“Nice, Lily,” she says.

Then she moves on.

That’s it? No critique or comment or suggestion? Just…

nice?

For once I’m actual y not in hate with my project, and she can’t say anything more than “nice”? How disappointing.

I tug my paper back in front of me and hang down over my drawing, pencil clenched in my fist. Whenever we get scathing critiques, Mrs. Ferraro says she wouldn’t take the time to tear us apart if she didn’t think we had potential. I guess I am potential-less today.

I’m just about to scar my drawing with angry pencil jabs when Mrs. Ferraro, looking over Doe’s drawing, says,

“Spectacular, Dosinia.”

My ears perk up, and although I don’t lift my head because I don’t want them to know I’m listening, I am intently focused on every word.

“Your use of cross-hatching is extremely evocative for someone who has never taken art before.” Mrs. Ferraro holds up the sketch and cal s for everyone’s attention. “If anyone would like to see an excel ent example of impressionist sketching, please come see Dosinia’s work.” About half the class comes over and crowds around Doe to study her “excel ent example.” I try not to heave on my self-portrait.

“Why?” I mutter. “Why does this always happen to me?”

“What?” Shannen asks, drawing the col ar of her polo shirt with a—shocking—crisp line.

“Dosinia,” I whisper, as if I have to explain. “She always outshines me. Always steals everyone’s attention.”

“Even Quince’s,” Doe says casual y.

I jerk up to look at her.

I hadn’t thought we were talking loud enough for Doe to hear.

Her admirers gone, Doe’s focus is back on the sketch below her. But her mouth, her perfectly pouty, overglossed mouth, is pul ed into a smirk on one side.

“You do not,” I say, my voice low and hard, “have Quince’s attention.”

Slowly, very slowly, she lifts her gaze from the paper until she’s looking at me through her thick mascara-blackened lashes. For half a second she just holds my gaze with a piercing blue stare.

“I wil by the time you get back.”

My jaw drops open.

Truce over.

We glare at each other across the art table, Doe looking smug and me, I’m sure, looking completely shocked. She cannot possibly be thinking about putting her moves on Quince. Can she?

I’m not worried about Quince. I know he’s ful y committed to me, and he once told me he likes Doe wel enough, but she’s too immature for him. He wouldn’t be interested in her, even if I weren’t in the picture.

That doesn’t mean she won’t try.

And me having to disappear to Thalassinia for a separation is just the opportunity she needs. The opportunity she wants. The opportunity she—

I gasp.

“You did this on purpose!”

Doe bats her eyes innocently. “Did what?” Dropping my voice to a furious whisper, I accuse, “You kissed Brody because you knew I’d have to go home for the separation. You planned this.”

Her unfreckled shoulders lift in a lazy shrug.

As she goes back to her sketching, I feel like my blood is on fire. I can’t believe she did this. I can’t believe she would do something so underhanded, something that would affect Brody’s life as completely as the bond does, just to get the chance to steal my boyfriend.

“Is anyone else warm?” Mrs. Ferraro asks. “It suddenly got very balmy in here. Maybe the air conditioning conked out.” On the verge of scratching holes in my self-portrait, I set my pencil careful y down on the table. I take several deep breaths, trying to calm myself and my effect on the moisture in the air around me.

“You’ve sunk to a new depth, Doe.”

She doesn’t look up from her sketching.

“When I get back,” I say, trying to sound as stern as possible, “you and I are going to have a long talk.”

“If you say so.”

“I do say so,” I reply. “Because if you ever want to get back in the water, you have to go through me. This is not exactly endearing me to your cause.”

Though she doesn’t look up, her eyes widen a little, as if realizing she hadn’t thought this al the way through. But then she dismisses the feeling and goes back to her sketch.

What am I going to do with her? I’m not a problem solver.

I’m not good at resolving conflicts or settling disputes, which are just a couple of the reasons I should never be queen, if I were making a list. But with Doe especial y I’ve always been at a loss.

Hopeful y Daddy can give me some advice. That’l be one good thing about going home.

Chapter 6

rody doesn’t want to leave his precious Camaro parked Bat the beach unsupervised, so Quince gives us a ride in his mom’s junker car to Seaview Beach Park—the same spot where I first told Quince the truth about me. As impossible as it seems, I think his mom’s car is even more of a death trap than his motorcycle.

Dosinia, of course, just has to ride along.

“We should be back tonight,” I say for, like, the fifteenth time. “Tomorrow morning at the very latest.” That is nonnegotiable. My interview is tomorrow morning.

At ten o’clock. If we have to stay the night, I’l stil make it as long as we leave first thing. The key to my future and helping my kingdom from land might be in that interview.