Chapter 33
Thirty-Three
Elodie
Just past noon on Sunday, I peer across the street at the stately Victorian face of The Eclipse from my stealthy rooftop perch. Today’s sun has burned away yesterday’s clouds, but the heat of it baking my hair barely penetrates the uneasy chill inside me.
I didn’t make any progress with the other pawn shops I checked—unsurprising, since any other jewelry my double gave away would have been on the market for weeks if not months now.
As nervous as I am about returning to this den of self-aggrandizing men, it’s the only other clear lead I can follow up on.
And I have to do something.
Other Elodie did make that strange comment about getting “elevated” and club business. I don’t know what she meant, and I still haven’t figured out why she was interested in Grady Tadros either.
So I’m going to be in and out in a flash, spending as little time on the premises as possible, and hopefully kill both of those birds with one stone.
Which means there’s no point in going in until I know Grady’s there too.
He didn’t show up while I was monitoring the place for the few extra hours I had yesterday. I’ve spent most of the morning here too without any sign of him.
What if he’s not in a stuffy upper-crust club sort of mood this weekend?
I gnaw on a granola bar and ignore the way it hits my stomach like chunks of stone. My gaze sweeps over the road below, but I haven’t seen anyone passing by except what look like regular pedestrians.
If Salvatore’s been following me around, he shouldn’t have been able to tail me here. I left the house under a concealment illusion and only dropped it to get in a ride when I was several blocks from the house.
One worry less out of the hoard I’ve been amassing like a neurotic dragon.
The purr of a particularly refined car engine carries from down the street. I watch the white sedan draw to a halt outside the club. My heart leaps at the sight of Grady’s tall, dark-haired form easing out of the back seat.
Fate must be smiling on me today. I don’t know if I believe in reincarnation, but if I’ve been paying off the karma of some horrible past life, that previous me did one or two things right.
I gather myself, running through the strategy I’ve planned while I give my schoolmate time to settle in. The more relaxed he is when I approach, the easier it’ll be to influence him.
Messing with people’s minds has never been one of my main strengths, but nudging them on a slightly different course is a hell of a lot easier than pushing directly against their instincts like I had to do with Josie.
When I decide it’s been long enough, I slip down the fire escape the same way I came up and cushion my final drop to the ground with a padding of gathered ephemera.
Sliding on the ring I imbued and tugging my silk gloves over my fingers, I will the illusion of Chuck the club attendant into existence around me.
As I cross the street, my pulse kicks up a notch.
It should be fine. Top management isn’t likely to be around on a Sunday. I know from my spying that Byron hasn’t stopped by today.
As long as I make my visit brief and inconspicuous, I can complete my personal mission without anyone raising a fuss.
It isn’t hard to find Grady. I pick out his smug voice amid the other chatter in the main lounge room. I drift over, sedately picking up emptied glasses and crumb-scattered saucers, watching him from the corner of my eye.
He’s laughing it up with a couple of the other Luminary students I’ve seen him with before. It seems like a good setting to do my digging.
I draw a little of the room’s energy to me and cast a trickle toward him. Club. Business. Elevation.
I do my best to flavor the prodding with the tone of Elodie’s note, hoping it’ll stir up the right sort of response.
“Did you get anywhere with that Bounty business?” Grady asks one of his friends. “Are they going to let you head the sports committee?”
Ugh. Wrong kind of club, wrong kind of business.
I wait while his friend rambles on about some asshole he’s annoyed with and then risk another nudge of magic in Grady’s direction.
He sighs before a sly smile crosses his face. “It’s been a while since we went out to Groove Garden. What do you think? A little dancing, a little drinking, get your head in the game to take your skills to another level.”
The friend makes a noncommittal sound. “I didn’t get anywhere last time.”
“I hear they’re pretty picky. But if you keep showing up, showing you’re committed… It’s worth a shot, don’t you think?”
“And we’ll have a good time either way,” the third guy says with a laugh.
Groove Garden? That name doesn’t ring any bells—but then, if it’s the kind of place where lucents like this bunch go to party, I’d never have been invited in my reality.
But who is being “picky”? What are these guys hoping to get picked for?
