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“I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you. None of us want him here. But can you tolerate him, just for a few days, while I work on getting the information we need to stop Cain? After I get my power back, assuming my glamor is in tatters now, I’ll murder Seb for you.”

“I’d like that. A lot.” Zee scooped me against his side, where I fit so perfectly. “But if you eat him, you should know he’s probably poisonous.”

“Dragons have great metabolism.”

“I bet they do.” He ruffled my hair, then beckoned for Victor. “Bring it in, Daddy Spice. Group hug.”

“I don’t believe that’s necess⁠—”

Zee grabbed Victor by the sleeve and hauled him into the hug. “There it is. We got this. Just the three of us. Best hotel management this side of the fucking bay. Living the fuckin’ dream.”

I caught a glimmer of Victor’s almost-hidden smile and sent him a small smile back. We were a little bit broken, a little bit lost, but we’d made it this far together. We’d see it to the end, whatever that end looked like.

The door flung open and a glitzy Sebastien loomed, pierced and jeweled wings sparkling. “Is this a fucking private orgy or can anyone join?”

Just like before, Zee lunged, only this time Victor wasn’t foolish enough to get in the way. The wards smacked Zee back. He reeled, and stumbled into the stacks of chairs, almost toppling them. “Fuckin’-piece-of-numb-nuts-ball-aching-rabid-gods-be-damned-motherfucking-butt-plugging-fuckface-ragged-sack-of-frogs!”

The outburst left Zee panting and draped over the chairs, clinging to them so he didn’t fling himself at Sebastien all over again.

Seb smirked and dug into his pants pocket. “I couldn’t help but listen through the keyhole. You tiny-dicked losers want proof? I got all the proof right here.” He dug out a fake-gem-encrusted phone, flicked it open, and showed us a full-screen photograph of Gideon Cain standing at a podium, shaking hands with someone who clearly had no idea of the monster he was, and accepting a hideous gold award for something.

“All I see are two dicks stroking each other’s dicks on a stage,” Zee grunted.

Seb took the phone back, pinched the screen, then showed it to us again, but this time he’d zoomed in on a grainy blue gem poking out from under Gideon’s open collar. “The pendant?”

A jolt of recognition lit me up, and a more typical growl rumbled up my throat. “That’s mine.”

“Boom. What did I say? There it is, around his neck. That’s your magic bean, right?”

“Bead,” I corrected. Bean just . . . sounded wrong.

“We have to get it back,” I told Victor, drawing his gaze to me.

“Indeed. But how?”

“Cut off his head?” Zee suggested. “I haven’t whipped out Shareen in a while and it worked for Queen Vampire.”

Seb laughed. “That was you?! Fuck . . . Daisy kept that quiet. Cain’ll see you coming, pet. His mansion is warded to the balls, his bodyguards are heavily into BDSM, and he has a pocket full of spells. There ain’t no way you’re getting that bean from around his neck unless he takes it off.”

“Then you’re fucking useless to us. So why are we keeping you around again if you don’t know how to get Adam’s bean back?”

“Bead,” I corrected—again.

Seb dropped his phone back into his pocket and leaned a shoulder against the doorframe. “Because, Cain trusts me, and I know how you can get to it.”

“Right, like he trusts you with his evil plan?” Zee had straightened now, and even with a wing clamped, he stood tall. “You . . . a pimp . . . and a real shitty one. Nah, dawg. You are full of bullshit.”

Seb’s smile twitched, and seeing Zee stalking forward, he backed up into the foyer. Zee ducked through the doorway and circled around Seb. He didn’t mean him harm, or the wards would stop him, but he was putting on a damn good show of puffing himself up and making it seem as though he could snap at any second.

“Agatha de La Cour. You heard of her?” Seb asked, side-eyeing Zee stalking him.

“Yeah, we know Agatha,” I said, glancing at Victor, since Agatha had been his bestie from long ago. Agatha was the fae Zee had nicknamed Tinkerbell. She’d tried to kill us in a giant fishtank, then bargained for bits of Zee to grind up and be used in her FaeMade® face creams. “Wasn’t she arrested?”

“Arrested and released under commissioner Musashi. Nothing sticks to her. She’s a jeweler, makes all kinds of gems—lots of ’em warded.” Seb parted his wings, showing off their smattering of gawdy bling. Most of it looked fake, but a few could have been real. “She met with Gideon yesterday. My guess, she’s going to make him some kind of ward-infused setting for the bean, so he can tap into its power without it taking his head off. Right? She made that pendant round his neck. Makes a lot of shiny shit for him. They’re tight. Get to her, and you’ll get to the magic bean—probably.”

Zee snorted a disbelieving laugh. “Or they’re fuck buddies, and she’s just a crazy fae bitch who grinds up demon dick to rub on her face.”

“Agatha does have a chain of jewelry stores,” Victor said. “One near Union Square, in fact.”