The Gilded Mortar stood quiet and dark, its entrance guarded by two City Watch officers. The distant, muffled chatter of the night market felt a world away.
August stood beside Felix and Marlow, studying the building from the around the corner of a shop across the street.
How a criminal had convinced the Watch to work for him was beyond August’s understanding. They were supposed to uphold the law. To stop crime, not shield those who committed it.
When one of the officers swung his gaze toward them. August pressed his back against the cool stone wall and held his breath.
“Relax, Auggie,” Felix said, sounding far too amused. “It’s a public street. We’re allowed to be here.”
“You sure we can’t just sneak around the back?” August asked. “Go through a window?”
“There are no windows. We need your power.”
The last thing August wanted to do was go back to the Hollow Dark. What if he got them inside the shop and the others both passed out like Felix had in the pub? What was he supposed todo then? Peek his head out the front door and ask the Watch for help?
Hey there! Yeah, we just broke into the place you’re guarding, but any chance you could maybe not arrest us and give us a hand instead?
He didn’t want to be here. Didn’t want any part of this.
But Felix was counting on him. And Lottie was waiting.
“Ready when you are,” Felix pressed. If he was nervous, his eyes betrayed nothing.
August flexed his fingers, dragging his focus inward to call forward whatever it was inside him that made this work, waiting for the pinpricks, and—
Nothing.
The two other times he’d done this, it had been life or death. The fear of plummeting to the ground from the castle window, the fear of losing Felix to a crazed woman with a hatchet. His power had manifested on its own, an instinctive split-second response. Now, he didn’twantto open the veil, and it felt as if his power understood that.
“Performance anxiety?” Felix asked.
August frowned. “Shut up. Just give me a minute.”
With a slow, measured breath through barely parted lips, he tried again, searching for the feeling beneath his skin, but finding only the silent hum of Felix’s magic beside him.
“Solach, Auggie,” Felix whispered suddenly, urgency tightening his voice. He grabbed August’s arm and wrenched him back. “They’re coming this way. They know. Hurry!”
Icy dread gripped August, and he squeezed his eyes shut. He was going to blow it. The Watch would recognize him and bring him home.
No, he couldn’t face his mother after everything that had happened, couldn’t handle the disgust and the disappointment. He couldn’t go home.
“Come on!” Felix urged.
Finally, the familiar sensation crept up August’s fingers, and when he opened his eyes, the air around him shimmered. Heart pounding, he reached out, scrabbling for a grip on the fabric of the veil. Once he had it, he tore it open with a rough swipe, then whirled to face the others.
Felix smirked, and the panic inside August turned wobbly. His gaze flicked to the Watch, still slouched against the shopfront.
“You liar!”
“Worked, didn’t it?”
August glared as anger burned in his chest, but then Felix’s mouth lifted into the lopsided smile that always made his face burn. “Can you at leastpretendto feel bad?”
“Your eyes look good like that,” Felix said, his voice velvet-smooth.
Though August wasn’t sure what he meant, the compliment melted him from the inside out.
Felix grabbed his hand, their fingers lacing together (which only worsened the melting), then reached for Marlow’s.
