They sipped awhile in silence and munched cookies. Then Gregory playfully clinked his cup against hers in a silent toast.
"What is this stuff! I feel like I'm drinking a garden."
She laughed. "You are — and it's good for you." He took another sip and looked at her through the wispy steam. "You're good for me," he said.
"Do you like to have your back scratched?" Ivy asked. "Philip loves to."
"Have it scratched?"
"Rubbed. When you were a little boy, didn't your mother ever rub your back trying to get you to sleep?"
"My mother?"
"Turn over."
He looked at her, somewhat amused, then set down his tea and rolled over on his stomach.
Ivy began to rub his back, running her hand over it in small and big circles, the way she did with Philip.
She could feel the tension in him; every muscle was tight. What Gregory really needed was a massage, and it would feel better if he removed his shirt, but she was afraid to suggest this.
Why? He's just my stepbrother. Ivy reminded herself. He's not a date. He's a good friend and kind of a brother" Ivy?"
"Yes?"
"Would it be all right with you if I took off my shirt?"
"It would be better," she said.
He removed it and lay down again. His back was long and tan and strong from playing tennis. She began to work again, pushing hard this time, moving her hands up his spine and across his muscular shoulders.
Ivy kneaded the back of his neck, her fingers working up into his dark hair, then she ran her hands down to his lower spine. Slowly but surely she felt him relax beneath her fingers.
Without warning he rolled over and looked up at her.
In the candlelight, his features cast rugged shadows. Golden light filled a little hollow in his neck. She was tempted to touch that hollow, to lay her hand on his neck and feel where his pulse jumped.
"You know," Gregory said, "last winter, when my father told me he was marrying Maggie, the last thing I wanted was you in my house."
"I know," Ivy replied, smiling down at him.
He reached up and touched her on the cheek.
"Now. ." he said, spreading his fingers, letting them get tangled in her hair. "Now. ." He pulled her head down closer to his.
If we kiss, thought Ivy, if we kiss and Suzanne— "Now?" he whispered.
She couldn't fight it anymore. She closed her eyes.
With both hands, he pulled her face swiftly down to his. Then his rough hands relaxed, and the kiss was long and light and delicious. He lifted her face and kissed her softly on the throat.
Ivy moved her mouth down and they started kissing again. Then they both froze, startled by the sound of a motor and the sweep of headlights on the driveway outside. Andrew's car.
Gregory rolled his head back and laughed a little. "Unbelievable." He sighed. "Our chaperons have arrived."
Ivy felt how slowly and reluctantly his fingers let her go. Then she blew out the candle, turned on the light, and tried not to think about Suzanne.
Tristan wished he knew some way to soothe Ivy. Her sheets were twisted and her hair a tangle of gold that had been tossed back and forth. Had she been dreaming again? Had something happened since he left her at the festival?
After the performance, Tristan knew he had to find out who wanted to hurt Ivy. He also knew he was running out of time. If Ivy fell for Gregory, then Tristan would lose Will as a way of reaching her and warning her.
Ivy stirred. "Who's there? Who's there?" she murmured.
Tristan recognized the beginning of the dream. A sense of dread washed over him, as if he himself were being drawn into the nightmare. He couldn't stand to see her that frightened again. If only he could hold her, if only he could take her in his arms-Elk, where was Ella?
The cat sat purring in the window. Tristan quickly moved toward her, materializing his fingers. He marveled at his growing strength, how he could pick up the cat by the scruff of her neck for a few seconds and carry her to the bed. He put her down and, just before the strength went out of him, used his fingertips to nudge Ivy awake.
"Ella," she said softly. "Oh, Ella." Her arms wrapped around the cat.
Tristan stepped back from the bed. This was how he had to love her now, one step removed from her, helping others to comfort and care for her in his place.
With Ella snuggled next to her. Ivy settled into a more peaceful sleep. The dream was gone, pushed deeper into the recesses of her mind, deep enough not to trouble her for a while. If only he could get to that dream. Tristan was sure that Ivy had seen something she shouldn't have the night Caroline died — or that someone thought she had seen something. If he knew what it was, he'd know who was after her.
But he couldn't get inside her any more than he could get inside Gregory.
He left her sleeping there. He had already decided what to do, and planned to do it in spite of all of Lacey's warnings: time-travel back in Eric's mind. He had to find out if Eric-was die one riding his motorcycle through Ivy's dream, and if he had been to Caroline's the evening she died.
As Tristan moved toward Eric's house he tried to recall all the details he had seen earlier that night.
After the festival, Lacey had accompanied him to Caroline's house. While she had opened closets, looked behind pictures, and poked through things that were in the process of being boxed up, he'd studied the details of the house, outside and in. These would be the keys, the objects he could meditate on once inside someone's head, giving him his chance to trigger the right string of memories.
"If you're going to go through with this stupid plan of yours," Lacey had said while digging between the sofa cushions, "go prepared. And get some rest first."
"I'm ready now," he had argued, his glance sweeping the living room where Caroline had died.
"Listen, jock angel," Lacey replied, "you're starting to feel your strength now. That's good, but don't let yourself get carried away. You're not ready for the heavenly Olympics, not yet. If you insist on trying to slip inside Eric, then get some hours of darkness tonight. You'll need it."
Tristan hadn't answered her right away. Standing by the picture window, he had noticed that there was a clear view of the street and anyone coming up the walk. "Maybe you're right," he'd said at last.
"No maybe about it. Besides, Eric will be most vulnerable to you at dawn or just after, when he's sleeping lightly," she had told him. "Try to get him just conscious enough to follow your suggestion, but not so awake that he realizes what he's doing."
It had sounded like good advice. Now, with the sky starting to glow in the east, Tristan found Eric asleep on the floor of his bedroom. The bed was still made, and Eric was still dressed in his clothes from the day before, lying on his side, curled in a corner next to his stereo. Magazines were scattered nearby. Tristan knelt down next to him. Materializing his fingers, he paged through a motorcycle magazine till he found a picture of a machine similar to Eric's. He focused on it and nudged Eric awake.
Tristan was admiring the cycle's clean, curved lines, imagining its power, and suddenly he knew he was seeing it through Eric's eyes. It had been as easy as slipping inside Will. Maybe Lacey was wrong, he thought. Maybe she didn't realize just how well he had developed his powers. Then the picture softened at the edges.
Eric's eyes shut. For a moment there was nothing but dark around Tristan. Now was the time for him to think about Caroline's street, to take Eric on a slow ride up to her house, to get him started on a memory.
But suddenly the blackness opened out, as if a dark wall had been unzipped, and Tristan went hurtling forward. Road came at him out of nowhere and kept coming like the road in a video racing game. He was moving too quickly to respond, too quickly to guess where he was going.