Ava rolled out of the room, and I reluctantly followed her into the master suite.
“Pidge, you can’t be serious!” I fumed. “You invited Danny and Alistair!”
“They deserved to know what happened,” she said. “They’re our friends.”
I scoffed. “Alistair, yes, but that’s a stretch for Danny. Forget about what happened with the Dollmaker; the fact that they’re here has already compromised the whole mission. We might as well let Salvatore move the vampire key and hunt for it later.”
“We didn’t come all this way just to give up,” Ava snapped. “Cassiel would riot if he knew we turned back now.”
Ouch. She knew exactly where to hit me. I promised my grandfather I wouldn’t let him down, and I wasn’t going to let anyone— not the Dollmaker, and certainly not Danny— force me to go back on my word.
I paced around the room and ran my fingers through my hair. “We’re running out of time. Getting that key is vital to the fate of the fucking world. It’s now or never.”
“Then we have to adjust our plan,” Ava suggested. She reached out for me, and I stopped pacing. “We can do this. We just have to be clever. Together, we can pull this off.”
I sighed heavily. “What were you thinking?”
“Take me with you. Kallie can’t come along to crack the safe, so you’ll have to rely on me.”
“Pidge, you can’t break open that safe the way Kallie can,” I argued.
“Ican,” she insisted. “I’ve done it before. Back home, I used my water powers to break the lock on the safe in my parents’ bedroom.”
“You couldn’t break into the bank vault, though,” I pointed out.
“This is a different type of safe. The bank vault was a door, and this is just a box. I can break this tumbler system with my Water magic, and force my way in.”
“And if that triggers alarms?” I asked.
“It’s a chance we have to take,” Ava pressed. “You planned for backups every step of the wayexceptfor cracking the safe. Let me come with, and we can do this together. We need to get the vampire key today, no matter what it takes.”
The last thing I wanted to do was put Ava in any danger, but I didn’t doubt her, either. I trusted that she could pull this off.
“You’re our leader, Charlie,” she added. “It’s ultimately up to you, but I know I can do this.”
Ava was right. Iwasthe leader on this, and I had to get comfortable making tough decisions quickly. It’s what my grandfather would do.
“Okay, you’re with me, but we need to hurry,” I conceded. “The longer we wait, the closer we get to sunset, and the vampires will be more active then. We have to move faster than we originally planned.”
“Then let’s discuss the change of plans with the others,” Ava said.
We returned to the main room, where Max was clicking away at her keyboard. “Asa and Aries are ahead of us,” she said. “We’re already tapped into The Devil’s City security feed. We have full control over the security system, so we can cover your tracks from here. Security won’t know where you’re at.”
“Good, because it’s time to move,” I replied.
At the sound of my voice the others gathered around, waiting on my orders. Marcus left Kallie’s room, taking my side.
“I’m with you, Charlie,” he said. “Kallie wants me to do this with you guys, and though I don’t want to leave her at a time like this, Ez and Ava’s mom will take care of her. Kallie made meswearI’d get the vampire key and bring it back to Ilamanthe. She doesn’t want our time in Chicago to be for nothing.”
I’d say. If we missed out on the vampire key, Kallie’s torment at the hands of the Dollmaker would end up being an unneeded sacrifice. We couldn’t let that happen.
“Change of plans,” I announced. “We’re sending Kallie back to the palace once she’s stable and getting her out of harm’s way. Ava will be taking Kallie’s place and accompanying us into The Devil’s City. Everything else is remaining as close to the original plan as possible.”
“I’m coming with,” Danny insisted. “You’re going to need me out there.”
Fucking hell.
“You can take Ava’s place and stay here on comms,” I told him, because that was the safest place to put him.
