Elza had to do a lap around the room before she felt nearly composed enough to talk with her friends, and even then, when she found them gathered around a standing table with a pitcher of lemon-ice water, she still felt the need to slam her fist against the table, rattling their drinks, and demanding their attention.
She received exactly none of it.
Tabbitha towered over the rest of them, but head down, hands clasped and fidgeting, and making general noises of embarrassment, she was doing her best to shrink into nothing. This, of course, didn't work.
“Really, though. What's he like?” Rosaline asked. She was short enough to perch on the edge of the standing table, and had her unwavering gaze fully focused on Tabbitha.
“I, uh,” Tabbitha said, just beginning a stammer before Rosa raised her hand, and Tab caught herself. She took a deep breath before continuing. “He has glasses.”
“And?” Rosaline asked.
Tabbitha's eyes could have bored a hole through her formal flats. “He's short.”
Rosa sighed. “And?”
Tabbitha looked up at her, made contact with Rosa's coffee-and-cream eyes for one, two, three heart-beats, then proceeded to try and place her eyes just about anywhere else she could find.
“He's…”
“Yeeeeees?” Rachel asked. She had spent tens of minutes gushing about her new Pair, and all the lovely things she remembered seeing him do, and another dozen or two worrying that she wasn't good enough for him, despite assurances from the rest of them to the contrary. Well, the rest of them minus Elza. If Rachel wanted to think that, it wasn't any of Elza's business. But now, she'd firmly latched on to finding out what the rest of them felt, and messing with whatever she found inside their heads.
Somehow, in trying to avoid Rosa's eyes, Tab found her way to Rachel's, and found a way to blush even more than she'd already been.
“He's… kind of cute?” she ventured.
Rachel let out a squeal, followed by a giddy laugh, high on the emotions of the night. She ran over and hugged Tabbitha, arching her back enough to lift the taller girl off her feet. Tab shot a look over to Rosa, who put her hand on Rachel's shoulder. This had the intended effect, and she let Tab down gently, who wiggled her feet on the way down. However, it also drew her insatiable attention to Rosaline.
Rosa's eyes widened, and she threw up her hands in defense while stepping backwards.
This just made Rachel more excited.
“Don't,” Rosa pleaded.
“Sorry,” Rachel said, in the exact sort of tone that told you she really, really wasn't. “Nicolas, right? What's he like?”
Rosaline slumped like someone had just taken out a few of her vertebrae. “Quiet. I’ve seen him in a few classes before, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him talk.”
Rachel slapped her on the shoulder. “Oh, I'm sure you'll fix that up in no time!”
“Wait, yours is shy too?” Tabbitha said.
Rosa grinned, half of it forced, half of it genuine, though exactly which half was which, Elza couldn't fathom. “Guess we've got another thing in common.”
Rachel, of course, couldn't leave it there. She asked them both every possible question about looks, personality, history, any impression that'd been made on them, and all the time, Elza kept trying to get a word in edge-wise. Each time, she only got out a syllable or two before being cut off, and each time, her blood boiled just a little bit more. When Rachel finally turned to her, Elza's mouth hung open in the dozen-dozenth attempt to speak, and the sudden opportunity caught her off-guard.
Her cheeks flushed with heat. The words she wanted to say piled themselves so thick and high that they jammed her throat, and the best she could manage was an angry croak. This alarmed Rachel and Tab, but Rosa stifled a laugh behind her hand. “That bad, huh?”
"He's not at all what I want."
Rachel gave her a sympathetic look. "I'm sure that'll change, after all, the Order puts so much work into figuring out who we should be Paired with."
Tabbitha and Rosaline, knowing Elza significantly better, were worried.
Across the room, Alex had just expressed the same concern to Percy. Maxwell, however, had picked up on something, and had to poke at it.
"You look happy, though," he said.
Alex realized that he'd been grinning the whole time, and clapped a hand over his sinful mouth.
"Did no one else see that?" Gabriel asked. "She kissed him. Like, a lot."
Gasps went up around the table.
"You didn't!" Rachel and Rosaline said in unison, though in very different tones. Rachel was delighted, while Rosaline was horrified. Tabbitha had put her hand on Elza's arm, and said nothing. Elza, for her part, looked ashamed for all of about a second, before breaking into a shark-toothed grin.
"I'm going to have fun with him, okay? I'm better than being a Pair. But if I'm stuck with this, I'm going to have the best time I can while I'm still alive, you know?"
Tabbitha clung tighter onto Elza's arm. "Please be careful, El." She wasn't entirely sure what she meant by that, nor was Elza, but Elza nodded anyway.
"You're going to torture him, aren't you?" Rosaline said.
"Maybe."
Back on the other side of the room, about ninety percent of Alex's bloodflow had gone into making his cheeks red, and the other ten percent he really, really didn't want to think about.
"Oh, come on, it's no big deal," Caleb said, with the grinning confidence of someone who'd conquered the world. "Francesca already kissed me, too."
Max and Gabriel blinked at him, and Alex's head whipped around in shock. Before they could say anything, Percy sighed. "On the cheek, Caleb, that's different."
A strange sense of relief washed over Alex.
"What? A kiss is a kiss, right?" Caleb said, his high-pitched voice switching from being condescending to pathetic in the breadth of a sentence.
"I'm going to have to teach you some things," Percy said.
"What was it like?" Max asked.
Alex struggled for words. "It was..." He couldn't fit all the emotions into any one word, so he settled for several in sequence. "Incredible. But she's scary."
"Why's that?" Gabriel asked. "You're with someone who can kick your butt, magically?"
"No!" Alex exclaimed. "I mean... She's good, but..."
"Honestly, Alex, she sounds great for you," Percy said. "She might knock you down a few pegs."
"Wait, Alexander? The top student in like... everything? That Alexander?" Rachel said.
"Yeah," Elza said, smirking. "I guess the powers that be finally recognized how good I am."
Rosaline had more familiarity with Alex than the other two girls, having worked with him on a couple projects in the past. "How are you going to put up with him? He can be... strict."
Elza had been trying to figure that out all night, and had arrived at her answer around the time she planted her lips on Alex's. "I'm not going to put up with him."
"What?" Tab said.
"He is going to have to put up with me. I'm not changing at all for him."
"I'll be fine," Alex said, not really believing it.
Percy leaned back. "Alex?"
"Yes?"
"She is possibly the most stubborn person in our class. Right up there with you. You don't know what you're getting into. You're going to have to put a lot of work into this."
Alex thought he knew what he was getting into better than any of them did. Did any of them know that Elza basically kidnapped Alex to save the life of a maleficus? That was probably the worst thing any one of them had ever done. And come to think of it - The True Church had Paired him to her, which meant they trusted Alex to handle her. He couldn't think of a more ringing endorsement than that.
Everything was going to be fantastic.