benefit of mind reading. I knew she wasn’t telling me something about Archie, something her attitude toward him had been hinting at for a long time. And she knew that I knew, but she wasn’t going to give anything away. Not now.

“Okay,” I said, like we’d spoken all that out loud.

“Hmm,” she said.

And because I’d just thought of it . . . “So what was Carine telling you before?”

She was looking at the keys now. “You noticed that, did you?”

I shrugged. “Of course.”