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I shrugged. That worked for me.

Victor followed. “This is not advisable.”

“Objection noted.” I thrust my hands into my pockets and breathed in the smell of the city at night. There was one good thing about being human. How all the little things were suddenly bigger, like the smell of the sea, the sound of the breeze in the long grasses out front, and the feeling that I had a purpose. No evil sorcerer was going to stop me from getting my power back. And when I did, everyone on my Bad People list was getting a taste of exactly what it meant to piss off a dragon.

Or more accurately . . . I would be tasting them.

CHAPTER 3

We hopped off a tram a few minutes’ walk from the popular Union Square and its nearby big-brand stores. Victor led the way, even though he’d rarely walked the street and much preferred to be chauffeured around, he’d explained, earning Zee’s exaggerated eyeroll.

“Do you know every evil villain in this city?” Zee asked, striding along the sidewalk behind us. He’d hidden his wings, but not his horns. A handful of people ambled down the street, heading home from late-night bars.

“Agatha is neither evil nor a villain. She is a shrewd businesswoman.”

“That’s what a villain would say. Are you defending Tinkerbell after she tried to drown you and threatened to cut off my dick?”

“Not at all. While I do not agree with her business practices, I cannot judge her as a villain when I have done worse in the past.”

“Hold up.” Zee scooted closer, wedging himself between us and almost knocking Victor off the curb. “Have you cut off dicks?”

“My forte was always torture.” He let the unsaid answer for him.

Zee breathed in through his nose, his nostrils flaring. “Fuck.” He held his breath, then after a few strides, puffed out, “Why is that so hot? That should be the fucking opposite of hot. But when you do it, it’s fuckin’ lust on steroids. I am broken. You have broken me.”

With Zee discussing all the ways Victor’s old profession was hot, we rounded the end of the block and entered a street aglow with designer brands. Several jewelry stores glittered behind window barriers. One of them being Silverleaf Goldsmiths by FaeMade®. Exactly the kind of name you’d expect a chain of fae-owned jewelry stores to trade under.

The late hour meant nobody was around.

“There’s a camera to our right. Keep walking. Keep your heads down. Don’t look up,” Victor reeled off. “It’s too high up to tamper with, but it’s also pointed farther down the street, so we should be safe from detection.”

A rush of adrenaline had my heart pounding. For the first time since learning I’d lost my power to Cain, it felt as though we were making progress. If we found something in this store that tied Agatha to Cain, then it would be a lead. And if we could get the bead from Agatha, we wouldn’t even need to go up against Cain. But I was getting ahead of myself. First, we needed to know if Sebastien’s educated guess about Agatha’s work to set the bead into ward-infused jewelry was correct.

The Silverleaf store had two large windows, and an alcove front porch tucked out of the camera’s view. Victor and I stopped to pretend to admire the cushions of earrings, watches, and necklaces, while Zee hopped into the recessed doorway.

“I’m not sensing wards,” Zee whispered.

“If she’s selling ward-infused jewelry, she won’t have wards protecting the building,” Victor explained. “Too many wards in one small space will create a feedback loop, rendering all of them useless.”

“Anyone about?” Zee asked.

I discreetly took a look up and down the street. The streetlights were spaced far apart, and most of the ambient light came from the storefronts. But no people. “Nope. You’re good.”

After tugging on the black mask he’d used when saving pets from pies—the mask with sock-like sleeves attached to cover his horns—he poofed inside, appearing behind the cashier’s counter. Despite the mask hiding his face, his tail and general Zeeness made him pretty distinctive, at least to me, but as long as he didn’t disturb too much, nobody would ever need to know we’d been here.

Zee took a second to get his bearings, then began rummaging through drawers in the fitted storage units making up the rear wall. Mirrors and lights spotlighted his scurrying.

I touched the glass and whispered, “Found anything yet?”

“Oh yeah, sure. I’ve got everything I need,” he stage-whispered back, not really whispering at all. “I’m just hanging out, soaking up the vibe of the place. No, babycakes. I’ve been here three seconds. I have not found anything yet.”

Yeah, okay, a stupid question. Victor plucked my hand off the window, and wiped the glass with his sleeve. “Forensic evidence.”

Right. Don’t touch anything. Zee had gloves on too. They were good at this. “You know . . . we could raid the place, steal all the jewelry, and head south? Cross the border . . . live happily ever after in Mexico?”

Victor’s lips twitched into a smile. “If I believed you were serious I might take you up on that offer.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Tom would get real mad at being left behind, and I don’t wanna get on the wrong side of an angry djinn who can whip up noxious poisons in his sleep.”