21. Even Educated Fleas Do It #2
Luna scrambled off the table . . . or tried to. Her legs had apparently forgotten how to work. Fortunately, he caught her before she could face-plant into the Turkish rug, which was mortifying in an entirely new way.
“We were just—” she started.
“Testing the spell,” he finished, his voice strangled.
“Very thorough,” Adrienne added, grinning like the Cheshire cat. “Very, very thorough.”
“I mean, we needed to understand the scope—” Luna tried again.
“Oh, we understand the scope,” one of the younger witches said, barely suppressing laughter. “We understand it extremely well.”
I want to die. Actually die. Cast myself into the Void . . . Maybe Elias’s old room is available?
He had his hands in his pockets now, looking everywhere except at the assembled coven. His hair was completely wrecked—Luna’s fault—and his waistcoat was half-unbuttoned—also her fault. A muscle in his jaw ticked.
“How long were we gone?” he asked, his voice remarkably steady given that he’d been horizontal sixty seconds ago.
“About four minutes,” Hector said.
“FOUR MINUTES?” Luna’s voice pitched high enough to shatter glass.
“The glamour spell creates a time dilation effect,” Diego explained. “You experienced roughly an hour. We experienced four minutes of watching you two vanish, then reappear on Adrienne’s table, making out like teenagers.”
Hector stood from his commandeered throne, and something in his demeanor had changed. The amusement was still there, lurking around the edges, but underneath it was something more serious. “Well, I think we can all agree that CastR is significantly more dangerous than we initially assessed.”
“Significantly,” Diego echoed, also standing.
The twins exchanged one of their looks that contained entire conversations. Then Hector reached into his jacket and pulled out a small leather satchel, aged and worn, with protection sigils stitched along the seams in silver thread.
“Luna Melrose,” he said formally. “We grant you access to the subway tokens. Three uses. No more.”
She stared at the satchel like it might explode. After everything—the arguments, the skepticism, the humiliating demonstration—they were just giving them what they asked for? “You’re serious?” she managed.
“Deadly serious.” Hector held out the satchel. “If that is what one spell can do, then we shudder to think what happens when a million civilians have access to the entire catalog. You were right. We were wrong.”
Luna took the satchel, hands shaking. It was heavier than she expected, and warm, like it was alive.
She could feel the power radiating from it.
The accumulated psychic energy of millions of New Yorkers, their hopes and fears and desperate wishes crystallized into something both terrible and useful.
They had just three chances now, one for each token. She just hoped it would be enough.
“Three times,” Hector repeated. “Use them wisely. Use them well. And for the love of all that’s holy, use them for the investors, not for—” he gestured vaguely at the space between Luna and Elias “—whatever that was.”
“Just a bit of research,” Elias said with as much dignity as he could muster, which was minimal.
“Uh-huh.” Diego didn’t look convinced. “Just remember: the tokens are for manipulating Vex’s funding. Nothing else. No side quests. Absolutely no personal use.”
“We understand.” Luna nodded gravely.
“Do you?” Adrienne’s voice was gentle now, the teasing set aside. “Because those tokens are the real deal, Luna. More powerful than any love spell. More dangerous than any hex in that app.”
The coven began to disperse, witches heading for the exits in twos and threes. Luna heard fragments of conversation—“did you see their faces,” “four minutes felt like an hour,” “that table is definitely cursed now”—and wanted to sink through the floor.
Only Adrienne remained, resting against the bar with a knowing look still on her face.
“So,” she said. “You two going to talk about what just happened, or are we doing the thing where we all pretend it didn’t?”
“The second one,” Luna said immediately.
“Definitely the second one,” Elias agreed.
“Cowards. For what it’s worth? You’re cute together.” She pushed off from the bar and headed for the exit, leaving Luna and Elias alone in the vintage subway car. The enchanted windows had gone dark now, no longer reflecting anything except their own uncertain faces.
“So,” she said.
“So,” he echoed.
“That was—”
“Yeah.”
“And we’re just going to—”
“Yep.”
Talk about it, part of her whispered. He said your name like you were everything. That wasn’t the spell. That was real.
Don’t talk about it, the sensible part countered. You don’t have time for feelings.
As Luna clutched the satchel tighter, feeling the responsibility of it, her heart still raced from the tangible longing hanging between them.
Her fingers trembled as they brushed against the leather, and she noticed Elias’s fingers twitching slightly, almost instinctively reaching toward hers, betraying the restraint they both struggled to maintain.
“Luna.”
“Don’t.” She held up a hand, her voice firm when inside her resolve was wavering. “Whatever you’re about to say . . . don’t. We have a job to do. Everything depends on us not getting distracted.”
“Right. No distractions.”
She saw something flicker across his face. Disappointment, maybe? Or relief? Oh gods, she thought, let it not be relief. I don’t think I could bear it.
They stood there, not quite looking at each other, the leather satchel heavy between them like a promise or a curse or both.
“We should get going,” Luna said finally. “We’ve only got nine days.”
“Nine days,” Elias repeated.
They walked toward the exit together, neither acknowledging the space between them. A space both too wide and not nearly wide enough. In the back of Luna’s mind, the piano played on, sultry and mocking. The soundtrack to everything she couldn’t afford to want.