“I don’t know anything,” I say, shaking my head.
He sighs. “She shouldn’t have brought you here.”
“I’m not going to fuck up,” I snap, bristling at the familiar stupid implication. Alistair and Luca don’t even know my brother, Callum, but they manage to act just like him sometimes.
Luca turns away from the window, scrunching his face up. “Didn’t say you would, but now you’re more involved. If she took you on a joyride around Vegas, the odds that whoever is watching us saw you are high. It was a dumb risk.”
“I didn’t give her much choice,” I admit. “She was shaken. I didn’t think she should be alone.”
Luca grunts. “Check the entry points.”
Shaking my head at his bossy dismissal, I do as he asks and scan the other windows. Nothing is broken or split, and the wood along the sill is scarred, but with no fresh gashes. Like the door, they’re well-maintained, but old. There are smudges on some of the lower panes, as if someone with tiny legs pressed their even tinier fingers against the glass while looking out.
Beyond that, it’s hard to get a feel for who’s been here. In addition to the thick coating of magic over the entire house, there are so many traces of different supernaturals, it’s impossible to pick out anything specific.
I blow out a breath to clear my nose. “This place is one of a kind.”
“Harry is one of a kind,” Luca says. “And she deserves answers about how someone managed to enter her home in the middle of the night without her knowing.”
Nodding, I swallow my initial suggestion. I’ve been here long enough to know they won’t consider calling the enclave for help with anything. With how my dad and Joshua run things, I’m not surprised, but it does bother me.
A flash of something catches my eye. I bend over, shove the heavy checkered curtains aside, and pull the object free from where it’s wedged in a thick crack in the floorboards.
I call for Luca, and he’s at my side a heartbeat later.
“A feather.”
He runs his finger along the edge, and I nod absentmindedly. It’s big, about the same size as Celine’s, but while hers are as white as freshly fallen snow, this one is the color of freshwater pearls. Not quite gray or white, but a cross between the two.
“This could belong to our mystery assassin,” Luca says, stuffing it in his pocket.
Excited by the discovery, we search the rest of the entry pointsquickly and thoroughly, but there’s no other sign that anyone else has been here.
The scuffed door swings open, and Celine and Harry step through, closing it behind them. I glance at Celine’s wings, noting the differences in the feathers. Not the same.
“No sign of forced entry,” Luca says. “And you were right, Harry—the wards didn’t go off at all.”
“Definitely an angel,” Celine mutters, the deep groove returning to the center of her forehead. I ignore the urge to smooth it out. That’s not my place. If she wants to frown, she can.
“I guess the kids didn’t know anything?” Luca asks, glancing at the closed door.
“Nope,” she sighs. “They can talk about growing up and their parents, but they get stuck every time I press them to tell me how they ended up here. It’s like a record-scratch moment in their memory.” Her frown grows, taking over her entire face.
“Trauma can cause memory loss,” I say, vaguely remembering a lecture I mostly slept through during my supernatural psychology class at Starfall Academy.
“Yeah, but these reactions are too uniform. The trauma response wouldn’t be identical for this many different kids.”
“You suspect something,” Harry says, her strange yellow eyes sharpening.
“More like someone,” Celine admits. “Except some of the pieces aren’t adding up. Regardless of who is doing this, though, I don’t think they plan to hurt the children or you. If they wanted to, they could have last night.”
Luca’s phone buzzes, and he pulls it out of his pocket and clears his throat. “Alistair found a spot for the overflow kids,” he says. “He’s going to call you to coordinate, Harry.”
Celine nods, but her eyes are far away. She studies the wall as I study her, watching as her wings subtly twitch, then sharpen into knives. As Luca talks quietly with Harry about transferring someof the kids to the new location, I notice he doesn’t mention the feather I found. Since I was told in no uncertain terms to shut the fuck up, I keep it to myself.
Everyone is tight-lipped here, even among their allies. They clearly like Harry, working with her closely and trusting her to keep these kids safe—but they aren’t fully transparent with her.
Lies may be optional for the enclave, but here on the Fringes they’re a way of life. Withholding details is innate, almost like breathing. I don’t know how anyone ever truly relaxes while knowing that everyone around them could be blowing smoke up their ass.
