I reach for a book from the top shelf—a doorstopper on symbols of wealth and prosperity in the Tarot—and flip it open, revealing a cutaway with four USB drives tucked inside.
I turn to her and offer it up.
“What’s all this?” she asks, fingering the drives. “Backups?”
“You could’ve just asked me,” I say, some old, leftover bullshit need to get the last word on the matter. “The good news is, whoever stole the computers is out of luck. There’s no way they can crack my passwords—they won’t even be able to boot up the systems. Everything is encrypted and coded to my personal magickal signature. Everything but these.”
Casey narrows her eyes. “You keep sensitive research backups hidden in a book on your shelf, just sitting there for anyone to grab?”
“No one ever thinks to look there.”
It’s true. The entire office is trashed. Even the carpet is torn up from the floorboards—likely someone was looking for a floor safe or secret cache. But the drives remained secure, tucked into a dusty tome alongside a hundred other dusty tomes, completely unremarkable inside the office of a research librarian.
My sister holds my gaze, fingers hovering over the drives, neither of us speaking for a long moment.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
“So am I.”
She closes her eyes, then curses under her breath. When she finally opens them again, she pulls her hand back, relinquishing her prize.
I set the book on the desk, blowing out a breath.
I still don’t trust her—she’s keeping secrets, and she’s definitely up to something tonight.
But she didn’t take the bait. Maybe she’s not one of the bad guys after all.
“I’ll explaineverythinglater,” she says. “I promise. But please listen to me on this. You and Baz need to leave campus right now. Take your research back to Red Sands and put it somewhere safe. Keep watch over Ani. And don’t let anyone else into that house that you don’t completely trust.”
“So that’s it?” Baz asks.
“That’s it for now.”
“Right.” He leans back against the wall, folding his arms over his chest. “We’re gonna need alittlemore to go on here, Case.”
Casey looks to me to put Baz in his place, but as far as I’m concerned, she hasn’t earned full membership in the circle of trust.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“To meet Agent Quintana and discuss our plan of action.”
“Here’s your plan,” Baz says. “Arrest Anna Trello. Lock that bitch up and throw away the key. Then light Phaines’s dead ass on fire while you’re at it.”
“Despite what you may believe,” she says, “Trello is on our side. So is Agent Quintana. Beyond that, I can’t vouch for anyone.”
A flicker of unease pings my chest. “Eastman?”
Casey’s eyes blaze with raw anger, her jaw clenching. Wordlessly, she shakes her head.
“Are you kidding me?” I ask. “Not three weeks ago, you stood in this very room, singing the man’s praises. Said he was a good man. Dedicated. Smart.” I glare at her, needing her to push back, just this once. To tell me heisa good, dedicated man.
Because if Casey no longer has faith in her boss—a man she once admired, a man who’s worked for the APOA for decades, a man who swore to uphold the laws of our magickal society and protect magickandus at all costs…
“I was wrong,” she says. “That ends now.”
Wrong. The word burns through my chest, twisting inside me.
“Kirin.” She puts her hand on my forearm and meets my eyes, her own soft and pleading. “We’ll talk more at Red Sands. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
