Jace strolled into my room, his gaze immediately roving. There was... a significant amount of space for his eyes to land on. The outlandish lavishness of the room was not lost on me.

An elegant, four-poster queen-sized bed was the centrepiece of the room, fairytale princess shimmery curtains hanging from the sides. A dramatic chandelier hung from the ceiling, gorgeous and glimmering and ostentatiously expensive. A flat-screen TV took up one of the walls, but the rest was glamourous in a more traditional fashion, decorated in silvers and greys. The walk-in robe was open, allowing Jace to peer into my ridiculous array of clothes and shoes. There was also a balcony, which, while I recognized was completely unwarranted, was my favourite part.

I wouldn't say I was overly arrogant about my wealth; I'd grown up rich, I'd never known anything else, but I went to a fairly middle-class school. I knew that bragging wasn't looked upon kindly.

"Wow," said Jace. For some reason, watching him look upon the opulence of my home made me uncomfortable. I'd never before cared if he judged me, but suddenly, I found that I did. "It's uh... big."

"Excellent observational skills."

"I always knew you were rich," said Jace. "You always did come off as abnormally pretentious with a side of unearned arrogance and the fattest ego I've ever seen—"

"Are you calling me fat?"

"You know I'm not. This is just... this is new. This is, uh, big."

"Yeah, you said that already." I grinned. "I'm a wealthy heiress, Hartley. Stop gawking and reconsidering every mean thing you've ever said to me. You want to leech off my funds like the rest of our incorrigible friends."

Jace smiled back at me. "Chance is abnormally obsessed with your fridge."

"As am I."

"See, I'm far more ambitious than Chance. I was considering the best way to smuggle the chandelier out and sell it on the black market."

"You know what? I appreciate that kind of entrepreneurial spirit in a guy."

Having Jace in my bedroom was extremely uncomfortable—he was probably taking note of entry points so that he could sneak in, the little thief—so I grabbed the set of rustic double doors I'd had installed (because they were adorable) to separate my bedroom from the playroom that Liv and I shared. Austin used the basement now.

When I looked at the space—my eye more objective now that Jace was here, as if I was seeing it for the first time—I winced. My bedroom was the space that was clean and neat and, admittedly, looked like a picture from a catalogue, completely void of signs of life. This space was undeniably mine. And not necessarily my best side.

"Lena Montez's 101 Guide to Exorcising a Demon?" said Jace, skeptically.

I had definitely forgotten the amount of Jace Hartley-hatred memorabilia I owned. There wasn't an obscene amount, thankfully, because I wasn't an obsessive stalker. But I definitely had far more than was considered acceptable by general society. It wasn't like we were friends, and therefore pictures of his face weren't exactly an acceptable décor option. And when you considered the curly moustache and blacked-out eyes that defaced the school photo Liv had carefully cut out of the yearbook for me, it didn't look any better.

Liv's side of the play space was far less concerning. She liked to decorate with colourful pillows and throws, all carefully curated by an interior designer. She was always admonishing me for my uncoordinated knickknacks.

"Uh... I must admit, I did forget that I had all of this stuff in here," I said, defensively. "Like, when you have stuff up for so long, you don't really register it anymore."

Jace hadn't yet moved on from the guide. "'Tip 3: The demon is allergic to bananas. If required, bring demon a berry smoothie with banana. Tell the demon it is banana free. Obstacle: Demon would not believe I had brought him smoothie without ulterior motives. And I do not like communal showers in prison. Or anywhere.'" He eyed me with suspicion. "You were planning on murdering me."

I shrugged. "I wrote this list after you swapped my water for lemonade." I scrunched my nose. "I hate lemonade."

"Oh, but murdering me is an appropriate response."

"Reasonable reactions are not my forte, Hartley."

"Clearly."

I wrung my hands nervously. I had been in Hartley's bedroom—completely destroyed Hartley's bedroom, actually—a prank that he had...yet to respond to, I realized. He'd never mentioned it. Oh, he was good. Depriving me of the reaction I was so desperate to elicit, leaving me completely unsatisfied.

