Protests rang throughout the room from my friends, and Oberi barked loudly.
My spine straightened, and my tone turned rough. “Like hell I’m not! What do you mean, Eddie?”
“The prince gives orders, but he does not carry out the mission, sir,” Eddie said, like this was the way it had always been done. “Your Elvish Associates are here to do these dangerous jobs for you. The rest of you must remain safe here in Ilamanthe.”
“Eddie, we’ve been to prison,” Ava reminded him. “We’re used to pulling off crimes.”
“Yeah. Do you know how many houses I’ve broken into?” I asked. “I never got caught. You guys need demigods in there with you. We’re not sitting back and doing nothing. The keys areourresponsibility.”
“I understand that, sir,” Eddie said. “But I implore you not to underestimate your team. These Elves are the best in the business.”
“And so are we,” I growled.
“Yeah, we’ve seen hell,” Marcus added. “Granted, it was a hole in the ground… but we’ve been through a lot!”
“Need I remind you I’m an assassin?” Kallie said. “I’m used to pulling off shit like this and not getting caught.”
“Well, youwerecaught and sent to the Institute,” Chancey said under his breath.
“All right, everyone settle down,” I commanded. I couldn’t have contention among my team. I turned to Eddie. “Youneedme on this job. I’ve used my Earth magic to crush iron doors like they’re nothing more than a sheet of paper. I can knock the door off this vault no problem.”
“That’s not going to work,” Eddie replied. “There’s a fail-safe on the vault where if it’s broken into by force, the whole bank will explode. We could shield ourselves from the blast, but the key could end up anywhere in the rubble, and that’s time we don’t have searching for it. The authorities will show up first. Ifyou want this key, you need to do it properly. There are a series of codes and procedures we need to follow in order to unlock the vault without triggering alarms or explosions.”
“If you’re going to convince me to stay out of it, I need to know more. How long will it take before you’re ready?” I asked.
Eddie sucked a breath. “At least a week.”
That wasn’t good enough. Esther was too close to the key, and she could be in and out of that bank before my team ever made it there. I didn’t like this one bit.
Elyx must’ve noticed the look on my face, because he said, “My prince, this must be a clean job. We can’t take any risks.”
I wholeheartedly disagreed. You didn’t walk into a high-security magical bank and expect to walk out with one of the most valuable items in supernatural history without taking risks. My team should know better, because we wouldn’t win anything by playing it safe.
“I want files on everything you know about that security system so far,” I ordered.
Max handed over a folder. Ava’s brother Maverick had made me a new pair of reading glasses, and the glasses robotically read out the first few lines on the paper so I could understand what we were looking at.
When I’d gone through the entire file, I set it aside and stated, “I want the Elvish Associates to report back to me tomorrow with an update. Eddie, the five of you should get to work immediately.”
“Yes, master,” Eddie replied. He and the rest of the Associates hurried out of the room. I’d assigned him as the head of the operation, but it was clear I’d made a poor judgment call. These people weren’t willing to do what needed to be done.
“What is it?” Ava asked when the Associates had left the room. We were alone with Kallie, Marcus, Alistair, Chancey, and Ivy. “You’re thinking hard about something.”
“I don’t trust my team,” I admitted. I was agitated, so I stood from my chair and began pacing. “Who are they to say we can’t come along?I’mthe boss here. If wedohave a spy, it could be one of them. If we let them go through with this, we won’t know until it’s too late. I’m not letting these guys go without us and risk one of them taking the key. I don’t know any of them well enough to allow that, except Eddie, and he’s too trusting to think someone could betray us.”
“So what are you going to do?” Chancey asked. “Demand to go with? You’re the prince. You could get yourself killed.”
“Isn’t that what a demigod is supposed to do— be willing to die for the keys?” I demanded. “I’m not going along with them, Chancey. I’ve already got my team right here.”
“You realize this ain’t like breaking into a house, right? You ain’t stealing a frickin’ TV,” Chancey said flatly.
“One break-in is just like the others. You just have to not get caught,” I shot back. “And why trust strangers when we can do it ourselves?”
Kallie spoke up. “You’re talking about going behind their backs?”
“Why not?” I said. “I don’t owe these people loyalty. They’re supposed to be working for me. I’m not going to hand this job off to them like I’m not the one in charge.”
“It’s called delegating,” Chancey insisted.
