Ilsa had spent most of her life diligently controlling when people did and did not look at her, whether she was slipping wallets from men’s pockets or distracting them stupid on the stage. But she hadn’t forced Eliot’s attention – she just had it, and it made her feel bare.
“Does it take so little to make you happy?” he murmured.
She shot him a smile and took another bite. “You ain’t tried this cake,” she said with her mouth full.
In a flash, he stilled her fingers between his and liberated the fork. Ilsa made a playful sound of protest as he speared the cake and popped a forkful in his mouth.
“Hmm. We should get their recipe for Orlagh.”
“I ain’t gonna be the one to try and give it her.”
Eliot’s smile widened, and he took another bite of the cake they were now sharing. Ilsa felt a kind of giddy pleasure flow through her. Some part of her mind must have decided she didn’t deserve it, for before she knew it, she was asking the question she had been trying to avoid.
“Who’s Athena?” Her voice held a lightness she didn’t feel.
“Sorry?”
“The girl what gave you that watch you carry.”
Eliot gave her a look she couldn’t read; intense and probing, but not as cruel as she expected him to be for prying. “Ilsa…” He said it like the beginning of a question, but he trailed off.
Ilsa had never been one to blush, but she could feel it happening. Her eyes found her teacup. “Don’t say no one,” she warned. “It’s in your hand even when you don’t need the time. It’s precious to you.” When she dragged her gaze back to his, she knew she was right. “So?”
In answer, Eliot produced the watch and put it, engraving up, on the table. With all my love, your Athena. All her love. His Athena. Ilsa could still feel his eyes on her as he flipped it over, revealing a second engraving: E.Q. His initials.
“You’re right,” said Eliot, leaning back in his chair. His voice had taken on an edge. “It is precious to me.”
He was gauging her reaction, that wicked amusement pulling at one corner of his mouth, his eyes alight and liquid in a way Ilsa had never seen them. She schooled her face into indifference and pretended to be concentrating on Brecker & Sons. Without meaning or wanting to, she found herself imagining what Athena looked like – tall, immaculate, devastating – when Eliot cleared his throat.
“Elijah Quillon,” he said.
“Beg your pardon?”
“E.Q.” He sipped his tea. “Athena is my mother.”
The beautiful penny dropped. Ilsa’s mouth fell open in indignation. She wanted to say something mean – to put them back on equal ground – but first, she was too absurdly relieved to stay angry, and second: “Elijah was your father.” He raised his head when she said was. “Cassia told me…”
Eliot swore. “Of course she did.”
Ilsa shifted in her chair and toyed with her teacup. “I know what that’s like. The not knowing, I mean. I din’t know what happened to my family ’til a couple weeks ago.” She meant to go on, but when she looked up, Eliot had closed back up. He was staring out of the window – or perhaps just at it – with that mask of unforgiving ire she had first seen him in.
“I don’t want to speak of my father.” His tone left no room for negotiation, and Ilsa flinched.
“Alright.” She shouldn’t have asked him about the pocket watch. She should have dealt with her jealousy without prying. She was about to apologise when Eliot’s hard mask cracked, revealing a sliver of aching sadness.
“It’s just” – he let out a long breath; carefully, like he was struggling to control it – “I don’t know how to mourn somebody I—” He shook his head.
“You don’t need to tell me,” she said softly.
Eliot nodded stiffly, and Ilsa felt a pang. He didn’t need to tell her, but she couldn’t help wishing he would. She wanted to know it all. Instead, they fell into silence. While he kept his eyes trained on Brecker & Sons, Ilsa leaned close to the window, tilted her head up, and gaped at the majesty of the cavern above her.
“I wish I’d known it was like this,” she said.
“You were afraid to come down here.” Ilsa nodded, her eyes still on the window. “And you were afraid of Hester’s hidden room. Why?”
Ilsa stiffened, but as Eliot watched her patiently, her discomfort began to wane. He had declined to talk about his father, and looking at him then, she knew she could do the same. He wouldn’t push. He wouldn’t pry.
“I don’t want to feel trapped,” she heard herself breathe.
Eliot frowned. “Trapped?”
“I know it’s in my head, but sometimes… it feels like I’ll be stuck forever. It’s alright if I can see the way out, and I can get to it if I want, but…”
“And yet you came down here, imagining it was a warren of tunnels.” He shook his head, but smiled. “You’re something of a masochist, aren’t you?”
“A masochist?”
“You court pain. You like to hurt.”
“Who likes to hurt?” replied Ilsa, a little louder and a little higher than she had intended.
Her incredulity made him frown. “Plenty of us.”
“I can see why you’d think that, but it ain’t true.”
“No?”
Ilsa paused, and rolled his words around her mind. “If I don’t like to hurt, but I do it anyway and don’t complain, that still make me… what you said?”
“A masochist?” The humour in his eyes was rapidly dimming.
“Right.”
“No,” he said softly. “That makes you something else.”
“What?”
“I suppose the word is courageous.”
Ilsa scoffed. “Courageous people don’t get scared because the room’s too small.”
“Evidently, some of them do,” said Eliot. Ilsa rolled her eyes. “Fine, don’t believe me. But I know plenty of courageous people, and they’re all scared of something.
