22. Maximum FOMO
Maximum FOMO
What a steaming pile of horseshit, he thought. Even the damn lobby’s pretending; the grift is woven into the décor.
“We’re just here to scout,” Luna whispered, clutching her satchel tight. “Map the security wards, check out the conference rooms.”
Elias turned to her, confused. “Why would there be wards? These are just folks, aren’t they? Just boring old citizens?”
“Given that your old friend Burke is mixed up in this? Who knows what’s going on up there in that office?”
The mention of Burke’s name made Elias’s gut turn sour. “My old friend, yeah, right. Old fiend, maybe.”
Luna gripped his chin, drawing his face close. “No nonsense today, you hear me? No tricks—this is just recon.”
“Don’t worry about me, sweetheart.”
“I’m not your—” Their eyes locked, and a shared vision of the Oyster Bar seemed to float above their heads. She quickly looked away. “I mean it, Shaw. We can’t afford to mess this up.”
“When have I ever messed anything up?”
“Shall I get you that list alphabetically or chronologically?”
The building’s revolving door admitted two people from the street: a woman in her mid-thirties wearing a blazer that looked expensive but somehow apologetic, and a man about the same age carrying a messenger bag with more pockets than was structurally possible.
Both wore visitor badges on lanyards. LEXI JONES, BEHAVIORAL MARKETING SPECIALIST. KYLE GORDON, brAND NARRATIVE ARCHITECT.
Brand Narrative Architect. Elias pressed his lips together to keep from sneering. Do they craft stories brick by brick? Is there a blueprint for bull?
They approached the elevator bank, and Kyle pressed the up button while Lexi consulted her phone.
“We should’ve prepped more for this,” Kyle said. “Burke’s going to ask about the Series-A narrative framework, and I haven’t even—”
“We’ll improvise,” Lexi said, checking her watch. “It’s just the investor pre-sync. Low stakes.”
“Burke doesn’t do low stakes.”
“Ha. Fair point.”
“Did you hear that?” Luna whispered. “This is—” She cut herself off, but he could read her face.
This was exactly what they’d been hoping to engineer out of thin air.
A room full of investors. Decision-makers.
And here they all were, served on a platter.
A perfect moment to deploy a token. “But we’re not prepared.
We don’t have credentials, we don’t have a cover story—”
“We have them.” He nodded toward the consultants waiting for the elevator, then he waggled his eyebrows. “You could . . .” waggle waggle “You know?”
Luna’s eyes widened. “No. Shaw, that’s insane.”
“Ohhh okay,” he said winkingly. “I mean, if you can’t handle it then—”
“Hey! I can handle it.”
The elevator dinged. The doors opened, and Kyle and Lexi stepped inside.
Luna gripped Elias’s arm; at first he thought she’d drag him out to scold him. Instead, she breathed in, squared her shoulders, and led him into the elevator.
“Heading up?” Lexi asked pleasantly as they crowded in.
“Yes,” Luna said, her voice steady despite the death grip she had on his sleeve. “We are.”
“You here for the CastR pre-sync?” Kyle adjusted his glasses. The man looked like he’d been assembled from a catalog titled Inoffensive Corporate Professional Monthly.
Luna’s smile didn’t falter. “Of course.”
“Oh, are you with Burke’s team?” Lexi perked up. “I don’t think we’ve met—”
“We’re handling the, uh . . .” Elias glanced at the badge “. . . brand narrative architecture. Obviously.”
“Oh, you’re those consultants,” Kyle said brightly. “I thought you weren’t due until next week.”
“Change of plans,” Luna managed. “Very last minute.”
“Fantastic! The more, the merrier.”
As Kyle babbled on about something called a “messaging matrix,” Elias saw Luna’s hand move almost imperceptibly.
Her lips formed words so quiet they were less sound than suggestion.
As she worked the spell, a metallic tang filled the air, the taste of copper lingering at the back of his throat.
As the elevator doors began to close, the air inside shimmered like heat off a summer pavement.
Light bent. For just a heartbeat, the space inside the elevator split, like looking through water at two different depths. Elias’s stomach lurched—not from the motion, but from the sensation of reality folding over itself.
The doors reopened immediately. There were still four people in the elevator. But two looked like Lexi, and two looked like Kyle.
The real Lexi and Kyle blinked, their expressions going slack and confused, as if the glamour spell had gently pushed their awareness aside.
“I . . .” Real Kyle touched his forehead. “Does anyone else feel weird?”
“I feel like I need coffee,” Real Lexi said slowly. “Like, really need coffee. Right now.”
“Yeah.” Kyle was already moving toward the lobby doors. “Yeah, let’s—there’s that place on Mercer—”
“With the oat milk—”
“God, yes.”
