“Wanna go out for breakfast?” Gemma asks.
“Yeah, that sounds good. Leave in twenty minutes?”
“Give me at least half an hour to look presentable.”
* * *
“We need code words.”Gemma pours syrup on her pancakes.
“For what?”
“For the things we can’t talk about.”
“That’s generally why you’d use a code word.” I laugh.
“Exactly. So instead of saying magic,” she whispers, looking around the cafe, “we should say makeup.”
I cock an eyebrow. “Okay. Well, then…when we get back, I need to consult my book and learn some new makeup techniques.”
“Notthe book. The internet. Oh—YouTube!”
“Right. YouTube.” I pick up a piece of bacon. “I need to be ready.”
“For the fashion show.”
“Yeah, since we don’t know exactly when the show will happen, or if any other professional makeup artists will be there, uh, competing against me.”
Gemma’s brows pinch together and I know she’s getting worried. “I have a bad feeling about this, Ace. I don’t like it at all. It’s just all so…so creepy.”
“That’s why I want to get it over with. Find out who’s been watching me practice my, uh, makeup skills and find out what they want from me.”
“Luckily you have some good male models on your team.”
I smile at the thought of the guys. “Yeah. I do.” Shaking my head, I take a bite of bacon, not wanting to think about anything else at the moment. I need to compartmentalize better and stop being so panicked about this.
I’ll figure it out.
I always do.
After breakfast, we go to an electronics store and I end up spending double what I expected on camera equipment. The guy at the store had fun selling me everything I need to turn my house into Fort Knox, with enough spotlights and motion sensors to make it impossible for anyone to set foot on the property without me knowing.
I lock the expensive equipment in the trunk of the car, and Gemma and I go to Lyra’s magic shop to load up on supplies. Between the two of us, the house is always well stocked—magically speaking—but it never hurts to prevent our stash from running low.
And besides, I want to ask Lyra about the weird symbol. She’s not a fraud like I thought she was when we first met. I do believe her to have some magical powers, like Gemma, but nowhere near the power I do. Still, she sees a lot and knows the city’s New Age population better than anyone. So even if she doesn’t know what the symbol means, she might have seen it on someone else.
“Hello, ladies,” Lyra says in her usual sing-song voice. She’s almost always smiling, and seems to genuinely be a happy person.
“Hey, Lyra,” Gemma replies with a smile.
“I just got a new shipment of crystals in,” she tells us, sweeping her hand in the direction of the display. “With a few rare ones that I think will go fast.”
Gemma jumps all over it and goes to look. I pull a piece of paper from my purse and go to the counter, quickly drawing the symbol from the wax seal.
“This is probably a long shot,” I start. “But have you seen this before?”
Lyra takes the paper and tips her head as she looks at it. “Yes.”
“Really?” I blurt, not expecting that at all.
