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“You are the reason I have trust issues.”

“And yet you still let me do your eyeliner last week.”

“That was one time—”

“For the eyeliner gods!”

It’s not even noon. And I am actively participating in a stakeout dressed like a failed drag act from a discount cabaret.

“You know,” I say, squinting through the tinted lenses of the glasses he handed me, as Lucien and Luna reappear in the distance, “if we get caught like this, I’m blaming you.”

“You can blame me,” he grins. “But if we catch Lucien doing something stupid—”

“—likebondingwithout asking permission—”

“—we get to shame him for eternity.”

I glance at him. “You’d shame him anyway.”

He claps me on the back. “We need backup,” he whispers, like we’re defusing a bomb and not just spying on our favorite monster making goo-goo eyes at the girl we’re all in love with.

I’m two seconds from throwing him into a hedge when Ambrose appears at the hallway arch, coffee in one hand, murder in his eyes.

He looks at us.

Looks at the wig.

Looks at the mustache half slipping off Silas’s lip like a depressed caterpillar.

Looks away.

Then looksback.

“What the actual fuck,” Ambrose says slowly, like he needs time to recover from the visual trauma.

“Perfect,” Silas beams, “You’re in.”

“No.”

“Too late. You’ve seen too much.”

“Again, no.”

“We need your motorcycle stealth,” I add flatly, gesturing to the leather jacket that Ambrose is already wearing even though it's eighty degrees outside.

He scowls at me. “I’m not using my bike for—whatever this is.”

“Operation Lucien Is Up To Something Weird And Romantic,” Silas offers. “It’s a working title.”

Caspian appears next, followed by Riven and Orin, because apparently this is a fucking clown car of Sin now. One by one, they clock the situation. Caspian blinks slowly like he’s in the middle of a migraine. Riven sighs and rubs at his temple. Orin doesn’t say anything, but his hand twitches toward the book under his arm like maybe he'd prefer to beat us all to death with knowledge instead of witnessing... this.

Silas, undeterred, begins digging through his coat like a magician on meth.

Out comes: A full black velvet cloak. A monocle. A fake scar sticker. A cloak. A pressed ID badge for “Dean Meatballs, Paranormal Investigator.”

“I haveexactlyenough disguises for everyone,” he declares, eyes manic with power. “Except Lucien. He gets nothing. He’s the target.”

“You had a cloak…?” I ask.