All Julia could think was that if it came right down to it she would sleep with him. She knew how he felt about her. He would do anything to sleep with her. It was the nuclear option, but it would work. No risk. It was her ace in the hole. So to speak.

Who knows, it might not even be so bad. Different, doubtless, from James’s smartly paced gymnastic exhibitions. She didn’t even know anymore why she was so determined not to like Quentin. Maybe he’d been right, maybe he was the one for her after all. It was hard to know anymore, it was tangled up with everything else, and she was out of practice at having feelings for other people. At this point it had been a long time since anybody had even touched her. Not since the zookeeper in the bathroom at the party, and that was mostly just spastic overclothes pawing, entirely clinical in its intent. The patient struggling under the knife, while she performed the operation. She felt out of touch with her body, with pleasure of any kind. Doctor Julia noted, purely for the record, that it was scary how unloving she’d become, and how unlovable. She’d locked all that stuff away and melted down the key for scrap.

It was in a cemetery behind a church, whither Quentin had retired for more sulking, that she sprang the trap. Looking back on it she was proud of herself. She could have lost it but she didn’t. She got it out. She said her piece, and hung on to her pride, and showed him that she was every bit as good as he was. She made the case. She even showed him the spell, the one with the rainbow trails, which she’d gotten down pat over the previous six months. Even those murderous hand positions, even the one with the thumbs, she had hit with icy precision. She’d never shown it to anybody before, and it felt great to finally unveil it for an audience. She took that beach like a goddamned Marine.

And when it came down to the nuclear option, when the red phone rang in the war room, Julia hadn’t flinched. Oh, no. She took that call. If that’s what it took, she would go there, sister.

But here was the thing: he wouldn’t. She hadn’t counted on that. She’d offered, as plainly as she knew how. She’d run herself through with the hook and dangled herself before him, pink and wriggling, but he hadn’t taken the bait. Julia knew she’d let herself go a bit lookswise, but still. Come on. It didn’t add up.