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elevators in America.”
    Kami curled her lip at him. She couldn’t retreat now. There was the principle of the thing to consider, and also the fact that she had left pages scattered on the lift floor. “Do you know what we call guys like you in England?” she asked. “Wait, I believe I may have already mentioned the word.” She stepped into the lift with Ash’s delinquent cousin.



Chapter Six
The Other Lynburn
    H olly had been right. Ash was better-looking.
    Kami also saw why Holly had called the delinquent Ash’s brother. They were alike enough to be brothers, but in this case the fairy-tale prince had been cast into shadow and ruin. Jared literally looked like Ash under a shadow: Ash with a tan, darker blond hair, and dark gray eyes with odd, cold lights in them. Crazy eyes, Holly had said. Cutting across his left cheek, from cheekbone to chin, was a long white scar.
    “So you’re—” Kami swallowed his name. Even in the cause of getting an interview, she didn’t want to call this guy Jared. “The other Lynburn.”
    The boy crossed his arms. He looked even bigger when he did that. “The one and only other Lynburn,” he said, with a bite to his voice that hadn’t been there before. “Friend of Ash’s, I presume? Great.”
    Kami stood on the other side of the lift and felt very disinclined to get closer to him. She’d never been comfortable with guys like this, guys with that deliberate angry swagger. He was a shade taller than Ash, a shade broader in the shoulders, which were straining against a battered brown leather jacket. All the shades and shadows of him added upto something that put her teeth on edge. Kami wished she hadn’t taken the lift. But she wasn’t going to abandon her research on the floor because some jerk had crazy eyes. She knelt down and gathered up the papers she had spilled.
    The boy didn’t offer to help. He did look down at the picture nearest him: a colorful printout of a squirrel with its head cut off. His eyebrows rose.
    Kami met his gaze defiantly.
    “I’ve had days like that,” he remarked, his American accent all sharp consonants. His voice was rough.
    “But where have you had days like that?” Kami asked. Her hands were full, but she figured she could remember the interview. “Where do you hail from?”
    “San Francisco,” he answered after a reluctant pause, as if it was privileged information.
    Her papers collected, Kami retreated to her side of the lift, cradling them against her chest, though she had to admit the chances of him mugging her for her decapitated-squirrel pictures were not high.
    The lift creaked to a halt.
    The boy cursed.
    “It’s fine,” Kami told him. “Sometimes you just have to press the button a few times.”
    “Great,” he muttered.
    He moved toward her, and Kami’s heart slammed against her ribs. She stared up at him. He stabbed the button of the lift, then leaned away. His expression had not changed, but she was certain he’d noticed her reaction.
    This was no way to conduct an interview. Kami tried to smile charmingly. “So, tell me,” she said, reviewing herinterview questions in her head and choosing one at random. “What are your three greatest fears?”
    He hesitated, and she thought he was going to refuse to tell her, as if he did have some secret fear.
    The next instant he answered in a bored drawl, and his uncertainty had obviously existed only in her mind. “Number three: large, unfriendly dogs. Number two: small, inquisitive people. Number one: being trapped in this elevator. Why are you asking me all these questions?”
    “The people have a right to information,” Kami told him.
    “Well, I’m not in the mood,” he said. “Leave me alone.”
    Kami looked around the confines of the lift. The other Lynburn was already taking up more than half of the available space. “Yeah,” she said under her breath. “That should be no problem.” She was deeply thankful when the lift actually moved.
    They leaned back