I continue my slow circuit around the trio. The first friend is grimacing. “I’m not sure I even believe the rumors anymore. Maybe it’s just a way to drum up—”
I lift my eyes, searching for another tumbler I can clear to keep up my ruse.
With a tug in my chest, my gaze collides with Byron’s in the doorway.
We stare at each other for two heavy thuds of my heart that drown out anything else Grady and his companions might be saying. My arms jerk out, setting down the few dishes I’ve gathered onto a side table with a sudden clinking of glass and china.
Byron steps forward, his mouth tensing into a flat line. Cursing silently, I dart toward the room’s other arched doorway.
My saving grace is that Byron doesn’t want to be caught in a scene of his own making any more than I do. He doesn’t yell or break into a run, though I catch a glimpse of him striding faster in my direction.
I hustle into the hall. The side door is just around the bend up there—
Where two of the kitchen staff are blocking the passage, grappling with a huge box that must have just been delivered.
Footsteps thump behind me. I don’t have time to wait for the staff to clear the way.
I flee farther into the building. Maybe I can find a quiet room with a window that’ll open? Or somewhere private enough that I can conceal myself completely and slip past Byron later?
I dash past a half-open door I spot up ahead and cast a frantic glance around the room on the other side. It’s so small my skin clenches up, just a few mahogany chairs around a matching coffee table and a narrow sideboard along one wall.
Curtains hang over a window. I throw myself at them. Yanking back the fabric sends a whiff of dust into my nose.
The thick pane beyond the curtain is set firmly in the wall, no options for opening.
At the click of the door shutting behind me, the air whooshes from my lungs. I brace myself to try to bespell the glass aside, but Byron’s gloved hand catches my wrist before I can even finish picturing how the magic might work.
He spins me around so my back smacks into the leaf-print wallpaper next to the window. The magic wrapped around me shudders as he glares straight through the illusion into my actual eyes.
“I told you you’d better not come back.”
He’s pissed off enough that the faint British inflection already colors his voice. And he’s close—so fucking close I can count the coppery flecks amid the deeper brown of his eyes, feel the pounding of my pulse against his thumb. His crisp, fresh scent wafts over me like a magic of its own.
Every nerve in my body peals out with the insistence that this is my match.
Fate must tug at Byron too. His stance stiffens, and he pulls back a few inches. A twinge of what I think is confusion crosses his face.
His uncertainty only shows for a second before it hardens with renewed accusation. “What are you doing here now, Elodie?”
My lips part, an instinctively defiant response leaping up my throat. Tell him off, grasp for any handhold I can reach to shift the balance of power.
The memory of Cole’s rage-twisted face halts the words at the back of my mouth.
How well has defiance worked so far at keeping my would-be matches at a distance? Somehow hassling Salvatore got him hooked on me with no way to cut the line. I riled up Cole right over the line between fury and passion.
Isn’t there some saying about the insanity of doing the same thing over and over when you haven’t liked the outcome?
Maybe it’s time to try a different tactic.
The first time Byron caught me, it wasn’t mouthing off at him that convinced him to let me go. It was when I softened my approach a little and played to his sympathies.
I draw in a shaky breath and speak as earnestly as I can. “I didn’t plan on coming back. I didn’t want to.”
“Then why are you fucking here?” Byron demands before I can finish the thought.
I manage not to grimace at him. “There are… a lot of things I’m trying to figure out. That’s why I came in the first place. Finding answers hasn’t been going all that smoothly. Coming back was a last-ditch effort to make some progress.”
“That sounds like a whole lot of nothing. What could you need to figure out that has anything to do with The Eclipse?”
I don’t know what to say to him.
As I grapple for the right response, it occurs to me, like a blossom unfurling, that maybe it’d be okay to tell him the truth. One small piece of it, anyway.
My Byron has always been the steadiest of my matches. The one who’s able to look at a problem with logical consideration rather than flying off the handle. Nothing I’ve seen in this reality suggests this Byron is much different.
I don’t want to send him all the way from wanting to call law enforcement on me to wanting to call them for me. I choose my words carefully. “I think someone is looking for ways to hurt me. And they might be connected to this club. I just wanted to know who and why.”
Byron knits his brow. His grip on my wrist loosens just slightly. “What? Hurt you how?”
How the hell do I explain that?