I bet McKenna said the same thing about him.

But Hartley in my space, looking at the childish responses to harmless pranks; yeah, I felt a little inferior for a second there. Our game of one-ups had never been the pinnacle of teenage maturity, but at least he was capable of leaving it between us. I was the one who had taken our feud home, nurturing it, letting it play over my mind constantly. I guess I was just...

"You're obsessed with me," said Hartley gleefully. He was almost bouncing out of his shoes. "Completely and utterly obsessed. Psycho stalker crazy, binoculars through my window at midnight, bunny broiler obsessed."

I threw a pen at him. "Shut up, I am not."

I didn't tell him that I had just been thinking the same thing. Shame was a poison seeping through my veins, slowly killing me from the inside out. Embarrassment told me it wouldn't be so bad.

But I refused to let Hartley know that, so I rolled my eyes and flopped into a cushiony armchair, nodding my head to a beanbag for Hartley to sit in. I was mean, but I wouldn't make him stand all day.

He kneeled down in front of the beanbag and shook it cautiously, examining it for signs of sabotage.

"Just sit, Hartley. The fluff won't kill you."

He grinned. "Just checking you haven't attached some kind of rich person robot to force-feed me banana."

"Oh my God, sit down and shut up or I will kill you with my bare hands."

Hartley sat.

There was a moment of awkward silence. I was internally flipping my shit, ashamed and regretful and wracking my brains for a witty comment that would return me to myself; confident and unflappable. Hartley just watched me, a faint smile on his face, as if he knew my thoughts were currently running a marathon at the speed of light.

In that moment, I was thankful that Hartley was easy-going. I mean, its not like it was normal. He could so easily have been rude or cruel about it, or totally freaked out and calling the police, but instead, he'd just made a joke, laughed, and moved on. While I still hated everything about him and his whole face, I did appreciate that.

"Uh, so, The Crucible?" was the best I could come up with. I resisted the urge to whack myself in the face.

"Oh, yeah!" said Hartley, and brightened.

"I must admit; I have not read it yet."

"No worries," he said. "I'll send through my notes. They're pretty detailed, but they're broken down into themes and characters, so they should be easy to follow. I'll write up a summary for you."

Once again, I was wracked with guilt. I mean, I had to pull my weight a little bit here. Didn't want Hartley to get big-headed because he thought he was smarter than me. Although, when it came to English, he probably was. Along with Kaelin, Jace was the untouchable genius of that class. And also, yeah, maybe I felt bad that I didn't do any work, and Hartley was going to carry the burden of the entire project.

"That's okay, Hartley, I'll read the SparkNotes. I promise my side of the report will be as good as if I'd read the book three times."

"Elle, it's fine," said Hartley, waving his hand absently. "I honestly don't mind. And I swear, it'll only take a few minutes to write up a summary. I'll tailor it to our project and everything. No stress."

That was... unexpectedly generous of him. And only exacerbated the guilt that churned in my gut.

I sighed. "I'll read the book tonight, Hartley."

Hartley smiled softly. "Awesome." He paused for a moment. "It may be worth considering that... it is a play, though. You know, for some preliminary understanding."

I threw a pillow at him.

An hour later, and I think my vocal chords were suffering from overuse. Jace was cursed with an inability to shut up, and apparently, I was cursed to retort to every comment he made. And somehow, he still hadn't requested a visit to the bathroom.

"Would you like another glass of water?" I asked with saccharine sweetness, as he downed the fifth cup I'd given him today.

Jace looked confused. "Uh, no. I'm good."

"Lemonade? Chocolate shake?"

"The hospitality is noted and appreciated. Don't worry though, Daria won't actually be offended if you're not nice to me. She just doesn't like conflict, but she secretly thinks the faux feud thing is funny."

"Faux?"

Jace waved a hand. "You know what I mean."

I didn't, but I wouldn't admit to it. Instead, I said, "Just take the stupid glass of water, Hartley" and shoved it in his face.

