Eli stared at the web page he’d pulled up on his computer, willing his nerves to still. It didn’t work. His brain kept tormenting him with what-ifs.
You have submitted your application to North London Sixth Form College.
Oh well, Eli thought. Too late now.
“Hey, whatcha doing?” Max asked, coming in from the kitchen.
“Nothing,” Eli said, slamming his laptop shut and sliding it across the counter until it was out of reach.
Max raised an eyebrow and exchanged a look with Malcolm, who was perched on the stool by the counter. It was Sunny’s spot, really. She would usually sit there and stretch her legs across the aisle, but of course Sunny wasn’t here—hadn’t been since the nine night, which was three weeks ago now—and it had been such a painstaking experience to try to make Malcolm feel like he wasn’t taking up space that there was no way either of them was going to point that out to him.
“Sure,” Max said. “Because that’s not suspicious behavior at all.”
Eli groaned and covered his face with his hands. “Ischubmittedmyplication,” he grumbled, garbled and half muffled, into his sweater.
“Wanna run that by us again?” Max asked. She sent a sweeping hand in Malcolm’s direction. “Unless you speak caveman?”
“Nah.” Malcolm smiled. His hair had grown out a little in the last couple of weeks, and it made him look a lot younger. “Sorry.”
“In that case, maybe try speaking with your whole mouth,” Max said.
Eli lifted his head to glare at her.
“I said I submitted my application,” he repeated, with all the enthusiasm of someone prying off his own fingernails. “To college. And with about, uh…” He glanced at the time. “Ten minutes until deadline. Hope they don’t penalize you for that.”
As soon as the words were out, Max’s face broke out into a huge, blinding smile and she immediately started jumping up and down and screaming. “You did?” She flung her arms around him. “Eli, that’s amazing! I’m so proud of you! Did you hear that, Malcolm? He’s going to college!”
“Yeah.” Malcolm had a small, quietly fond smile on his face. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” Eli said, rubbing his cheek where he was sure Max had left a makeup smear. “I mean, it’s not like I’ve been accepted yet.”
“You will be,” Max insisted, and she said it with such fervent sincerity that Eli almost found himself believing her. “This is a huge step. I’m really proud of you.”
Eli buried his head in his hands, embarrassed, but he couldn’t quite resist smiling either.
“Oh, now we can finally be study buddies,” Max continued. “I can share all my study techniques with you. Do you have Post-it Notes? I’ll get you Post-it Notes. Oh, and you’ll need new pens. And a notepad.”
“What kinda noise this?” Pam asked, hobbling into the diner. She paused to stare in their direction, and Max immediately started pretending to wipe down tables.
“Eli’s thinking of going to college,” Malcolm said, because he was a traitor and hadn’t yet learned not to spill every earthly secret to Pam just because she asked.
“Is that right?” Pam said, raising an eyebrow.
Eli tried to not squirm under the weight of her gaze. “It’s just one application,” he said.
“Hmm,” Pam said. “Well, it’s about time you did something with that brain of yours other than to hover around here and make trouble.”
After they’d gotten back to the diner from the nine night, Pam, of course, had been there waiting for them. She’d taken one look at them, bruised and beaten, and turned on her heel. That had been that. No thank you, no good job, no sorry for abandoning you in your time of most dire need. Certainly no explanation for where the hell she’d gone. Eli hadn’t been surprised. There had been no sign of Casper either, of course, but Malcolm had barely flinched at that revelation. He’d simply shrugged, hands shoved deep in his pockets, eyes looking anywhere but at them. I’m sure he’ll come back when he needs something, Malcolm had said. Eli had felt a slow rage start to simmer in the base of his belly at that, but when he’d felt the familiar sizzle of magic in his veins, he’d forced himself to bite back the poison on his tongue. His magic had been slippery since that night of the nine night. It would flare in sudden bouts with his temper, and each time, it took a controlled effort to reel it back in. Something had awakened in him, and he wasn’t sure how to put it back to sleep.
He’d handed the fang over to Pam with raised eyebrows. “We’ll be splitting the money three ways this time,” he’d told her, but then he’d heard a little yowl come from below and looked down to find Ox glaring up at him. “Okay,” he’d added, with a roll of his eyes. “Make that four.” Pam had laughed, a vacuous echoing sound, but she’d done exactly that.
