The Golden Lily

"You won't do it again? Not even for me?" Jill managed a look that was amazingly both pouty and alluring. That, I realized, was more effective than any charm spell or compulsion.

Micah groaned. "I'm helpless."

I didn't consider myself particularly sentimental - and still disapproved of their timid romance -

but even I smiled at their antics. At least, I did until I caught sight of Eddie's face. He wasn't giving away much, to be fair. Maybe hanging around Dimitri had provided some tips on the guardian poker face. But Eddie wasn't Dimitri yet, and I could see the faintest signs of pain and longing.

Why did he do this to himself? He'd refused to tell Jill how he felt. He took the noble stance that he was her protector and nothing more. Some part of me could understand that.

What I couldn't understand was why he kept torturing himself by endorsing her going out with his roommate, of all people. Even with his hang-up over Micah and Mason, Eddie was forcing himself to constantly watch the girl he wanted with someone else. I had no relatable experience, but it had to be agonizing.

Eddie caught my eye and gave a small shake of his head. Let it go, he seemed to be saying.

Don't worry about me. I'll be fine.

Angeline soon piped in with more talk about the dance, interrogating Jill and Micah about whether they'd be going. She also brought up her plans to go "with" Eddie. That pulled him out of his melancholy mood, and although I knew she annoyed him, I wondered if that was better than continually being tormented by Jill and Micah's relationship.

Of course, the conversation came to a halt - as did Eddie's problem - when Micah frowned and pointed out what the rest of us had missed. "Why would you go to the dance together?

Aren't you guys cousins?"

Eddie, Jill, and I froze. Another cover story mess-up. I couldn't believe this had now slipped past me twice. I should have mentioned this as soon as Angeline brought up the dance. In the school's eyes, we were all related.

"So?" asked Angeline, missing the point.

Eddie cleared his throat. "Um, third cousins. But still. We're not really going together. It's more of a joke."

That effectively killed the topic, and he couldn't help smiling triumphantly.

Brayden picked me up immediately after school the next day so that we could make the windmill tour on time. Ms. Terwilliger had even let me go a few minutes early, after promising I'd get her a cappuccino on our way back to Amberwood. I was excited to see Brayden and the tour, yet as I got into his car, I felt a brief pang of doubt. Did I have any business doing these sorts of fun, personal activities? Especially now that the cover story had slipped a couple of times. Maybe I was spending too much time on me and not enough on the mission.

Brayden had lots to tell me about the debate competition he'd attended over the weekend.

We analyzed some of the more difficult topics he'd come across and laughed at the easy ones that had stumped the opposing team. I'd feared dating for years but was again pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to talk to him. It was a lot like the Shakespearean outing: an endless source of topics that we both knew lots about. It was the rest of the experience that still left me unsettled - the "date" stuff. The dating books I'd read since our last outing mostly advised on when to have sex, which was completely useless since I had yet to figure out holding hands.

The giant windmills were pretty impressive. They didn't have the sleek beauty of cars that I loved, but I felt the same awe at the engineering they represented. Some of the windmills were over a hundred feet tall, with blades half the size of a football field. Moments like these made me marvel at human ingenuity. Who needed magic when we could create these kinds of wonders?

Our tour guide was a cheery girl in her mid-twenties who clearly loved her job and all that wind energy represented. She knew all sorts of trivia about it - but not quite enough to satisfy Brayden.

"How do you address the energy inefficiency that comes from the turbines needing wind speeds that fall into such a narrow range?"

Then: "What's your response to studies showing that simply improving the filters in the conversion of fossil fuels would result in less carbon dioxide emissions than this sort of energy production?"

And later: "Can wind power really be treated as a viable option when - after considering the cost of construction and other maintenance - consumers end up paying more than they would for traditional forms of electricity?"

I couldn't be certain, but I think our guide wrapped up the tour early. She encouraged some of the other tourists to come back anytime but said nothing as Brayden and I walked past her.

"That woman was sadly uninformed," he told me, once we were back on the highway.

"She knew plenty about the windmills and their facility," I pointed out. "I'm guessing the latest controversies just don't get brought up much on these tours. Or," I paused, smiling,

"how to deal with, um, forceful tourists."

"I was forceful?" he asked, seeming legitimately surprised. He had gotten so caught up in his ideas that he didn't even realize it. It was endearing.

I tried not to laugh. "You came on strong, that's all. I don't think they were prepared for someone like you."

"They should be. Wind power's got promise, true, but for now, there are all sorts of expenses and efficiency problems that need to be addressed. It's useless otherwise." I sat there for several moments, trying to decide how best I should respond. None of the advice I'd gotten from the books or my friends really prepared me for how to handle discussions about alternative energy sources. One of the books - one I'd chosen not to finish - had a decidedly male-centric view that said women should always make men feel important on dates. I suspected that Kristin and Julia's advice right now would have been to laugh and toss my hair - and not let the discussion progress.

But I just couldn't do that.

"You're wrong," I said.

Brayden - who was a big advocate of safe driving - actually took his eyes off the road for a few seconds to stare at me. "What did you say?"

Aside from learning that he had a vast store of extensive and random knowledge like I did, I'd also picked up on something else central to Brayden's personality. He didn't like to be wrong. This was no surprise. I didn't either, and we had a lot in common that way. And, from the way he'd discussed school and even his debate competition, I'd also deduced people never told him he was wrong - even if by chance he was.

Maybe it wasn't too late to do the hair-tossing thing. Instead, I just rushed on.

"You're wrong. Maybe wind isn't as efficient as it could be, but the fact that it's even being developed is a vast improvement over the outdated, archaic energy sources our society's been dependent on. Expecting it to be as cost-efficient as something that's been around much, much longer is naive."