They wandered out into the street, still looking dazed, leaving their duplicates—Luna and Elias in borrowed faces—standing alone in the elevator.
The doors slid closed.
Elias caught their reflection in the polished steel walls.
His face was Kyle’s now—forgettable features, boring glasses, that messenger bag.
Luna had become Lexi, complete with the apologetic blazer and sensible heels.
But in the warped metal, just for a second, he could see them.
The real them. Luna’s curly hair. His own face, still trying to process what she’d just done with a whisper and a gesture.
Holy hell, he thought. She’s magnificent.
Luna adjusted her blazer. “Don’t touch your face. And try not to think about your appearance. The glamour reads intent, and if you start obsessing about looking different, it’ll flicker.”
“Noted. You look very . . . consultant-esque.”
“Not a word.”
“Should be.” The elevator climbed, and floor numbers ticked past. “You also look terrified, for what it’s worth.”
“I am terrified,” she admitted. “We’re about to face investors with no prep and a glamour spell that could fail at any second.”
The elevator was suddenly very small. Elias could smell whatever perfume the real Lexi wore—something floral and expensive.
Or maybe that was Luna’s actual scent bleeding through the glamour.
He found himself noticing the way she was breathing, quick and shallow, the way her fingers drummed against the satchel.
Don’t, he told himself. Focus on the job. Not on the fact that four hours ago you had her on a table and—
The elevator dinged.
* * *
CastR headquarters occupied the entire top floor of what had probably once been a legitimate place of business before Silicon Valley ate half of Manhattan.
Exposed brick. Edison bulbs. A neon sign that read SPELL.
SHARE. SCALE. in letters as tall as Elias himself.
Twenty-something kids clustered around standing desks, typing furiously on those impossibly thin computers.
A barista station in one corner served something green and viscous: Elias could smell the grass clippings from across the room.
Whiteboards were covered in sigils and slogans: MAKE MAGIC HUMAN.
DAILY ACTIVE SPELLS +40%. GROWTH IS A SPELL WE CAST TOGETHER.
Is this a business or a cult?
“Try to look like you belong,” Luna whispered.
“I’m trying not to look like I want to burn this place down.”
At the far end, through glass walls, a conference room buzzed with activity. People crowded around a long table. More faces filled a massive screen on the wall—that Zoom thing Luna had tried to explain, which still sounded like witchcraft to him. Ironic given the circumstances.
And at the head of the table, perfectly tailored and unnaturally still, sat Upson Burke III.
Elias stopped walking.
His heart, which had been cooperating nicely all morning, decided to stage a revolt.
Burke. Here. Not theoretical, not hypothetical, but here, in a conference room twenty feet away, looking exactly as he had back in the Twenties.
Maybe paler. More preserved, like something pickled.
A faint shimmer clung to the old man’s outline—protection wards, probably, the kind money and paranoia bought in bulk.
Look at you. Elias stared at the old (and yet not nearly old enough) man in amazement. He’d been mentally raging at Burke for a hundred years, and now? Here he was. Just standing there. Like nothing at all. I almost got you, and I paid a hundred years for trying.
He felt Luna’s hand on his arm. Light. Grounding.
“Shaw,” she whispered. “Stay with me.”
He looked at her—at Lexi’s face with Luna’s behind it—and something in his chest unclenched. Not entirely. But enough. “I’m with you.”
“We stick to the plan.”
“I know.”
“No revenge fantasies. We play this smart.”
He wanted to argue. Wanted to remind her that Burke had killed his brother. That justice delayed was still justice. But she was looking at him with an expression that was part concern, part warning, and entirely too effective. “Fine,” he sighed.
“Thank you.”
“But if he so much as looks at you wrong—”
“Shaw.”
“—I’m throwing him through that window.”
“We’re on the twelfth floor.”
“Good. He’ll have time to think about his choices on the way down.”
He saw her bite back a smile. They were okay. For now, anyway.
A young woman with a tablet and an urgent expression appeared at their elbow. “Ms. Jones? Mr. Gordon? So glad you could make it. Mr. Burke is just about to start.” She ushered them into the conference room before either could object.
Burke stood as they entered. Every muscle in Shaw’s body went on high alert. The old man’s expression was gracious, practiced, the gaze of someone who’d spent a long time learning how to pretend he gave a damn about other people.
“Ms. Jones, Mr. Gordon.” Burke’s voice was smooth as aged bourbon. “So glad you could make it. Please, sit.”
Luna took a chair near the middle of the table. Elias positioned himself across from her—close enough to signal, far enough to avoid looking too familiar.