Since then, Malcolm and Ox had just sort of kept coming back. Malcolm would come after his shifts at work, when he wasn’t with his mum. Ox tended to come and go as they pleased. More often than not, it would be in the form of four legs, but sometimes they’d wear an unfamiliar face. The others would only know who it was because of Ox’s tendency to barge in unannounced and go straight for the oxtail. Eli found he didn’t mind much. The combined presence of the two of them helped cover up the fact that there was one person noticeably missing.
He hadn’t told the others that he’d seen Sunny. He’d received an ominous anonymous text in the middle of the night a couple of weeks earlier, and he’d followed the Google Maps pin he’d been dropped to Camden Lock.
He’d found Sunny sitting under the bridge, chain-smoking like a middle-aged divorcée in a black-and-white film noir.
“How’s your leg?” she said in greeting, like no time had passed.
“Still attached.”
Sunny had given him a long, tired look, before Eli finally caved. “I’m fine,” he’d said, and the corner of Sunny’s mouth had lifted into an almost-smile.
“Liar,” she said.
“Takes one to know one, I guess.”
They sat in silence for a long time, with just the sounds of the city surrounding them.
“I’m so fucking angry,” Eli finally said.
Sunny exhaled a breath of smoke. “I know.”
“I’m gonna be for a while.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Sunny agreed.
Eli inhaled deeply. He’d always hated the smell of cigarettes, but he was surprised to find that he missed the familiarity of it. “Are you coming home?”
He was staring ahead as he spoke, so he felt more than saw Sunny’s sideways look at him. She hesitated. Eli didn’t think he’d ever seen her hesitate before.
“You want me to?”
Eli felt a surge of irritation spike through him. He hated this. He was used to them finishing each other’s sentences, exchanging wordless glances, and knowing exactly what the other meant from just a quirk of their eyebrow. Now, Eli didn’t have a clue what was running through Sunny’s head.
“Are you going to tell me the truth?” Eli countered.
Sunny huffed a laugh. “Touché,” she said.
Eli sighed, but this, at least, was familiar. He looked down, picked at a stray thread on his jeans so that he wouldn’t have to see the rejection write itself across her face.
It was Sunny who broke the silence this time. “I can’t tell you what you want to hear,” she said. “And I don’t expect you to forgive that. But I’m not gonna change my mind about this. I promised I wouldn’t.”
“Promised?” Eli frowned. “Promised who?”
Sunny, of course, didn’t answer.
Eli felt a fierce prickle of frustration in his stomach.
“I’m going to keep searching,” he said. “With or without your help. Are you gonna try and stop me?”
“Yes,” Sunny said. “However I can.”
Eli laughed. It echoed against the walls of the bridge. “Of course now’s the one time you decide to tell the truth.”
For the first time in a long time, Sunny didn’t laugh off her sincerity. When she looked him in the eye, her face was oddly sober.
“I need you to trust me,” Sunny said.
Trust me. Eli thought of everything they’d been through together. How Sunny had saved his life over and over. How she had lied to him the entire time. Despite everything, they were family, though truthfully, Eli didn’t know how much that was worth.
“I don’t,” Eli said.
Sunny had nodded once, accepting, and that had been that. She stubbed her cigarette out against the pavement and pulled herself to her feet. “See you around, Lij,” she’d said. If he didn’t know her so well, he would’ve missed the hurt in her voice. He’d stood there for a long time, watching as she retreated into the darkness.
He thought of that now as Pam drummed her fingers against the solid wood of her cane.
“So,” Pam said. “Did you tell them yet?”
“Tell us what?” Eli asked.
“We’ve got another job for you,” Max said. “If you’re up to it.”
Ox jumped onto Eli’s lap, and he immediately began scratching behind their ears. Eli turned to Malcolm, who had his chin perched on the heel of his arm resting on the counter. He raised his eyebrows, and Malcolm raised his in return. Eli thought they were maybe getting a little better at this whole understanding-each-other thing.
Eli leant back in his chair and crossed his arms. “What you saying?”
Malcolm huffed, and his face was so serious that Eli was expecting a polite but stuttered decline. Instead, he gave a slow, sly look out the side of his eye.
“Well,” he replied. “How much?”
Eli laughed, because it was all he could do.