“Come on,” I said, heading for the opposite door. Wade followed after me, the two of us striding side by side down the main corridor beyond the banquet hall. I had no plan past this. Yeah, I needed to tell Wade about the bracelet and the potential tracer spell, but I’d made it sound way too urgent. I could’ve let him finish his coffee.
Panicking a bit, I shoved him through the nearest door on the left-hand side of the corridor. He staggered backward through it, regaining his balance in the center of a dingy, super-narrow plant nursery. Shelves were stacked right up to the ceiling on both sides, taking up every inch of wall space. Each plank was filled to the brim with cases and trays and pots of fragrant herbs and flowers, all of them recoiling as a hint of light glanced in from the hallway. I guessed they had to be light sensitive, if they were tucked away in a place like this.
Seeing the glint of Wade’s eyes in the gloom, I realized it might have been a little rash to pick the first door I came to. The shiver of nervous excitement coming off him wasn’t exactly helping matters, either. Clearly, he thought I had some ulterior motive in shoving him in here, with all these dimmed, atmospheric lights. But I couldn’t back out now. I’d made my weirdly romantic bed, and now I had to lie in it and hope he didn’t get the wrong idea.
“So, what’s this urgent matter that can’t wait?” he asked, leaning awkwardly against a shelf. He stood sharply a second later as a barbed plant, similar to a Venus flytrap, lunged for his right butt-cheek.
So smooth, Wade Crowley… so smooth.
I stifled a laugh. “I need help with something, and since we’re not on patrol tonight, I figured you could use a distraction.”
“You want to be a little more specific? I was having a good chat with Stella, and I want to know if this was worth abandoning her for.” He eyed the barbed plant warily. “She’s not so bad, you know. Way cooler than Channing. If she had her way, I think she might actually join in with the rest of us, but he’s not so open and she sort of has to stick with him.”
“They come as a pair?”
He shrugged. “Something like that.”
“Well, actually, this is definitely worth abandoning the new girl for,” I said, struggling to keep the sour tone out of my voice. He’d only rib me for it later. “I found something of Jacob’s at the Smiths’ place, and I need you to help me put a tracer spell on it—the same one we used to weed out Finch.”
“Why just me?”
Oh, I dunno, to get you away from Stella Chan? Touché, Crowley.
“I don’t want to go after them with a huge team, in case we spook them, and they take off,” I replied, barely missing a beat. It was half true. “Plus, I’m still worried about this mole. If the spy finds out about Jacob and Isadora’s whereabouts, we’re totally screwed. The last thing we want Katherine getting her greedy mitts on is Portal Opener powers. I know I had to tell the rest of the Rag Team about Alton’s orders, but not everyone needs to know that I’m actually in the middle of tracking them. Does that make sense?”
He paused for a moment. “You don’t trust the Rag Team?”
“I do! Of course I do. But we don’t know who else might be listening, through some magical or non-magical, but equally nosy, method. I’d rather stick with just you, for now,” I said. “Plus, Garrett’s still a bit rogue for my liking. It’s annoying that I can’t sense what he’s feeling. I can let him in on some of our secrets, but I don’t have to let him in on all of them, right?”
“I guess that makes sense,” he replied with a shrug. “But how come you’re trusting me with this? How can you be sure Katherine hasn’t gotten to me?”
I grinned. “Because I can read you like a book.”
“Only when I let you.”
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that.” I plucked the bracelet out of my jeans pocket and held it out for him to see. “Anyway, I thought it’d be better if we just kept this between you and me for now. Alton, too. I’ll have to tell him what we’re doing, since we’ll be using a forbidden spell again.”
A flurry of intense excitement rushed through me, feeding off Wade’s sudden flood of emotion. “Cool, then count me in. When were you thinking of doing the spell?”
“Tomorrow, maybe?”
He shook his head, flashing a wide grin. “Since we’re not doing anything right now, and nobody’s expecting us to patrol in this kind of weather, why don’t we do the spell tonight? We can follow wherever it leads in total secrecy, because nobody would be stupid enough to head out in a storm.”
“Except us?”
“Exactly… except us.” He paused, jittering with anticipation. “So, what do you think?”
“I think we need to get everything together and get this done,” I replied, his excitement melding with my own. I couldn’t wait to speak to Isadora again. “Speaking of which, is everything still in the Luis Paoletti Room?”
