I didn’t have super-hearing, so I couldn’t tell when she finally dragged herself away except by the fact that Finn’s posture relaxed.
“I’m sorry about kicking you,” I told him, realizing that had been completely petty of me.
Finn gave me a droll look. “Run through with swords, shot, et cetera, et cetera. Remember?”
I heard a loud snort and turned to find Keane, leaning in the doorway upstairs, looking down with disdain.
“That kick wouldn’t have dislodged a five-year-old, much less a Knight,” he said. “One wonders if you learned anything this morning.”
I glared up at him through narrowed eyes. I knew he was goading me, knew I should take the high road and ignore his crack. But I could already tell he was having a bad influence on me.
“One also wonders why you’d want me to break your own father’s leg,” I said through gritted teeth.
Keane opened his mouth for what was no doubt going to be an unpleasant response, but Finn cut him off.
“Enough, children,” he said, but he didn’t sound like he was really mad or anything. “Try to confine the hostilities to the practice mat.”
Keane didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who gave a crap about parental instructions, but to my surprise, he shut up. I had no interest in figuring out why that left me strangely disappointed.
chapter twenty-two
I retreated to my bedroom, leaving Finn and Keane to their own devices. I did not want an audience for the call with my mom. I sat in my room by the phone, watching the hands circle my watch.
Mom hadn’t mentioned which hotel she was staying at, and even if she had, I probably wouldn’t have known where it was, so I had no idea how long it would take her to get there. It was hard to believe it would take longer than twenty minutes to get anywhere in Avalon, unless you were on foot, but my mom almost certainly would have taken a cab if she wasn’t staying right around the corner. Yet the minutes kept ticking away, and still she didn’t call.
Maybe she didn’t have a room yet. Maybe there was a line at check-in, and that’s why it was taking so long for her to get back to me. But I couldn’t help being worried. Finn had been savagely beaten in an attempt to get to me. Would they also try to use my mother against me?
I paced across the small room, willing the phone to ring, panic spreading like fire through my veins. She might not be the perfect mom, and I might not have wanted to live with her—though those old days with her were looking pretty good right now—but I did love her. Just as I knew she loved me. She had sacrificed everything to keep me from getting embroiled in Avalon’s twisted political game, and what had I done? Run away from home and thrown myself into the shark-infested waters. How could I have been so selfish?
The phone rang before I could continue beating myself to death with guilt. I practically knocked the phone to the floor in my eagerness to get it, though I dreaded hearing a menacing voice on the other end telling me they had my mother. The caller ID said the call was from the Hilton, but that didn’t calm my fears.
“Mom?” I half-shouted into the phone, crossing my fingers like I actually thought that would have an effect.
“Hi, honey,” she said, as if she hadn’t just scared ten years off my life.
I sank down onto the bed, one hand clutching my chest while I willed my heart to calm its frantic thumping.
“What took you so long?” I asked. “You scared me half to death!”
“Check-in time isn’t until three, so my room wasn’t ready yet. I’m sorry. I should have called from the lobby to tell you.”
I squinched my eyes shut and bit my tongue to keep myself from saying something I would regret. Because if there’s one thing I’d learned in years of living with my mom, it was that drunks lie. And she was lying right now.
How did I know? Because I could hear the alcohol in her voice. She didn’t slur or have trouble forming words like drunks on TV do—she had a lot of practice talking while impaired, so it took a lot of booze to make it obvious to the casual observer. But I wasn’t a casual observer, and I was way