~ Jaxon ~

"Nic—"

He raises a hand to his lips in anticipation of whatever exclamations I might make.

"Shh, not here. The real Inquisitors aren't far behind, and we best be out of here before they show up. Where's Sylas?"

"Somewhere safe, hopefully."

Nic raises his brows at me, his bald head gleaming in the orange glow of the sodium-vapor lamps that light the path.

"Hopefully doesn't cut it right now, muffin. He's in danger — you both are. We—"

"I know. Ava's paintings are Spelled, but we took care of that."

Nic's hand closes on my upper arm, gripping hard enough to hurt.

"Jaxi, shut up and listen to me. Ava's a distraction. She's the... the salad before the main course, or... or the boring meal you only eat to get to dessert. She's—"

Yumi rolls her eyes and takes over. "What he's trying to say is that she and her paintings are a part of something larger than some dumb stunt to shock society and make headlines. She may not even know she's been manipulated. You have, too."

"What do you mean?"

She shakes her head, the light catching on the silver piercings in her lip and brow. "Not now. We need to find Sylas and dip. Where is he?"

I pull out my phone and call his number, but it goes to voicemail. Biting back a curse, I send a short, urgent text instead.

"I don't know. He left, and I'm the last person he wants to talk to right now," I say. "Maybe Rel can try."

I pull up his number, but Nic grabs my arm again and stops me before I can complete the call.

"Best hold off on that, buttercup. At least until you've got the whole picture."

With a sinking feeling, I pocket my phone.

He lets me go. "Now, any idea where pretty-boy might have gone?"

Guilt chews at me as I realize he'd have few options. "I don't know. A café, maybe. Or he might have called a ride home to... get his things."

Yumi sighs. "You done some dumb shit again, haven't you?"

"Yeah, probably."

Absently, I touch my Sign, tucked in its little leather sheath up my sleeve. Somehow, Nic notices the gesture, and joins Yumi in a sigh.

"Oh, Jaxi. Not the knife again."

"I thought I was protecting him."

"Uh-huh. Well, let's skedaddle, and we'll look for him on the way."

Nodding my agreement, I follow him to the back of the building, where a footpath cuts through a park-like part of campus. Yumi brings up the rear, and the three of us move with practiced stealth. In a small lot next to an outlying lecture hall, usually reserved for faculty and staff, Nic leads me to a nondescript utility van — much like the one he used to drive, but with no candy painted on the side, fortunately.

The interior has been modified, and from the food wrappers, sleeping bags, and camping equipment in the rear, I understand that this is where Nic and Yumi have been living for the last month and a half.

Yumi climbs in the back, letting me sit up front with Nic. I sniff, and then decide to ignore my sense of smell.

Nic gets in and starts the engine, but remains tense and alert as he backs out and drives slowly along an access road that connects to a side street. He checks his mirrors frequently and only relaxes when he's certain we haven't been followed.

"Alright, eyes peeled now," he says, turning at an intersection. "If Sylas is on foot, he's likely still within a few blocks of campus. Jaxi, can you do a tracking Spell?"

"Not without something of his," I say, "and something to carve a charm from."

"Oh, well. Worth a shot. We'll do a sweep, then. You two keep a lookout."

He drives in a gridlike pattern, up and down the streets: first those closest to campus, then further out.

"So, where the fuck have you two been?" I ask, as he pauses at a stop sign, waving another car through to give us more time to scan the sidewalks.

"Well, you remember how you stuck your knife through my hand?" he asks.

Guilt squirms in my gut again, but when I look over, I see the hint of a smile on his lips.

"Not my finest moment."

He takes a left, turning down another side street. I turn my attention back to the pedestrians, but something tells me Sylas isn't here.

"When we left," Nic says, "we didn't intend to drop you like a stale trend — though I'd be lying if I said Yumes didn't want to. We meant to give you and Sy some space to sort things out while we did a bit of digging of our own. Ended up going down a rabbit hole, got in deep, and by the time we found our way back out..." He lifts a large, well-padded shoulder. "Here we are."

"Cut to the chase, Nic. What did you uncover?"

"You remember how, right before you stuck your knife through my hand, you asked if I'd thought there might be something off about the client I sent you to meet?"

"How could I forget?"

"And you remember how I said 'no,' and you stabbed me before I had a chance to add, 'not really, but...'

"Nic..."

"Well, if you'd given me a chance to explain myself, I'd have told you that while I hadn't suspected anything off with the client, I had noticed something a little unusual with my handler — you know, the person who passes jobs and info along to me, which I then pass along to you or my other contacts."

"I know what a handler is, Nic."

"Anyway, he'd put a priority on that job and asked for you and Sylas, specifically — by skill set, if not actually by name. What struck me as odd was that any Spellbreaker with an ounce of talent could have handled some kid whose love potion went awry. I just figured the client must've been somebody important's son, or cousin, or whatever, and they didn't want to take any chances. Then, after you told me it was really Aurelio waiting to meet you, I began to wonder."

He pauses again as a light changes and a group of people step into the crosswalk. A glance tells me Sylas is not among them.

"Okay. And?"

Nic hesitates, and when he speaks, it's with the careful tone of someone who knows he might be on thin ice, while whomever he's speaking to holds a rock.

"Jaxon, Aurelio doesn't just advise the Crafter government. In a lot of ways, he is the Crafter government. The Synod does what he says. If anyone's the 'chess master' in this game, it's him."

I stay silent a moment as my mind races, testing different theories against this new information.

