We made our way past the maintenance hold and my workshop to the living quarters. I called out, announcing our arrival, and Evgenia popped out of her bedroom, blinking red-rimmed eyes at us.
“You’re early!” she chirped, sweeping each of us into a warm hug. “Forgive my face. This place gives me the most terrible allergies.”
“I truly do wish you’d come stay on the Scandinavian proper,” Klara said. “This place is dusty and awful. No offense, Leo.”
I smiled thinly as I always did.
“Elliot!” Evgenia shouted out. “Our guests have arrived.”
He popped out from the adjacent lounge, shrewd eyes sweeping over our party. With his mouth pressed into a firm disapproving line, he nodded politely at each of us. I could feel discomfort radiating from him. Elliot was clearly not happy that I was here, crashing his mini-break. Then his eyes fell on Nora, to whom he offered a flash of smile.
“We’ll be a full house, then,” he said. “Sleeping arrangements may be tough.”
I hadn’t thought about that.
“I’ll stay in the guest quarters, like usual,” Klara immediately sang out, claiming the last remaining available above-decks rooms. They were a small but standalone apartment, with a master bedroom, bathroom, small living room, and servant’s room, perfect for Nora. With Elliot in my room, Evgenia in Carina’s, and Max and Ewan—absent though they were—in my father’s apartment, that left the only option for Carina and me: the old below-deck servant’s quarters. Elliot’s old room. I swallowed hard.
Carina looked equally put out, having done the mental calculations herself and come to the same conclusion. But she bore it well. “Let’s go, Leo,” she said. “We should drop off our bags downstairs.” My heart swelled to see my baby sister slowly but surely growing up. Immediately Elliot put her to another test.
“Could you take your sister’s bag down too?” he asked. “I need to talk to her about something.”
I was sure the surprise on Carina’s face reflected my own. But my sister nodded, accepting my bag without protest, and headed in the direction of the kitchen and back staircase. I turned to find Klara and Nora already gone, having doubled back behind us to the guest apartment. Evgenia popped back into her room, too, leaving me and Elliot alone.
“What is it?” I asked as neutrally as possible. Inside, my body was thrumming with near panic. Was he going to ask me to leave? No, he couldn’t—Carina had just taken my things downstairs. Was he going to address why things had gotten awkward last night? Or, worst of all, could it be to confide in me his secret romance with Nora, to get my congratulations or endorsement?
“Follow me,” he said more than a little cryptically. But I did, too curious for my own good. He led me all the way forward and upstairs to the bridge. We emerged into the half-moon space, and I flinched to see the control panels and screens gray from dust. My poor disused ship.
“What is it, El?” I forced a nonchalance into my voice, leaning casually on the back of the captain’s chair.
“Do you still know how to fly this thing?” he asked.
“Of course. I haven’t in years, but I can. Why?”
“It turns out it’s actually a good thing you invited yourself along, because I think we need you to pilot.”
“So you are annoyed that we’re here!”
He bristled. “Evy and I had our own plans, so yes.”
“Listen, it got out of control, with Carina and Klara inviting themselves along and then Nora coming along too.” I paused, looking for a reaction out of Elliot at the mention of his maybe-girlfriend. Nothing. “I’m sorry to put you out, but I need this trip to the Lady Liberty. You have the money for docking fees, and I don’t. I need to see Miranda Fairfax, and her office is ignoring my messages.”
Elliot seemed to soften at that. “Is it about your water-filtration system?”
I nodded. “Did you see the latest news on the usefulness measure? It may impact the private ships as well.”
“I did see that. And the latest on visa regulations as well. We don’t have one for the Lady Liberty. Which is why we need you. People of a . . . certain class are exempted from preapproval to dock.”
“So I’m like your Trojan horse?”
“You get us to dock; I’ll pay the docking fees.” He extended a hand, as if to shake on it. Touching him was out of the question, even for something as casual as a handshake. Any contact, and he’d feel my thready pulse, catch on to how frazzled he made me.
“I’ll do it,” I said, playing it cool. “Obviously. But what was your plan before I showed up?”
“Honestly? I was going to pretend to be your dad.”
“Like he’d ever deign to pilot! Let alone beg customs to let us dock.” I laughed.
“Yep, I realized that too. So I probably would have invited you anyway.”
“Isn’t the point of this whole trip to get away from me? Escape me and the Valg for a few days to visit old friends?” I repeated Evgenia’s reasoning, tacking avoidance of myself on for good measure.
“I’m not trying to get away from you, Leo,” Elliot said quietly. Then he coughed, and ducked his head. “But I do wish you hadn’t brought Klara along.”
“Have you met Klara? She brought herself along.” I didn’t mean to be funny, but it made Elliot crack a smile.
“And, uh, you brought Carina, too. I can take a hint. I’ll talk to her tonight. Any luck trying to get her onto someone else?”
Oh, wow, this wasn’t awkward at all. I took a bracing deep breath. “I haven’t checked in with her, but I can tonight. She was supposed to reach out to a few guys she matched eighty percent or higher with.”
“Yeah, we were a sixty-four percent, which is a bit of a stretch.”
“She was very worried about Klara’s seventy-two.”
Elliot’s eyebrows quirked up. “You know, if someone had said yes to me at speed dating, we might know our percent match.”
“I said no to everyone,” I defended, feeling my cheeks heat. “And why would we want to match with each other? We’re just friends now.”
The statement hung between us. I watched Elliot, and he watched me, both of us carefully neutral. Yes, then, we were friends now.
“I checked; you said yes to a bunch of guys the other day,” he said. “One of them was a ninety-three percent.”
“Are you stalking me?” I was half joking, half willing my heart to return from my throat back to my rib cage.
“I was curious.”
I took a moment to make my way over to the main console, to wake Sofi up. I needed the space to breathe, figure out the next thing to say. We’d been docked with the Scandinavian for years at this point. I hoped she could still fly. She turned on, at least. With a slow, grinding whir, the black-under-gray console lit up dim blue, the screens flickering to life.
“Carina changed my answers in the app,” I said, searching for a scrap of something I could use to dust the console. “It was quid pro quo to get her to consider new guys. She picked a bunch of them at random.”
I settled on the edge of my skirt as a dustcloth, but just as I was about to swipe at the desk keyboard, a white square of fabric whipped in front of my face. A handkerchief. I swiveled, raising an eyebrow at Elliot.