Page 82 of Veil of Night & Flames

As Tia gives me two enthusiastic thumbs-up, Vance clears his throat. “Pardon?”

“This isn’t your way in with me,” I say firmly, feeling braver by the second. This is you doing a favor for me as a baby step toward maybe one day paving your way to me.”

For a long moment, he’s quiet. “I see. Then by all means, tell me when you wish to come by. We can review the catalog and then pull the material if it is in our collection. Then you can settle in one of our reading rooms for as long as you need.”

Beside me, Tia is shaking her head and mouthing no, no, no. When she points to herself and Riley, I clear my throat. “Actually, I think it’s better if Tia and Riley come by to review the catalog this afternoon. They can bring the gloss back here and return it after we have a chance to review. Three o’clock work?”

“Cora you can’t expect⁠—”

“I can, actually. And I do. And if you say no, the answer to every other thing you have ever or will ever offer me is also a no. And I have a feeling you have a lot of things to say to me. Things that if you help me out today, I might someday agree to.”

The silence after that is long enough that I wonder if the call’s dropped.

Then he exhales and says, “Of course,” very quietly. “Three o’clock. Tell your friends to come to the side entrance and ask for me.”

“Thank you.”

“Cora.”

“Yes.”

“You are very much your mother’s daughter.”

He hangs up before I can answer.

I set the phone down on the table, feeling pretty damn proud of myself.

For a few seconds, nobody moves.

Then Tia lets out a long breath. “Wow,” she says. “You kicked serious ass.”

I shake my head. “Not really. He wants access to me. There was no way he wouldn’t cave.”

“Bullshit. You rocked it.”

I grin. “Yeah,” I say, meeting Riley’s high-five. “I guess I did.”

I turn to look at Chase, who’s looking back at me with pride. He gives me a thumbs-up, and I laugh, then get up and move into his arms.

“None of that,” Tia-the-Taskmaster says. “We have tons of time until Riley and I go fetch the book.” She glances pointedly toward me and Chase, then at the table. “Plenty of time for research.”

I grimace, then brush a kiss over Chase’s lips. “Better make more coffee.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I was just thinking that.”

The morning goes by fast in research mode, and my stomach’s grumbling when Tia scoots her chair back and says, “Oh, this is cool.”

“You found something?”

Tia waggles her eyebrows. “Yeah, a book on your boyfriends.”

“Excuse me?” Chase says, looking up from where he’s camped on the sofa reading a book in some language he knows and that I’ve never heard of.

“Yeah,” Tia says, clearly pleased with herself. “It’s all about the Guardian.”

I hold my hands out and wiggle my fingers. “Gimme.”

“Work now,” Chase calls. “Read the damn book and interrogate me later.”