Jace, who was perpetually polite in every facet of his life that didn't pertain to me, grabbed the glass before he seemed to register that: A) he had already refused my generous offer. B) he didn't like me. C) he suspected nefarious motivations and D) he had already consumed an unholy amount of water and was probably drowning his organs. I smiled sweetly at him as he examined the glass of water with trepidation.

He sipped gently, in what was the most pathetic display I'd ever seen, and set the glass down beside him. "Okay, since I've just chugged the Atlantic Ocean—"

"—the water is filtered, fresh and iced—"

"Oh, sorry. Since I've just chugged expensive rich person beverages from the Queen's personal spring in Fiji, infused with minerals and the piss of a unicorn, but in the quantities of the Atlantic Ocean—" his correction was dripping with derision and sarcasm, but I merely responded with a bland smile of support "—I now have to use your restroom."

I opened my mouth to offer him directions, but he swiftly added: "I apologise, your diamond-encrusted, luxury, bought-it-off-Kendall-Jenner shit suite."

"Oh, don't be a dick."

Jace shrugged. "You bring out the worst in me. I'd say I do the same for you, but your pretentious arrogance and generous dickishness is more of a holistic, all-the-time thing, yeah?"

I threw a tasteful pillow at him. I had pretty much run out of pillows at this point. "You suck."

Jace smiled, and an external observer might have suggested the expression was fond. I, however, knew that he was hiding his evil plans of destruction and retribution behind thinly veiled softness.

"Well, since you need to visit the shit suite, there's a bathroom attached to my bedroom. Just through the double doors," I said, gesturing vaguely.

Jace looked delighted. "You have an ensuite."

"Yes."

"So, it's literally a shit suite."

"Please shut up."

"I've been told I'm allergic."

"Then, literally, suffer in silence."

Jace laughed. "You're more amusing when you're being awful," he noted. "Now I cannot even describe how much I need to pee. Please stop offering me beverages. It hurts both my bladder and my brain."

"Aye, aye, captain," I said, with a salute. "I will serve up nothing but snark and sarcasm for the rest of the afternoon."

Jace didn't deign that with a response. That was probably less correlated with his frustration and more because he would pee himself if he kept talking. His walk to the bathroom was fairly brisk. I grinned.

When the door shut behind him, I shot Kaelin a text. Operation, go. When I didn't hear back from her immediately—that girl was always attached to her phone—I knew she'd fallen asleep. Kaelin was only ever doing two things; reading on her phone or napping.

I'd ask Liv to help, but she thought I was unnecessarily mean to Hartley and refused to 'encourage my problem'. Killjoy, to the max.

It was all up to me.

I was a lone wolf, a solitary traveller, embarking on a quest against the evil that threatened to destroy everything. Saving the world was my responsibility now. Frodo and I, indistinguishable situations.

I quickly locked the bathroom door—honestly, why does any house have a bathroom door capable of locking from the outside? A truly baffling concept that had led to many screaming matches with Austin as he gleefully left me trapped in my shit suite—and giggled quietly. I crept out of the bedroom and into the hallway, though the creeping was more like running. I'm sure Hartley wouldn't spend a long time peeing. He was nasty, he probably didn't even wash his hands.

That wasn't true. Hartley was a neat freak.

In the hallway there was a small flap; it could be lifted up and little objects could be deposited in there to be grabbed from the bathroom. I don't know what it was installed for; I recall Austin saying something about passing through shot glasses, because the family that owned the house before us couldn't take a shit without a shot.

We usually just used it to pass through toilet paper when I forgot to change the roll.

I had used it to store seven huntsman spiders.

Perhaps it was slightly mean, but I Hartley wasn't phobic. He wasn't going to keel over and die. I ignored the slight twinge of guilt that was overpowered by glee and elation.

"Hello, little spideys," I cooed, looking down at the nest of twigs and leaves I'd made for them inside separate containers.

With efficiency and apprehension, I released all seven spiders and nudged them to the bathroom flap with one of the longer twigs.

I smiled.

Enjoy, Hartley.

I cackled, and as the first spider slipped through the crack, I quietly padded back to the bedroom to wait.