Seracia skims it, eyeing me with suspicion. It’s deliberate that Case is leading this. We want Seracia to forget. But she’s known me a long time. She knows how we got the magic suppressants.
“You want me to put what the Truth-Telleralready hasinto Aila Foxcross’s hands, so he canbuy it backfrom her?”
Case leans forward on his elbows. “I believe I just said that.”
“I don’t like this.” Seracia shakes her head.
“Okay.” He sits back and crosses his arms over his chest. “Let me put it like this. Put these on consignment with Aila Foxcross, and I’ll payyouwhat she gets.”
My muscles stiffen involuntarily, but while Seracia’s scooping the bracelets into a spelled satchel under the table — and before anyone notices — I force them to relax. Case doesn’t have that kind of gold, nor did he run it by me. A thousand gold to Aila and a thousand gold to Seracia. It’s two decent-sized houses. The cost of an artifact. But I’ll pay it. Gold doesn’t mean anything tome when, in a few weeks, I’ll be dead.
“Anything else?” she asks.
I turn, slide the velvet curtain back an inch to peer into the blackness, and search for any shadows — Dark Witches — who might be listening in the corridor. But it’s clear.
“A Death Bond for Case,” I murmur. “A vow to look after her when I’m gone. He knows what I mean by that.”
Seracia gives me a knowing look, her fine brows lifting in a weary arch. “I think weallknow what you mean by that.” Then her dark-brown eyes pivot to Case, dropping to his easy grin. “You agree to this?”
Case slings an arm over my shoulder, jostling me. “Do I look like I’m under duress?”
I throw his arm off and shoot him another glare that only makes his mouth curve in amusement. What we’re doing is serious. I don’t like Death Bonds. I don’t make a habit of asking people to pledge their lives for me. Unless it’s for their safety, which in this instance it is. I know Case. He’ll look after Ember whether I ask him to or not, and when they catch him doing it — at least with a Death Bond on his arm, he can say his life was at stake if he didn’t.
“Put your arm on the table then,” Seracia says.
Case pushes up a sleeve, presenting her the underside of his forearm. She probes his skin with delicate fingers, while Case makes faces like it’s hurting him. When her hand lifts, there’s a darkly shaded rose on his skin.
That done, now we’re at the part where he can’t be here, so I pretend to hear something on the other side of the black curtain.
“What was that?” I ask.
“Yourimagination?”
“Go patrol the corridor, Case.”
He listens, for once. I wait for the sound of his footsteps and idle whistling to fade before beginning. “I need to know whatthis is.” I place Arissa’s gold coin under the candlelight for Seracia to inspect. The land dragon inscribed on one side of it resembles the ones at the Allwitch temple. On the other side, there’s an image of a tree from the Circle of Seven.
“I can’t tell you,” she says, after turning it over for a long minute, weighing it.Can’ttell me and notI don’t know— the only way she can answer without lying about it. “You’ll have to ask an Allwitch.” She dusts the coin on the tablecloth as my trip wiresping, mentally transmitting that Case is crossing back. “Take the ferry out of Gnarlton. The one with the blind captain. The passage will take you to Alchemia.Ifyou survive it.”
She returns the coin, and I slip it in my backpack just in time for Case to flick aside the curtain.
“Yeahhh. You’ll be doingthatwithout me.”
“Case,” I sigh.
I trust him, as much as Ash or Rayne, but if the coin means what I think it does, he’s safer not knowing. He leaves, but not without kicking my wires so my brain chimes multiple times on his way. It won’t be long before he gets bored and returns.
“Where did you come across it?” Seracia asks. There’s another ask coming. There always is.
“Prison.”
“Interesting.” She raises her brows, her voice a sweet venom. “I want you to get me into the Creation Academy. As a student. I asked Charley, but — different priorities.”
“You’re a Dark Witch. Wards are one thing, but passing as a Creation student — ”
“I’ll pass.”
I pause at the curtain as I’m on my way out. Getting Seracia into the Creation Academy won’t be easy, but I need her to keep working with me. I check the zip on the pocket the coin’s in before leaving and say, “I’ll see.”
