Page 45 of Alchemy of Secrets

What the hell?”

“Get out of our room!” Within seconds, a soundtrack of angry tourists’ shouts filled the beautiful suite.

Holland started to panic.

Adam turned to her with a grin. “Don’t worry, Bright Eyes.

This is not how we get caught.” Without another word, he strode confidently across the suite.

“I think there’s been a misunderstanding.

” His voice faded after that. Holland didn’t hear what he said next, and she didn’t see it, either—she was too busy collecting her father’s pages—but within seconds the couple was laughing instead of shouting.

“We are so sorry,” the woman said.

“Can we buy you two dinner?” asked the man.

“Oh, please, yes!” said the woman. “We’d love to take you to dinner.” Then there was a full minute of chatter about the Polo Lounge. “It’s the kind of food you want to take pictures of.”

Holland had all the pages gathered now. She just needed the satchel and Adam—who was making the couple laugh again, possibly about food that you want to take pictures of. Holland tried not to be annoyed. Whatever he’d done had saved them. She just wasn’t sure how he’d done it.

With another apology, the man took Adam’s hand and shook it. Then the woman was hugging Adam. Did she have actual tears in her eyes? A second later they were both gone, and Adam looked immensely pleased with himself.

“What did you just do?” Holland asked.

He shrugged. “It’s my charm.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You’re not that charming.”

“Says the girl who just spilled all her secrets to me.” Adam propped his shoulder against the door to keep it open.

Holland felt heat rise up her neck. “That’s not why I spilled my secrets,” she said.

But as she watched him, standing underneath the golden afternoon light, leaning against the door in a way that somehow made him look even taller, she feared that his charm might have been a little bit of the reason.

“We need to go,” she said abruptly, stepping into the hall.

“You should know, I told you about the screenplay because I’m not familiar with this magical world and—” Holland broke off abruptly as she realized what had just happened with the couple.

“I know what you did. Magic. You used magic on those poor people.”

Adam didn’t say she was wrong, but he also didn’t look very pleased as they walked down the hall.

Gabe had given her a hard time about using the word magic .

But Adam didn’t seem to have the same problem, possibly because he came from a family with magic.

He didn’t have anything to prove. Except.

“Wait—” She whirled toward him. “You said you didn’t have magic. ”

“No,” Adam said flatly. “I said my brother got all our father’s magic.”

“But you do have an ability?” Holland asked. She’d seen the way people treated him. And if she’d learned one thing about this world, it was that abilities were everything.

“My ability is on loan from the Bank.” Something like embarrassment colored his cheeks. But Holland only registered it for a second.

They were nearing the Beverly Hills Hotel’s grand exit, and just on the other side of the glass, Holland spied a pair of cowboy hats. “Oh, no,” she breathed.

“What’s wrong?” Adam asked.

“It could be nothing. Look up ahead,” she whispered. “There’s a couple of people in cowboy costumes.”

Adam gave her a questioningly look.

“I think they’re from the Bank,” Holland said. “Do you recognize them?”

“No, but I don’t usually work at that branch.

” Adam slowed down and draped an arm across her shoulder, pulling her close.

He was warm and very solid. She remembered the first time she’d seen his arms, she’d thought he worked out but not too much.

But so close to him now, she suddenly felt wrong about that.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

His fingers lazily stroked the side of her arm, sending little sparks across her skin. “Everyone is going to look at us if we run, but no one wants to look at a couple showing public displays of affection.” He leaned down and pressed a slow kiss to the top of her head, and another one to her cheek.

They took a few more steps. They were nearly at the glass doors.

Holland’s heart was racing, and Adam’s lips were lowering.

“Relax,” he whispered. Then he kissed her.

She expected it to be short and sweet, but this time his mouth lingered.

He teased, licked, took her lower lip between his teeth, and teased some more.

Holland felt her skin burning hotter as she kissed him back.

He had said no one would want to look at them, but this felt like the sort of kiss you couldn’t look away from.

It definitely felt like a kiss she couldn’t pull away from. Even in the middle of the day, in front of a busy hotel, where people were staring. He bit once, a little hard, nearly bruising her lower lip, and then he pulled away. “I need you to follow my lead.”

