Watercolour Smile Read Online Free Page A

something that will make you feel better.”
    I watched his hand disappear into his right pocket, trying to fight back my embarrassment from our conversation. I moved forward as he pulled out an iPhone, but then paused, uncomprehending.
    “It’s yours,” he said with a sigh, rocking it from side to side like a pendulum before my face. “You can’t keep roaming around without a phone, Seph. What if we need to get into contact with you?”
    I folded my arms over my chest. “No.”
    He rolled his eyes and tucked the phone away again, pulling out something familiar from his left pocket. “Silas said you’d refuse it,” he said, plonking my old phone unceremoniously into my waiting palm. “He had to wipe everything, so I programmed our numbers into it again.”
    I turned the phone around to display the single crack that fissured from one side of the screen to the other, slicing it in half. There were dents all over the case, and some of the colour was peeling off, but it was virtually indestructible, so I had grown fond of it. Sort of.
    I switched it on and found all of their contacts, along with Tariq’s, Poison’s, Clarin’s and Tabby’s. I stared at the eight numbers and realised that I was looking at a summary of my life. Eight people. I had eight people that I considered friends or family, and seven of them I hadn’t even known two years ago.
    “How much did you pay for the iPhone?” I asked, beginning to feel guilty that he had gone to the effort of getting me a gift, and I had refused him.
    “It was free.” Quillan smiled. “They were having a sale at the Apple store.”
    “Not funny,” I grumbled. “For one, there’s no such thing as a sale at an Apple store, and also, you guys promised that I would be able to get a job with the Zevghéri. I know Cabe is sending Tariq money. I’m not stupid. My ledger is really starting to add up.”
    “Ledger? Seph… tell me you’re not keeping track of—”
    “I want a job,” I interrupted. “I mean it. If you won’t let me work for the Zevghéri, I’ll look for one elsewhere. I have enough experience.”
    Quillan shrugged his shoulders, his dark eyes settling on mine. This was another difference between him and Silas. Whenever Quillan looked at me, it was with weight. When he was upset or angry, he eyes always landed on mine, hard, rooting my feet to the floor and licking an uncomfortable feeling up my spine. Silas’s dark eyes—so similar and yet so different—would instead flit over my face, categorising my features before he met my gaze, and I would feel the tiny pinpricks of fire along my brow, the slope of my cheekbones, my lips, as if he had physically touched me. 
    “Silas is organising it,” Quillan promised, his voice as heavy as his gaze, clamping down on my insecurities and wagging a finger at them to behave. “It’s not easy to get you in with the Zevg hé ri missions when you haven’t even been formally introduced to the Klovoda yet.”
    “Maybe I should just meet with the Klovoda?” I ventured cautiously. “I mean it’s not really obvious that we’re bonded, right? Unless someone is hurting one of us, I guess.”
    Quillan said nothing for a moment, and I realised that he was thinking of an answer. A calculative expression rolled over him, and then he moved suddenly, leaning forward and winding a hand around my waist. I didn’t have a chance to brace myself against the scratching feeling that I knew would thread through me, and so I was even more shocked at the onslaught of agitated feeling that clawed beneath my skin, forcing me to stumble forward. I collided with his chest, accidently pushing him back against his desk. He grunted in surprise, the fingers of his hand spreading out to get a better grip, steadying me. The scratchy feeling bubbled up, dancing hotly over my skin and forcing a quick flash of near-blackness to blanket my awareness. I swayed and fought back the bile, swallowing several times to make sure that I