He frowned. “I’m not sure. We’ll need to check it out.”
“Please tell me we’ve still got some of Quetzi’s venom left over, because there’s no way I’m asking Tobe to risk his life again,” I said, remembering the near miss that had almost ended in a dead Beast Master. Quetzi had been moments away from sinking his fangs into Tobe’s wing when I’d begged him to stop and give us the venom of his own free will. In the end, he’d given it up reluctantly, but I didn’t feel like chancing it again, no matter how important this was.
“There was plenty of it left after last time. If it’s anywhere, it’ll be in the Luis Paoletti Room with everything else.”
“Then we should probably start there and figure out what else we’re going to need.” A flicker of anxiety wormed its way into my head. “Ah man, I just thought… this isn’t going to be as easy as it was last time. We can’t just go to Preceptor Gracelyn and ask for wolfsbane, and we can’t get Santana to help crush the jasper and diamonds into powder.”
Wade rubbed the back of his neck. “Let’s just see what we’ve got, and then figure the rest out from there. I might have a way around those things, if it comes to that.”
“You do? What?”
“Patience, Merlin, patience.” He moved past me to reach the door, the narrow width of the room bringing us a little too close together. I tried to step back against the nearest shelf to give him space, but another of the vicious plants reared up, preparing to launch itself at my shirt. Stumbling forward to get away from the savage beastie, I wound up pressed against him, bracing my palms against his chest to keep from toppling over.
Man, I’d forgotten how great you smell, Crowley.
I looked up into his eyes. “You know, you could’ve just let me leave first.”
“Yeah, but where would the fun be in that? You robbed me of my coffee date. Call this payback.” He squeezed the rest of the way past me and let himself out the nursery door, leaving it open for me to follow. I fought a smile. Asshole.
Ten minutes later, we stood outside the double doors of the Luis Paoletti Room. Wade put his hands on both doorknobs and murmured the spell that opened them, his rings glowing white as Chaos worked through him. A soft click echoed down the hallway, and the doors swung wide. Beyond them lay a familiar room, the walls covered with shelves, each one loaded with labeled antique boxes. It reminded me a little of the nursery we’d just left, though there were no biting plants here, only whispering Grimoires that had a nasty habit of sucking me in.
I made it my goal to ignore the allure of the boxed Grimoires, up on their forbidden shelf, as we crossed to the far side of the room and pulled down a waxy scroll—the same one we’d used to discover who was letting the gargoyles out of the Bestiary.
“Diamond powder, mercury, wolfsbane root, dried cypress leaves, ground yellow jasper, feathered serpent’s venom… yep, this is the one,” I said, my eyes continually drawn to the Grimoires. The last time I’d been in this room, I’d almost read one of the spells aloud. Something about a “Dragon’s Kiss,” if memory served me right. I still had no idea what I might have done if I’d finished reading it out loud, since Garrett had stopped me. I guess that’s one thing I can thank the guy for.
Wade sifted through a small box that sat beside the scroll on the dusty shelf. With a smile, he untied the label and handed it to me: Keep out. No, really… keep out. Love, Astrid. P.S. If you ever need to use this stuff again, please be careful. Please. Okay, thanks. Try not to hurt yourselves.
“Always looking out for us.” I chuckled, handing it back. “So, what’s the damage?”
He lifted out each item, one at a time. “We’ve got everything except the dried cypress leaves, the wolfsbane, and the mercury. There’s enough powder left, and half a vial of Quetzi’s venom, so at least we won’t have to go bothering Tobe again.”
“Is that stuff easy to get?”
“It is, if you know where to look.” He grinned wolfishly and put the box back up on the shelf. “We’re not usually supposed to get supplies outside the coven repositories, but it’s all available. Plus, it’s not like we’re trying to get our hands on super rare stuff.”
I laughed. “No, ironically that’s the stuff we’ve already got.”
“Precisely,” he said, a mischievous glint in his deep green eyes. “So, grab your jacket, Merlin—we’ve got places to be.”
Nine
Harley
Wade parked his Jeep in the parking lot of the Maritime Museum and killed the engine. It was still a bit of a walk to the secret entrance of Waterfront Park’s magical underworld, but there was nowhere closer to leave the car. Torrential rain hammered the windshield. I wasn’t looking forward to getting drenched in ten seconds flat.
“So what, we make a run for it?” I asked.
“Looks like it.”