“What kind?” Augustine asked.
If she stretched her neck and rubbed her cheek on his right wrist, he probably wouldn’t take it well. But it was so tempting. She could have shifted away from him, but she stayed where she was. She’d never thought of herself as a masochist, so why did she keep looking for the pain of having him near and not being able to touch?
“I don’t know yet,” Sutton said.
What were they even talking about? She toyed with her knife and tried to recapture the severed string of the conversation. Something, something… Compensation. Favor. Sutton wanted a favor.
“You asked for generous compensation, not munificent,” Augustine said.
“And you are asking me to break confidentiality. You’re not looking for an illusion mage but fortheillusion mage, the one I’d found two weeks ago. If people found out that I’ve talked, I would have a hard time staying in business.”
“I doubt that,” Augustine said.
“I will grant you a favor,” she said.
She instantly regretted it. The impulse to act had been too strong, so she redirected it, and she’d done it badly.
“Diana,” Augustine murmured, a cautious note in his voice.
“A favor from Prime Harrison,” Sutton said, nearly singing the words. “Yes, that will do.”
“There are conditions to that favor,” Augustine said. “Nothing that will endanger her and hers directly. No wet work, no police involvement.”
Wise. She preferred to avoid the police, and murder always carried consequences.
“Agreed.” Sutton offered her his hand across the table. “Shake on it.”
She focused on his fingers, checking for the filaments, found none, and gripped his hand. They shook.
“Juliana Glass,” Sutton said.
“Why does that sound like a pseudonym?” Augustine said.
“It’s a stage name. She is a stuntwoman. Usually operates out of Vancouver, but she is shooting a film at HCS.”
Diana raised her eyebrows.
“Hill Country Studios,” Augustine clarified. “Half an hour south of Austin.”
Hill Country. She knew the area. Limestone and granite hills, narrow ravines, caves, all of it dry, rocky, and sheathed in drought-resistant shrubs.
Sutton smiled at her. “Happy chase, Prime Harrison. One hunter to another.”
She slipped off the chair, slid the knife back into her thigh sheath, walked to the door, and paused half a breath for Augustine to open it. They stepped into the hallway and walked down the corridor toward the reception and elevators.
“That was unwise,” Augustine murmured.
“We’re running out of time.”
A teenage girl with ginger hair and a splattering of freckles on her face turned the corner ahead, walking toward them. She was about fifteen or so, dressed in ripped jeans and a white off-the-shoulder blouse.
Augustine stopped.
The teenager grinned. Her face split, revealing an old East Asian woman, then a goth-looking white man with dyed black hair, and then finally a Black man in his thirties, clean-shaven, with a short haircut and intense dark eyes. An elegant grey suit clasped his lean frame, and a double golden hoop twinkled in his right ear.
“Zaden,” Augustine greeted him.
“Augustine.”
