Their signs are unmistakable:Warning! Do not tread here.
But the darkness creeps in alongside those messages, andthatmessage is simple:This will work. And the signs they offer are apple pie and cinnamon rolls and lemon sorbet: delicious and sweet and tempting.
And so I tread there: “We’re going to recruit total strangers to help us pull off a heist?”
Pax positively beams. “Who better than a team of psychics to pull off a heist? What could possibly go wrong?”
Questions with no answers.
I was unsure, to this point, if Pax also had the gift of Sight.
Now I know for sure he does not. And I must say, I’m relieved. Two of us, together, with Sight? It would be far too intense. And honestly? Knowing that I’m the one here with a connection empowers me. He truly does need me. Needs mygift, actually. I must keep that straight.
But Pax has no idea how this gift actually works.
He thinks I can ask questions and receive answers.
He thinks I can see the future.
No.
This is a stingy relationship on Spirit’s part.
Oh, Stella, I’d give you my own heart, if I could.
Yah. But a taste for revenge? That, we will not give you.
That is of your own making.
I mull over these messages, and the clockworks shop next door begins binging. Bonging. Coo-cooing. Tweeting. Ringing. Buzzing. It’s high noon, and the clocks go wild. Nirav crouches, covers his ears. Pax closes his eyes and inhales every second tossed at us.
His breath, in sync with time itself. I feel myself getting lost. I am pulled toward him, his passion, his desire for justice. He might not have a psychic gift, but his gift is one of persuasion. He almost seems to coax time and space to his bidding, his influence is so powerful. I cannot look away.
Bong. Tweet. Buzz. Tick tick tick.
We have three weeks until Blanck’s party.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
That afternoon, as we’re hauling decrepit old desks and moldy accounting ledgers onto the street, a busker sets up shop on the corner. He’s an organ grinder, and atop his shoulder sits a small monkey in a bellhop’s hat.
Ah, a hurdy-gurdy man!
Any place with some happy music nearby is a good place.
Nirav’s eyes widen at the sight of the monkey. Pax cannot resist his joy; he squats in front of Nirav and produces a penny with a flourish.
“Go request a song,” Pax says.
Nirav shyly takes the penny and scurries across the road. “Any other coins in there?” I pretend to look in his coin purse. “Say, that nickel you still owe me?”
A grin chips its way across Pax’s face, carving his dimple. “Patience, Stella. I told you: I always pay my debts.”
Nirav pinches the penny and holds it aloft in front of the street performers. The monkey knows his job: He hops off the shoulder of the hurdy-gurdy man and snatches the penny from Nirav’s fingers. Nirav tosses his mane of black hair and laughs so joyfully, my heart practically bursts.
The monkey tips his tiny hat, and Nirav claps and bounces on his toes. The performer tugs on the tattered rope that tethers monkey to man, and the creature scurries back to his owner,climbs up his person, and sits on the boxy organ grinder.
The hurdy-gurdy man winks at Nirav and turns the crank on the side of his organ grinder. The monkey sways his head to and fro, a small dance.
