“No.”Krishka smiles without warmth.“But I know someone who might.”
“Who?”Ari asks.
“A banshee who trades in secrets and bad decisions.”
Cruz perks up.“I love those.”
“No, you don’t,” Knox says.
Cruz shrugs.“I might.”
Krishka ignores them both.“Her name is Moira Vale.She runs a curiosity shop in Red Hook that’s not a curiosity shop.If Crimson Door is operating again, someone paid her to keep quiet about it.”
“Then we go to Red Hook,” I say.
“No,” Knox says again.
I turn slowly, and his mouth closes.Smart man.
Aldron intervenes before I can verbally remove Knox’s spine.“We send Krishka and Cruz first.Quiet questions.No pressure.”
“I can go,” I say.
Knox’s entire body tightens, but Aldron shakes his head.“Not yet.Moira deals in fear as much as information.If you walk into her shop with memories this fresh, she’ll taste them before you reach the counter.”
My stomach turns.“Taste them?”
“Banshees are unpleasant,” Cruz says with a grin he shouldn’t have.
Krishka smiles.“We prefer complicated.”
“I said what I said.”
This should be absurd.A week ago, if someone told me I would be standing in a vampire’s office listening to a witch and a Minotaur discuss whether a banshee could taste my trauma, I might have laughed.
Now I want addresses.And weapons.And maybe more tea.
Akasha touches my sleeve, light enough that I can pretend not to notice if I need to.“You’ve already helped.”
I look at the seal.The black wax.The falling drops.“Not enough.”
Knox’s voice comes from near the door, low and scraped raw.“It’s more than enough for today.”
I look at him, and he holds my gaze this time.No command in his face.No, ‘no’ waiting on his tongue.Just something fierce and worried and almost gentle.Well, as gentle as he can manage, at least.
It hits me harder than his refusal did because I understand now.Not all of it.Not the strange way he watches me like a starving man refusing a feast.Not the black in his eyes or the way the air shifts when I step too close.
But I understand this much.
He is terrified.Not of me.Forme.And maybe, in some twisted way, of himself.
I don’t know what to do with that.So I look away.
The meeting unravels into plans.Krishka and Cruz will visit Moira.Aldron will contact old informants.Malichai will use his network.Akasha will try to trace the symbol through magical residue, though she says it might be too old to hold anything.Korvin will go with her because Korvin goes where Akasha goes, and anyone who objects probably values breathing less than I do.
I am told to rest.This time, no one says it like an order.That helps.A little.
When the others begin filing out, I linger by the window.Brooklyn stretches below, bright and indifferent.People move along the sidewalks with coffee cups, headphones, and normal problems.Late trains.Bad bosses.Rent.Hangovers.