At last, I find my voice. "He said the Synod were looking for the real mastermind; that they needed him to play along with the fraud charges while we tried to find the Devil's Song."

"Mm-hmm." Nic nods. "Use your head, Jaxi. Your brother's got the Synod in his pocket. He has every resource at his disposal. And yet he comes to you — his fugitive brother and your hapless tag-a-long lover — and asks you to do the heavy lifting for him. Now, does that make sense?"

"What exactly are you suggesting, Dominic?" I ask slowly.

"You really need it spelled out for you?" Yumi sneers.

I cast a withering glance in her direction. "Yeah, I guess I'm a 'walk me through the basic tutorial' kinda guy."

Nic suppresses a laugh. "Alright, here's the deal, sweetcheeks, far as we can tell. Aurelio arranged the meetup that day, because he wanted you and Sylas at the college — not just to suss out this 'devil's song' nonsense, but because he needed you there. He needed you both to make contact with certain people; Linden Edwards and Ava Blackwell, specifically. Make sense?"

I don't answer right away, considering this new possibility as it sinks in, like a cold stone coming to rest at the muddy bottom of my heart.

"Yeah," I say. "It makes sense."

A quarter-hour later, Nic turns down a street we've traversed three times already, sweat beading his brow.

"Sylas isn't here, Jax, and the longer we linger, the more likely we are to get caught. In which case, we'll be of no help to anyone. We need to get out of here."

"Fine," I sigh. I'd been trying his phone every few minutes, hoping the repeated calls would either wear him down, or tip him off that something was wrong, but he still hadn't answered or replied to my texts. "What's the plan?"

Nic halts at a red light and glances back at Yumi.

"We got a place. Only been there once, to pick up supplies, but there's equipment and weapons there. Everything we need for a full-on mission — whatever that might be."

"Alright," I say, settling back in my seat. "You got the wheel."

✧ ✧ ✧

Twenty minutes later, we pull up in front of a hotel in a mixed area of town; a place where the Crafter and mundane worlds bleed into one another — sometimes literally.

They park, and I follow them cautiously to a gated door, wondering if I'd be better off with a Spell or a handgun at this point.

Nic punches a code into a keypad, and the door clicks open. He lets us through and leads the way to an elevator that smells vaguely of cigarettes and piss.

"I can see why you guys chose the mobile life," I remark, eying the stains above my head. I mean, how does the ceiling of an elevator get stained?

"Just wait 'til you see the room," Yumi says, a quirk at the corner of her blue-lipsticked mouth.

The elevator dings, and the doors slide open to reveal a carpeted corridor — similar to any mid-level hotel — and Nic steps out and stalks away down the hall. Yumi waits with me, as if to see what I'll do, and after a slight hesitation, I follow her partner.

At room 237, he stops, and I suppress a laugh. "Right. That tracks."

"Something you recognize?" Nic asks over his shoulder as he unlocks the door.

"Just my brother's warped sense of humor," I say.

The door opens, and Nic passes through, flicking on a light. I follow, and Yumi brings up the rear, shutting the door after us.

Inside, I see a typical suite — two queen-sized beds, a bathroom, and a closet space. A glance is all it takes to tell it's unoccupied.

Meanwhile, Nic kneels by the nearest bed and pulls out a drawer concealed beneath (definitely not typical) filled with an array of items useful to Crafter, Gifted, and mundane alike — blessing salts, spell-papers, sacred scrolls, sacrificial knives, and even a selection of handguns.

"Okay," Nic sighs. "What do you think we'll need?"

"Everything," I say, with a sense of sinking despair. "If Aurelio set this all up, if he's the one who's been playing puppeteer all along, then we're going to need every damn ounce of help we can get."

"You're not wrong," a new voice says, making all of us jump.

Nic leaps up and backs away, hitting the wall with a thud, while Yumi produces a pistol from somewhere.

Smooth as a cat emerging from the jungle shadows, Aurelio peels himself away from the wall, where he's been blending in like a snake; although how that is possible when the wallpaper is brown and the man is wearing a peacock-blue shirt can only be explained by Craft.

"However," he continues, with a slightly arched brow, "it is not me you need worry about."

Reflexively, I pull my Sign from its sheath and aim it at my brother's head.

"Damn it, Aurelio. Give me one good reason I shouldn't put this between your eyes."

He raises his hands and fixes his hazel gaze on mine. "Nic and Yumi are right, Jaxon," he says evenly, "The fault in this is mine."

I bite my lip and adjust my aim, fighting the inexplicable sting of tears. For some reason, I'd wanted to trust him.

"That's not a good reason, Rel," I whisper.

A larger hand closes around my wrist, and I glance over to see Nic at my side. "Hold up, there, 'Desperado,'" he says. "Wait for the 'but.'"

"I am," I snap, wrenching my hand free of his grip and turning my attention back to Aurelio.

"But," he says, keeping his eyes locked on mine, "as useful as they've been, your resilient friends don't have the whole picture. So, I am begging you, Jaxon, for the sake of a man we both love — though in very different ways — let me explain."

I stare at him. Trusting people is not something I am good at. And yet I if there is anything I have learned to trust, it's my own heart.

Right now, it's telling me that, to save Sylas — and through him, myself — I need to be calm and rational, and to listen to those who are wiser than myself.

And for better or worse, that includes my older brother.

"Fine," I say, lowering my knife and sheathing it again. "Like I told you once before: you got five minutes, Aurelio. Explain."