Page 56 of Twist of Fate

“No one asked you.”

Luke sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you?”

“Yes.”

“Because you have a weird way of showing it.”

Luke accepted the blow. Gomez had spent years trusting that Luke’s business trips were exactly what they appeared to be. He had never needed to understand the precautions Luke took before leaving or the contingency plans that existed in case he failed to come home.

Today, those safeguards had failed them both.

“I never intended for any of this to reach you,” Luke said.

“But it did.”

“I know.”

Gomez studied him. The anger Luke expected never came. Hurt did, quieter and far more difficult to face.

“If something happens to you,” Gomez said, “I deserve to know enough to understand why.”

Luke looked at his best friend. Gomez was safe, but only because Zer had crossed into the human realm and taken the decision out of everyone else’s hands. If Luke had died in that warehouse, Gomez would have been left with nothing but a fake interview and a missing roommate.

“You do,” Luke said.

Gomez waited.

Luke wanted to give him more. The truth had remained locked away for so long that he no longer knew how to offer part of it without risking all of it. Not here, surrounded by people whose loyalties he was still learning. Not while he didn’t know whether Hale had betrayed him or whether the drive contained something capable of threatening an entire magical realm.

“I can’t explain everything yet,” Luke said. “But I won’t disappear without leaving you answers again.”

“That sounds dangerously close to a promise.”

“It is.”

Gomez released a slow breath. “Fine. I’m temporarily postponing this argument on account of magical exhaustion and the fact that I have approximately six hundred questions for the tiny but perfect pixie sitting beside me.”

Avaneel beamed.

“We’re going to revisit it,” Gomez warned.

“I know.”

“When I can stand up and throw things.”

“I’ll make sure nothing breakable is nearby.”

“Coward.”

The familiar insult loosened something in Luke’s chest.

Gomez pointed toward the place beneath Luke’s shirt where the drive had disappeared. “What happens to the world’s most dangerous office supply now?”

“I find out what’s on it.”

“How?”