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“I’d say to just leave it,” Damien said. “Tell Amelia you’re extremely sorry, but it’s something you don’t really want to get dragged into right… what? Why are you looking at us like that?”
My lips scrunched, my eyebrows dipped. I scratched at the back of my head, wondering if maybe I should keep the next piece of information to myself.
“Spill it,” Damien said in the big-brother tone that always got me talking.
“I already have two of the paintings.”
Damien’s jaw dropped. Robby’s golden-brown eyes almost popped out of his skull with how wide they got.
“Are you… are you serious?”
“Yup,” I said, glancing back at the ocean. So peaceful and calm, even though it held so much potential for destruction. One massive tidal wave could wipe out half the city’s population, powers and spells be damned. “That’s why I’ve been gone these past couple of months. I’ve been chasing down these damn paintings—I know Amelia doesn’t have much time left, and seeing them in person was one of her only wishes. I found one buried with a fae king in Wales and another locked up inside a museum in Tokyo. I thought I found the third and final one, but it was a fake, and a Crimson Ring initiate had already been there before me. She set off a trap that killed her.”
Damien blinked a couple of times. I could tell he wanted to reach out and smack me, just like he’d do when I was being a stubborn kid. Out of all our siblings, I was definitely the most hardheaded one, the one who’d fly into trouble without realizing it until it was far too late. “How did you even find them?”
“I know a lot of people. A lot,” I said. “Google, also.”
Damien rolled his eyes, and Robby chuckled. Although it sounded like it came more from disbelief than amusement. “And in all that time googling, you didn’t stumble across the fact that these paintings were being highly sought after by a deadly cult?”
“I’m not big on the details. You know this about me.”
He rubbed a hand over his head and sucked in a deep, salt-filled breath. Robby grinned, his smile creating a couple of dimples. He was a relatively new addition to the crew. When I met him, he was a naive human being chased by a group of vampires inside of a magic shop, and now I was looking at a vampire himself, Robby having been turned after (quite literally) the battle of our lives. He may have had different dietary needs, superhuman strength, lightning-fast speed and reflexes, and a newfound fondness for black leather jackets, but he was still pretty much the same Robby I had met all those months ago. Smiley and funny and charming, but most of all, he was hopeful.
“We’ve got your back. Whatever you need, you know your brother and I are here for you,” Robby said.
“Good, because I don’t think Amelia’s got much time, and now with the Crimson Ring on the trail for this painting, I need all the help I can get in finding it first.” I glanced around at the landing, noticing the usual picnic fixings were missing. There was no basket, no lunch or wine or cheese, only a thick blue blanket laid out on the center of the rock, two fluffed-up pillows at the head of it. “Uh… was I interrupting something?”
“When are you not?” Damien said with a chuckle, although I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or joking. Maybe both? “Where are you keeping the other two paintings?”
“Somewhere safe.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust my brother or Robby—they were some of the only few in the world I did trust—but I still wanted to keep the location of these paintings to just me for now. At least until I figured out what was happening with them.
“And do you have any other leads about where the third one could be?” Robby asked, leaning back on one of the obsidian-black stone formations. Waves foamed and crashed underneath us. Fuck, I really wanted to be laid out on the sand right now with a hot date and an extra stiff drink. And I could. I could tell Amelia this was getting far too out of hand and that I didn’t think I’d be able to get the final painting for her.
That was definitely something I could do, but it was also something I’d never do. Amelia was one of my best friends, and I didn’t have many of those these days. Aside from my family, she was one of the only people who hadn’t broken or betrayed my trust. And now she was falling apart right in front of me, and there was nothing I could do. No potion or salve or Marvel magic could cure the illness that slowly turned her to steel. Similar to how my mother was taken, except Amelia wouldn’t leave behind a pile of ash on her deathbed.
