He paused, and I stared. “You mean this was all backstory?”
“No, no. Prologue.”
“Fantasy,” I cursed. “Okay, how does she end up on the boat?”
“When the twins turn thirteen, there’s this big ceremonial ritual. The prince is supposed to use his elemental gift to catch a special deer that’s been marked by the king. A passing of the torch sort of thing. Evyn, who is still sickly and can’t do much with fire, ventures into the wood, but Sevyn busts out of her tower and sneaks into the woods too, determined to win back her rightful spot as heir. She finds the deer first, and there’s this scene where she touches it.”
I was tempted to laugh, but Eamon’s face was too serious. “She touches it?”
“Yeah, remember she can’t touch people, but she figures out how to control her feelings and touches the deer, and it’s nothing short of beautiful. And then her brother scares her and—”
I grabbed Eamon’s hand to stop another clap. He laced his fingers with mine, and my head rushed. Well that’s plain cheesy, my dad’s voice broke in.
Don’t care, I said right back.
“You’re a little bold with the hand-holding, Eamon.”
“Am I now?” Cue mischievous grin. “You don’t seem alarmed.”
I definitely wasn’t alarmed, but I wasn’t cool and calm either. Every time his fingers tightened around mine, I felt a bit overcharged. “So…she kills the deer?” I redirected, hearing the nervousness in my own voice.
Eamon nodded. “It’s awful. She runs away behind this waterfall. Evyn follows her, feeling rightly wretched, but before they can make up, a sinister hand comes through the water and grabs him. Evyn vanishes from Cerul, and no one believes Sevyn. Her father and the whole kingdom think she killed her brother. The king banishes her to the Draemon’s island, only she hijacks the boat and ends up in Elementia, looking for her brother for the rest of the story.”
“Does she find him?”
“You’ll have to read to find out.”
I pushed him in the shoulder. “You know I won’t do that.”
“Suit yourself.” He stole the hand that pushed him and now we were double holding hands. His head dipped into the space between us, face hidden by his wild hair, as if he were nervous too, and I couldn’t stop staring over the line of his neck to his ears.
“Iris, do you ever wonder how much literature resembles real life?” Eamon asked, starling me out of daydreaming about lips on skin. “Like with your dad’s twin sister, Samantha?”
My ears popped like my mind had tuned itself. “Samantha? My aunt? They weren’t twins.”
“According to my biography of M. E. Thorne, she had twins. Michael and Samantha.”
I felt a little snarled inside. “Why didn’t my dad tell me he had a twin?”
Eamon bit his bottom lip. “I feel like I shouldn’t have said that.”
“What else don’t I know about my own family?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Well, I know she’s dead. She died when she was a kid. Sick from birth.” I sat up. “Cystic fibrosis.” I’d heard my dad begrudgingly talk about how we had CF in the family with my pediatrician, but I’d never put it together until now.
Eamon nodded, so still and silent that my feelings burst. “I hate that he doesn’t trust me to know any of this! It’s like he’s the asshole king father, and I’m Sevyn locked up in my bedroom with a guitar and permanent babysitting gig.” I looked at my hands, woven with Eamon’s. “But I’m touchable. I’m not Sevyn.”
“Not by half. You’re your own kind of power.” He risked a smile. “But angry, ambitious Shoshanna? That was good casting.”
My mind slipped back to the scene on the pinnacle. To a cursed girl who burns down that tree simply by screaming out her pain. “The feminist answer to Tolkien indeed, Cate,” I murmured. “Eamon, why is that tree so special?”
“It’s Maedina’s mother,” Eamon said. “Maedina is part elf. And the elves are in the trees. The trees are the elves. Sevyn runs after the fire and ends up lost in the woods.” He brought our conjoined hands to his chest to point at himself with both thumbs. “That’s where I come in.”
“Wait, you’re a tree?” I laughed. “What kind? Poison oak?”
“That’s a vine, but yeah, I’m a tree. Definitely oak or ash, aged and mighty.”
What a ridiculous boy, and yet I could see why Cate thought he’d make a great love interest. He couldn’t help but be his earnest, mischievous self, no matter what. Eamon smiled at me with such an intense expression that I couldn’t help but stare at his lips. “I’m going to ask you for a favor now, Iris Thorne. And I don’t want you to say no straightaway, per your usual candor.”
“No,” I said. He gave me a pleading, sweet look and tugged me closer.
Holy crap, he’s going to ask to kiss me.
My lips tasted salty, and my pulse sped. “Okay…what?”
“Will you be on my video blog?”
I blinked long and hard, my brain coming back from kissing daydreams with sluggish effort. “What?”
“Please? It could help us so much.”
“Help us? The movie, you mean?” I pulled my hands from his, growling, “Oh, I get it. You want video of me smiling on set so all the fans think M. E. Thorne’s family is on board, huh?”
“Well, it was Cate’s idea. And it didn’t sound half so bad before you said it in that Lex Luthor tone of voice.”
“Did she tell you to flirt with me too? Did she tell you that’d make it easier to convince me?” The words sounded angry, but all I could feel was pain. It pulled every muscle tight and made each breath prick at my throat. I got off the rock, dropping straight into knee-high water. The tide had been coming in while we sat, and now we had to sludge our way out.
“Iris, what’s so terrible about a minute of video if it helps people?” he asked, following as
