He does call twice, but he doesn’t leave messages, and I don’t bother calling back. What is there to say? There’s undeniably something between us, but he simply wants those feelings to go away.
An eerie calm settles over Pointe Laveau the next several days, and even those who aren’t in on the Secret of Carrefour seem to sense that something’s wrong.
“The Dolls are being even weirder than usual,” says Drew as we head up to the Hickories on Wednesday.
I try to appear nonchalant. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Liv says, nudging him gently. They’re flirting, and it’s cute. More than that, though, I’m glad they’re distracting each other. As long as they’re sneaking adoring looks, they won’t be thinking too hard about the peculiar behavior of the Dolls.
“What happened between Chloe and Justin?” Max whispers to me on the way back to class that day. “He hasn’t been up here in the Hickories since last week.”
“I don’t know,” I tell him honestly, but I’m hoping Chloe did what she said and released him from her charm.
“Do you think they broke up?” he asks.
“I hope so. It would be the right thing.”
On Friday, Peregrine’s not in school, but Chloe offers me a ride home in her little white BMW so I don’t have to wait in the rain for Aunt Bea to pick me up.
“You know,” she says as we pull out of the parking lot, “you still have to go to the ball with Caleb. It’s safest that way. If Main de Lumière knows about the Mardi Gras Possession we do each year, that’s going to be a dangerous night. You need Caleb to protect you, now more than ever.”
“Great,” I mutter. “So he’s obligated to take me to the ball. How delightful for him.” Thunder rolls outside, and lightning flashes across the sky, illuminating dark, hulking clouds.
“He wants to take you, Eveny.”
I snort and look out the window. The rain is coming down in sheets, and the world has turned black.
“Things are different with you two,” she adds after a minute. “Seeing you with him made me realize that I needed to let Justin go.”
“Did you do it?”
“Yes,” she says. “He’s still part of the sosyete as long as he wants to be. And he’ll still be my date to the ball, because he’s coming with us to New Orleans. But after that, we’re done.” She pauses. “You know, it’s true that Caleb had no choice about protecting you unless he wanted his family to lose everything. But he did have a choice about falling in love with you.”
I look at her in disbelief. “You think Caleb is in love with me?”
But Chloe isn’t laughing. “You’re different from the rest of us. Maybe it’s because you didn’t grow up here. Maybe it’s because you’re just a different kind of person. But I think Caleb sees you for you.”
I ponder this in silence for a moment. “It doesn’t matter, though. He’s making a choice, and the choice is to distance himself from me.”
“You’re not being fair to him,” she says. “It’s not like he’s being a jerk. He’s trying to do the right thing.”
“Only because his life depends on it,” I say.
“No!” Chloe exclaims, and I can tell she’s getting frustrated with me. “It’s because he’s a good guy. It’s because he understands that you’re in danger. It’s because he would do anything to protect you—including staying out of your life.”
“He’s just doing his duty,” I say softly. “That’s all.”
“Look, never in the history of this town has there been an incident of a protector falling for one of the queens,” Chloe says after a pause. “It’s forbidden. This wasn’t supposed to happen. But it did. That means something.”
My heart thuds as I turn to look out the window again.
“Can he sever his obligation to me if he wants to?” I ask.
“Well, technically, he could stop protecting you at any time,” she says. “But he’d instantly lose everything his family has ever had. He and his mom would be out on the street. And of course if something happened to you . . .”
“He’d die too,” I fill in.
“Yes.”
“But I can release him from the obligation,” I say.
Chloe looks startled. “That wouldn’t make any sense.”
“Humor me. Is it possible? If I did it, would it free him from his fate being tied to mine?”
She hesitates. “I guess so. But it would be crazy to do that now, Eveny, with Main de Lumière after us. Caleb has been training his whole life to protect you. Besides, think about future generations. If you sever the protectorate, you leave your children, your grandchildren, and their children unprotected.”