“Where do you suggest I move my elbow? Off my arm?” Beth shoots back.
“We could move the computer to the coffee table,” Maisie suggests. “Then we could all see.”
“But the cord won’t stretch that far, and the Nevermore Bookshop wi-fi is so terrible because of all the weird magic in the air,” Mina points out.
“I’m not ‘weird magic’.” Isis sticks out her tongue. “That’s insulting.”
“Beth, move your elbow before I turnyouinto a beauty elixir.”
“Croak!” The shop raven – actually Mina’s husband, Quoth – flaps his wings dramatically, trying to make them all shut up.
“Quack!” Maisie’s duck hops around the room, not wanting to be left out.
“Ladies and birds! I know that being this close to me drives everyone mad with lust, but if you give me some room, I’ll be able to get this done faster.” Morrie types furiously. The Nevermore Coven doesn’t hear him over their bickering.
I stare at my phone, flicking idly through headshots of Sanctus members Morrie sent me, looking for someone I recognise. Every face blurs together. I expected to feel triumphant after I pulled off this heist. It’s exactly what Gideon did to me all those years ago. But I can’t stop thinking about his expression when he lay next to me, the way being in his arms felt like coming home. The tenderness in his voice when he told me that he was giving Sanctus Club to me for the variety show.
He wants to knit our bones together.
He says helovesme.
I pull the torn piece of fabric from my pocket, running my fingers over the charred edge.His precious treasure. He kept this in his safe. He said that he’d grieved me, past tense, but if he kept this fabric and made the club from memory, did his grieving ever end?
Even though remembering me made him sad, he chose to live in that sadness every night so that he could keep one foot in the only world I existed in – his memories.
And I thought that if I asked him for the hard drive, he’d refuse me?
I don’t understand Gideon Blake at all.
For the first time since becoming a vampire, I’m confronted by the curse of our long life – that there is no end to suffering, not even the relief of time. I spent a century and a half hating Gideon. And he spent that same time turning my memory into something bold and useful – creating beauty from his loneliness instead of encasing it in spite.
Which of us is the greater evil?
“Morrieeeee,” Mina whines, dragging me back to the present. “Can you give us an update on what you’re seeing? Beth is clawing my arm off.”
“Sorry, I’m just excited to finally figure out who this husker is so we can deal with them.”
Beth does look excited – her face flushed, her skin glowing. This is as much her revenge as it is mine. She was thrilled when I asked for her help in my heist. She caught me as I collapsed at the doors to SanctusHouse, dressed me in an absurd disguise that shielded my precious skin from the sunlight, and dragged me out the gates using her visitor ID and into Celeste’s waiting car. Hopefully, it will all be worth it, and we’ll find out who burned her theatre and husked Danny and Patrick.
“Fine, fine. In the interest of saving your beautiful skin for my little games…” Morrie leans back in his chair. “Most of this is information on the Sanctus members – personal, private data about some of the most important vampires in the world. Family histories, bloodlines, court affiliations, investment portfolios… it’s all here and protected by several layers of encryption. Gideon’s clever, I’ll give him that. Not clever enough for me, but as well as being the Napoleon of Crime, I am also the Charlemagne of Clever, the Julius Caesar of Cunning, and the Marie Antoinette of Avarice—”
“Yes, yes.” Mina elbows him. “Can you stop with the epithets and start with the case-breaking info? We need a list of everyone at Sanctus who could potentially be our killer.”
“I’ve already forwarded headshots to Arabella. She’s looking through those for anyone she met in her previous career. Meanwhile, I’m looking for anything that jumps out as unusual, which isn’t as simple as you think, because I don’t know what I’m looking for, but hmmm… this is interesting.”
“What’s interesting?” Beth leans closer.
“It’s records of emails sent between Gideon and Augustin Durant.”
Komal leans forward. “What did you say?”
“These emails go back to the start of the Sanctus project. A lot of it is arranging meetings with the council about the planning application, which is all perfectly above board. But here…” Morrie taps the screen. “Gideon has sent a significant amount of money to Augustin Durant for ‘Consulting Services’. It looks as though Durant used that money to bribe members of the council to approve the Sanctus Estate planning application.”
Komal leaps into the middle of the rug and starts turning in wild circles, her arms flapping at her sides.
“What are you doing?” I snap. “Are you possessed by a demonic chicken?”
“This is my victory dance,” Komal yells. “After all these years of torture from that prick Augustin Durant, after all of my projects being delayed or denied or stonewalled by his stupid pretty face, Ifinallyhave something to get him with.”