He kissed her again. Then he dropped his arm from her shoulder, took her hand, and led her toward the car the valet was pulling up. “This isn’t yours,” Holland said.

“It’s about to be.” Adam went over to the driver’s side.

Holland wanted to turn around to see if the cowboy hats were watching, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Adam.

She could never seem to take her eyes off Adam.

And maybe what she really wanted to see was if he was as affected by that kiss as she had been.

She felt a sliver of guilt as she thought about kissing Gabe mere hours ago. Technically, he had kissed her. And letting Gabe kiss her had been a terrible mistake. She had nothing to feel guilty about. But all her emotions were living so close to the surface, it didn’t take much to stir them.

The air felt warmer and the entire scene looked a little faded as she stood there, watching. Adam smiled at her from the other side of the car, and then, all at once, he wasn’t Adam anymore. He was Gabe Cabral.

Holland’s chest tightened with panic, her head felt light, and—

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

“No!” Holland wiped blood away from her nose, red smearing on her fingertips. It was happening again. She was seeing something that wasn’t actually there. Was it because she’d just been thinking about Gabe?

She knew Gabe wasn’t actually stealing the car; Adam was. But she couldn’t see Adam anymore, just Gabe. He was dressed more casually than when she’d seen him last, in dark jeans and a black shirt. “Babe, it’s time to get in the car,” he said affectionately.

She wanted to run, but her legs wouldn’t move, she simply felt her body slide into the stolen car.

The leather seat felt hot beneath her. Her fingers reached out to turn up the air, while Gabe adjusted the radio. “Hate this song,” he muttered. But the next station was playing it, too. He changed it again, but the same song was everywhere. “What the hell—”

Gabe turned the radio off, but the same damn song continued to pour out of the speakers.

Holland tried desperately to remember how she had made the other visions stop. She closed her eyes. She shook her head. But the music just kept playing. “Make it stop. Make it stop—”

“I’m trying,” Adam said.

Holland recognized his voice with an intense sense of relief. She opened her eyes. Hot leather seats, weak air conditioning, the same song pouring out of the radio.

Adam looked worried as he gave her a handkerchief. She had a fleeting thought that his handkerchiefs made sense now that she knew he didn’t age. She laughed a little then, the way a person sometimes laughs when it’s the least appropriate response.

“You want to tell me what’s going on?” he asked.

Holland finished dabbing her nose with the cloth and looked out her window to see they had left the grounds of the Beverly Hills Hotel. They were on the way to JME.

Holland reached up and changed the radio station. The same song played. She changed it again. Same song again. Just like in her vision.

“I think it’s broken,” Adam said.

“Did you change it before?” Holland asked. “When I was passed out.”

“I wasn’t really thinking about the radio,” he said.

But she was still thinking about the broken radio.

It made her wonder if somehow she was having visions of the future, but that didn’t make sense because she would have seen Adam, not Gabe.

Now that her initial wave of sadness was gone, thinking about Gabe made Holland feel a growing sense of terror, which was why she’d been ruthlessly attempting not to think about him.

“In your world, are nosebleeds a sign of anything?” she asked.

“Not that I know of,” Adam said.

Holland tried to think of all the times she’d bled, in Adam’s office, in the Roosevelt, in the beach house, and—her thoughts broke off as she looked down at what she was wearing. She still had on her sister’s dress, but instead of heels she was wearing a pair of fashionable white sneakers.

Holland reached down to touch them, wondering if maybe her sister’s shoes were magic, like her key. But there was no zip of electricity, no sudden quiet. They were ordinary shoes, and she had no idea where she’d gotten them.

“When did I change my shoes?”

Adam looked at her, puzzled. “You changed before we left the Beverly Hills Hotel, in case we needed to run. You borrowed sneakers from the guest room.”

Holland was fairly certain that taking something without permission was actually stealing, but she was less concerned about her minor criminal activity than about the fact that she didn’t remember this at all.

The same song that had been playing on repeat started over again on the radio, until Adam finally turned it off. “I hate that song.”

Holland had a sense of déjà vu. But then she remembered Gabe had said nearly the exact same thing. Something else was going on, something that was starting to terrify her—first the visions and the blood, and now her memories were starting to vanish.

She was starting to fear what else she might lose before the end of the day.