Page 81 of Veil of Night & Flames

“We don’t even know if the book will have any useful information.”

“We can’t ignore it and hope it’s just the old monk’s calorie-counting journal. You know that as much as I do.”

He pushes off the wall and walks to me so that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. “And you know that Vance is a wild card. All the Oneiroi are.”

“I’m not going to ask him to join us, and I’m not going to be his best friend. But we need this. And right now, we can make this happen on my terms.”

He tilts his head. “Those terms being?”

I shrug. “He hands me the gloss. I return it in a week. And by doing that, he earns my trust, for whatever that’s worth to him. End of story.”

“He won’t agree to that,” Chase says.

“He will.”

He looks dubious. For that matter, so do Tia and Riley.

“He will,” I say again. “He wants something from me, and the only thing he has to offer me right now is access to that gloss. If he tries to leverage it into a sit-down, I’ll tell him no. And I’ll make clear that every other door he’s been holding open for me—the coffees, the conversations, the Whitehall library—closes the moment he says no. You guys know he doesn’t want that.”

Riley nods slowly, then turns toward Chase. “I think she’s right.”

I look at Chase, too. So does Tia. Eventually, he nods.

I pull out my phone, dial Sebastian’s number, and take my newfound cajónes out for their first joyride.

He picks up on the second ring.

“Cora.”

His voice is warm over the speaker. “What a pleasure to hear from you.”

“I’m glad you think so,” I say. “Because I have a favor to ask.”

“How can I help?”

I glance toward my bestie, my insides tied in knots. She gives an encouraging nod, and I force myself to talk. “The thing is, Tia’s been working through a translation, and we’re looking for a commentary on the text. We think there’s a kind of vocabulary key that was written decades after the original.”

“And you believe that key is in the Oneiroi’s collection.”

“I’m hoping so.” I take a breath for courage and cross my fingers for luck. “I’d really like to look through your catalog, and if it’s there, I’d like to borrow it.”

For a moment, he’s completely silent. “And where did you come across this reference?”

Beside me, Tia shakes her head.

“Honestly, I’d rather not say.”

Another pause, this time longer, and I swear I can almost hear the gears turning in his head.

“I’m happy to help. We can review the text in the library, and if there’s time, I’d love to share a few items I’ve already put aside to share with you one day. We could make an afternoon of it. Why don’t you come by about eleven?”

He continues on, describing things in the Oneiroi collection he wants to show me.

My stomach twists. I really want off this call, but unlike Tia, I’m no steely-eyed anything.

But I pull up my big girl panties and very firmly say, “I don’t think so.”

Okay, maybe I am a bit steely-eyed after all.