Four Of A Kind

The drive back to Philadelphia took longer than it should have. Traffic on the turnpike crawled to a standstill somewhere around Exit 8, and I spent forty minutes watching brake lights blink in an endless red chain while my brain ran through every possible scenario for Thursday’s meeting.

Camille Valentine wanted to destroy me. That much was obvious. The question was how she planned to do it.

Money was the easy answer. She could buy my landlord and have me evicted. She could pressure Hartwell into revoking my scholarship over some manufactured violation. She could make a few calls and ensure the Velvet Room suddenly needed to downsize their staff. A woman with her resources didn’t need to get her hands dirty. She just had to make a few strategic investments in my misery.

But that felt too simple for someone like her. From everything Sabrina had told me, Camille didn’t just want to win. She wanted her opponents to understand they’d lost. She wanted them broken, humiliated, and grateful for whatever scraps she decided to leave behind.

I touched the fabric heart pinned inside my jacket. Harlow’s stitches were slightly uneven where she’d sewn too quickly, probably trying to finish before the waffle batter finished proofing. The asymmetry made it more valuable somehow. Perfect things came from factories. This came from someone who cared enough to stay up late making something with her hands.

My phone buzzed. Iris.

WHERE ARE YOU

Working on it.

YOU SAID NOON

Traffic.

LIES

I sent her a photo of the backed-up turnpike through my windshield. Three dots appeared, then disappeared, then appeared again.

FINE BUT YOU OWE ME EXPLANATIONS

That was fair. I owed her a lot of explanations. Starting with why I’d spent the night in a billionaire’s mansion instead of coming home like I’d promised.

The traffic finally cleared around two in the afternoon, and I made it back to Kensington by three. Our building looked exactly as depressing as always, the brick facade stained with decades of city grime and the front steps occupied by Mr. Kowalski from 2B, who was feeding pigeons despite the management company’s repeated requests that he stop doing that.

"Isaiah!" He waved a handful of bread crumbs in my direction. "You look tired!"

"Thanks, Mr. K. You look... pigeonish."

He laughed like this was the funniest thing anyone had ever said to him. I climbed the stairs to the third floor, my legs protesting every step. The exhaustion was starting to hit now, that bone-deep weariness that came from running on adrenaline and caffeine for too long. My body wanted sleep. My brain wanted to keep running scenarios. Neither was going to get what it wanted.

Iris was waiting on the couch with Gerald tucked under one arm and her sketchbook open on her lap. She’d changed into her comfortable clothes, the oversized hoodie and fuzzy pants she wore when she was planning to spend the day drawing. Her hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, and there was a smudge of graphite on her cheek that she probably didn’t know about.

"You’re late," she said.

"Traffic."

"You’re also lying."

I collapsed into the chair across from her, letting my head fall back against the cushion. The ceiling stain had grown since yesterday. We really needed to talk to the landlord about that. Assuming I still had a landlord by the end of the week.

"I stayed the night," I said.

"I know."

"At Sabrina’s."

"I know."

"In her bedroom."

Iris looked up from her sketchbook with an expression that suggested I was the stupidest person she’d ever met, which was probably accurate. "Isaiah. I’m fourteen, not five. I figured out what ’staying the night’ meant approximately three seconds after you texted me."

"Right."

"The question isn’t whether you slept with Sabrina." She set her pencil down with deliberate care. "The question is what happens now. Because you walked out of here yesterday morning looking like someone heading to a job interview, and you came back looking like someone who just realized the job involves working with explosives."

That was annoyingly perceptive. Iris had always been good at reading people, but spending time with Sabrina seemed to have sharpened her already impressive observation skills into something approaching supernatural.

"Her mother knows," I said.

"About you?"

"About all of it. The staying over. The relationship. Everything."

Iris was quiet for a moment. Then she closed her sketchbook and set Gerald aside, which meant we’d officially entered serious conversation territory.

"How bad is it?"

"Bad enough that Sabrina’s been building a folder of evidence against her own mother for years. Bad enough that the meeting on Thursday is probably going to involve threats to my scholarship, my job, and possibly my continued existence. Bad enough that I’m genuinely not sure if I’m going to come out of this week in one piece."

"But you’re not running."

"No."

"Because you love her."

I opened my mouth to deflect, to make a joke, to do any of the things I normally did when conversations got too real. But Iris was looking at me with those knowing eyes, the ones that saw through every defense I’d ever built, and I found I couldn’t lie to her.

"Yeah," I said. "I think I do."

"Good." She picked up her sketchbook again. "Then we’ll figure it out."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that." She started drawing again, her pencil moving across the page in quick, confident strokes. "You spent the last four years taking care of me. Protecting me. Making sure I had everything I needed even when it meant you had nothing left for yourself. You think I’m going to let some rich lady take away the first good thing that’s happened to you since Dad left?"

My throat tightened. "Iris."

"Don’t get emotional. I’m trying to draw your dramatic confession scene and you’re ruining my concentration."

I laughed despite everything, the sound rough and tired but genuine. Iris smiled without looking up from her work.

"For the record," she said, "Sabrina texted me while you were driving. She wanted to make sure you got home safe. She also wanted me to know that she’s aware of the position she’s putting you in, and she’s prepared to do whatever it takes to protect you from her mother."