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He shrugged. “Almost as good as new. I really wish Darien didn’t go and spend all that money on spells.”

Loren stuffed the last of the granola bar into her mouth and crinkled the wrapper into a fist.

“He’s a good man,” Erasmus persisted.

“The tonic didn’t work.”

Erasmus’s face hardened. “No?” he asked.

Loren shook her head. “He had an awful Surge and had to leave the house.” She sighed. “It was worth a try though.”

The tension in her father’s face melted, and he gave a slight nod, the gray streaks in his gold hair glinting in the sun. “That’s too b-bad.”

“Yeah, it is.” Loren didn’t see a wastebin anywhere around here, so she put the wrapper in her purse. She caught sight of the camera lying inside, tucked beneath her wallet. “I keep forgetting about my photo album.” She got up and took a few photos of the fountain and the school, and then she spun around on a heel to face her father. “Want your picture taken?”

Erasmus held up a hand. “No, no, I’m good. I’d rather not see myself in photos.”

“Suit yourself.” She sat back down and plunked the camera into her purse.

“If you’d like me to take one of you, I’d be happy to.”

“No, I’m good.” Loren waved him away. “I don’t like myself much in photos these days either.” She eyed up her father, who shrank away from the eye contact, fingers drumming his knees. Finally, Loren found her voice. “I wanted to apologize for how rude I was at dinner.”

Erasmus appeared surprised. “You don’t have to apologize, Loren. R-really.”

“Actually, I do. Because it made me realize that maybe you aren’t telling me anything about the Well, not because you don’t want to, but…but because you can’t.”

The look that entered her father’s eyes told her everything: she was right. She’d hit the nail on the head. Something was stopping him from speaking freely about the Arcanum Well, about her mother, about the Phoenix Head Society.

I know how that feels, she tried to say. But even those words refused to come out. If only he would clue in and realize the same thing was going on with her. If only he would tell Darien, so she could skip all this extra work and apologize to him for this awful mess. She hadn’t stopped thinking about him since last night, when she’d given him that flimsy excuse about being afraid of Gaven. Sooner than later, Darien would be finished dealing with that problem, and would come to her seeking answers. And by then, she’d better have the right ones, or…

Or she could lose him.

She glanced at the sun that was steadily sinking toward the horizon, deep orange rays framing the stark silhouettes of old buildings. Shops began to close, employees dragging their signs in for the day.

“I should get going before the light’s gone.” She stood and gathered her things. “Be safe, please. Who knows what those thieves wanted?”

“You b-be careful too.”

She smiled. “Thanks, Dad.”

She hopped the next city bus that stopped just up the road and returned to Angelthene Academy.

Agatha had given her an idea. An idea she hoped would work. She knew exactly where she needed to go, but it was too dangerous at this time of day, so she would go in the morning instead.

She was almost there. She could feel it.

50

Darien prowled like a mountain lion through the caged octagon ring of the Chopping Block, covered in blood and guts that weren’t his own.

It was his fifth fight of the evening. He’d come here as soon as the arena had opened, the anger he’d felt after his screw-up at Gaven’s warehouse a living thing that couldn’t be quelled by anything other than bloodshed. His fifth fight, and he was the lone victor, a heap of dead bodies surrounding him as the crowd went absolutely wild. They stamped their feet and shouted, a few of them fighting among themselves, driven to violence by bets they’d lost.

The man at Darien’s feet—the last to lose to him tonight—was already dead, but Darien still had some steam to blow off.

He grabbed a spiked wooden bat off the floor and ripped out a thin shard of metal. He threw himself into a crouch over the warlock and stabbed his windpipe with the shard. Again, and again, and again, and again. Blood sprayed. It spattered his face and bare chest and dripped off his hair, but he didn’t feel it. He kept going, winding his arm back repeatedly, driving the piece of metal in deep—

Until Casen was banging on the cage. “HEY!” he shouted. He banged again, metal rattling. “Cassel! CASSEL!”