I TRY NOT TO BE NOSY—I truly don’t want to be—but they have been talking in the kitchen for the last half hour and I am growing very, very impatient. Another agonizing minute goes by and I hear them laugh. About what? I don’t care, I tell myself, picking up one of the books I had gotten down for her. She’ll come back in at any moment and enlighten me, I’m sure of it.

But when another minute passes, I creep toward the library door. I am not eavesdropping, I tell myself. I am simply wondering if—

Suddenly, there are footsteps.

I try to move back, but the door swings open a moment later. Directly into my face. I curse and double over, holding my nose. Rosie gasps, “Sorry! I didn’t see you there!”

Mortifying, mortifying, this is all so very mortifying. Before I can sink myself any lower, I quickly turn around, holding my nose, to walk away. She reaches out and takes me by the arm. She stops me.

“You’re bleeding,” she says.

I look down at my hand that held my nose. It’s full of blood. “You broke my nose!”

She bristles. “I didn’t know you were at the door!”

“It’s my house!”

“It is not.”

“Well…I’m living here.”

Her mouth purses into a thin line. “Then you should’ve just come into the kitchen instead of loitering like a creeper.”

“I was not loitering.”

“Then you were just standing by the door?”

I pull myself up to my full height, which is a good head taller than she is, but she has her hands on her hips as if I’m the short one. Which is not endearing. Not at all. And no, I am not afraid of her. Not even a little.

…Perhaps a little.

“I can stand wherever I please,” I finally reply nobly. “What did your father want?”

She takes me by the arm. “C’mon, let’s stop the bleeding before you get any on the books,” she says, and guides me into the kitchen, where I run my face underneath the faucet in the sink, and hiss as the cold water hits the cut on my nose. She didn’t break it, apparently, just sliced it open.

I’m not sure which is worse.

Elias finds the first-aid kit and tells me to take a seat on a barstool. Rosie comes into the kitchen, her arms folded over her chest, and watches as Elias applies ointment and a Band-Aid on it. “Will I have a scar?” I ask Elias courageously.

He snorts at my bravado, which deflates me quite a bit. “Not likely.”

“That’s sad. Chicks dig scars,” Rosie adds woefully.

Elias finishes placing the Band-Aid and sighs. “Dios mío, this is exhausting.”

“I agree,” I agree.

“Both of you,” he replies pointedly, and puts the first-aid kit back underneath the sink. “Please try to get along this weekend.”

I give him a strange look. “This weekend?”

Rosie becomes suspiciously fixated on a brown spot on the ceiling.

Elias informs, “Yes, this weekend. Rosie and her father’s apartment had a small fire, which is why he called, and since we have so many vacant rooms I figured we could offer them both a little hospitality.”

“All weekend,” I repeat. My brain is short-circuiting.

“Yes, all weekend. So please try not to kill each other. I need to go out for some groceries—how do you feel about spaghetti tonight, Rosie? Will your father be joining us?”

She hesitates. “I don’t think so—he’ll be here later tonight, though.”

“Perfect! I’ll go pick up some supplies and start cooking,” he says brightly, and then gives me a meaningful look.

I stiffen. Me? I don’t want anything to do with that girl. She almost broke my nose! And she had the audacity to try to blame me! I answer with a shrug, which suffices for Elias, because he grabs his wallet and keys from the counter and leaves through the garage.

When Elias is gone, Rosie says quietly, “Sorry, I didn’t know who else to ask.”

“Like Elias said, we have plenty of rooms,” I reply, even though I want to ask if her personal things are okay, if anything is ruined.

She breathes out a sigh of relief. “Well, that’s something.”

I show her to a room upstairs. It’s one of the bedrooms that neither Elias nor I have really been into, so the windows need to be opened and the sheets need to be changed because it’s so musty, but she doesn’t seem to mind, especially when Sansa comes in and curls up right at the foot of the bed. Rosie scratches her behind the ears, and when I leave her alone to go into my room, Sansa doesn’t follow.

So much for loyalty.