Star's Crossing

44: What a Man

"What was it?"

All three boys froze, immortalized. A tableau of mutiny. Sunlight flooded the parlor and wrote each of Mare's suitors in silhouette, shifting and unreadable. But Mare no longer wished to read them. There would be no more guessing or playing, no more wanting or wisting or yearning or dreaming. After this, after the answers, there would be no more of this love story to tell.

Was it ever love? Mare swallowed her tears. She had cried enough these last months. She was tired; her resolve worn thin, fissured like porcelain, one touch from total demise.

It was Teddy who stepped toward her first, pale and imploring. Mare simply raised a hand, directing her eyes from his as she might a too-bright flame or loaded gun.

"Please," he said softly. "Let me explain."

"Do." Mare faced Geoffrey, whose handsome face was uncharacteristically pained. His mouth was a tight line, his brow furrowed. Whatever sense of aloofness he'd practiced the last few months was corroded by clear guilt. "All of you."

"I wanted to tell you," began Teddy. His voice cracked. He clenched and unclenched his fists at his side; one was red, two knuckles split clean. Mare's eyes went to Camden's face, where a bleeding lip answered her question.

"Is..." Mare was ashamed of how soft her voice came. How clearly wounded. She shook her head. Out for blood. Teach me to bite. Falling. Taking aim. "Why?"

Teddy's eyes fluttered shut.

She supposed she did not require him to answer. She'd heard enough. "You knew it was me. How?"

"We guessed," said Camden softly. "The letters—"

"His letters," Mare said. The words cracked like a whip from her lips, and she savored the confidence, angry and powerful, that coursed through her. When she looked to Camden this time, she didn't look away. She held his black eyes. Demanding. "Not yours. Teddy wrote them. Teddy is my writer."

"I never suspected," Teddy said, taking a step toward Mare that felt all too familiar, all too bold. "Not until..."

"He found them." Geoffrey, seated, stood. "Camden found them at Almagest and stole them."

"Geoffrey," warned Camden, eyes flashing.

"He proposed a game between us," Geoffrey continued, looking to Mare. He stood at her shoulder, facing the others. Us against the world. "It began with the roses."

"To humiliate me," Mare said softly. She meant it to be a question, but she already knew it was an answer.

"No," snapped Camden. "To..."

"What?" Mare held his eyes again. "Why? All of the boys?"

"It was a game," said Camden. He had the good grace to flush slightly in the dazzling morning light. It made him look like the cruel, spoiled, petulant child he truly was. "It was to be a challenge, among all of the boys."

"To what?" Snapped Mare.

"To..." Camden's eyes drop.

"To see who could make you fall in love with them," supplemented Geoffrey. His hand was on Mare's arm and she wanted to slap it away. But she was calcified, rooted in place. Unmoving and unfeeling and going nowhere. "But we decided after the ball it would be between the three of us instead."