Chapter 5: Ginger and Honey

I didn't take the tray.

I looked at the blue cup with the chipped handle.

I had drunk out of that cup every morning for ten years.

"You kept it," I said.

"Of course I kept it." Imogen tilted her head. "It's your cup."

"Then you drink it."

Her smile didn't move.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. Drink it."

Down the hall, a door creaked.

Freya had come back for her gloves.

She stopped dead when she saw who was standing at my door.

Imogen didn't notice her.

She was too busy looking at me.

She picked up the cup, blew on it, and drank half of it in three long swallows.

Then she set it back on the tray with a little click.

"Delicious," she said.

I breathed in.

Honey. Ginger. Lemon peel.

Nothing else.

Nothing bitter at all.

Imogen watched me smell it, and her smile finally changed.

It got wider.

"Did you think I'd be stupid twice?" she said softly.

My hands closed into fists.

"Twice," I said.

She realized what she had said a second too late.

Her eyes flicked away from mine.

They landed on Freya, ten feet down the hall, holding her gloves.

All the color left Imogen's face.

Then it came back, hard and pink.

"Freya, sweetie," she said. "Eavesdropping is so ugly in a girl your age."

"What did you mean, twice?" Freya said.

"I meant nothing."

"You said twice."

Imogen walked down the hall toward her.

She didn't hurry.

She stopped right in front of Freya and smoothed the collar of her parka.

"Your brother is about to marry me," she said quietly. "When I'm Luna, I decide who eats at the high table and who scrubs it."