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There were more fun things to do in a hotel room at midnight than translate ancient texts, but now wasn’t a time for such frivolities, because Ella had the book.

The book. The one Luca had swiped from the cult meeting. She’d spent nearly two days dissecting those symbols as she hunted for an explanation, and Hawkins stumbled upon their origins while he waited to take a leak. Its pages exhaled that specific dusty breath that only came from really old paper, and she was now one hour into translating it through use of an app.

Point, snap picture, comprehend ancient mysteries. How hard could it be?

Harder than she’d realized, apparently. Latin to English. Greek to English. Some language she couldn't even identify to English. So far, she'd uncovered profound revelations like ‘the essence flows through all matter’ and ‘transformation requires perfect alignment.’ The kind of vague mystical crap you could find in any New Age bookstore.

‘ The quintessence flows through vessels of flesh .’ She squinted at her phone. ‘What the hell does that even mean?’

‘It means you should get some sleep.’ Luca's voice drifted from his bed. He hadn't changed out of his Felix costume yet - just stripped off the mask and hoodie. The black hair dye had started to run, making him look like he'd stuck his head in an oil slick.

‘Can't sleep.’ She snapped another photo of a particularly dense paragraph. The app churned for a few seconds before spitting out more metaphysical rubbish. ‘This could change everything.’

‘Everything?’ Luca tried to prop himself up on his elbows but his burns must have been hurting because he quickly ditched that idea. ‘Excited about a bunch of medieval philosophy written by guys who thought lead could turn into gold?’

‘Those symbols were in this book centuries before our killer used them.’ She zoomed in on another passage. ‘That means-’

‘That means nothing, Ell. Why don’t we just go back and arrest Ezra now? Motive doesn’t matter if we know who the murderer is.’

Before leaving the Order’s meeting place, they’d stationed an officer outside to keep an eye on the place and follow Ezra Crowley once he left. But according to her lack of notifications, Ezra hadn’t left the meeting place. She was starting to think he lived there.

‘Hell, he fits the profile to a tee,’ Luca continued. ‘He’s a power-tripping asshole. Got one foot in reality and another in his fantasy world. Perfect conditions to birth a serial killer.’

‘And he owns a book with our symbols in.’

‘Exactly. So what’s the hesitation?’

Ella rubbed the grit from her eyes. In this game, you learned to trust your gut, and something told her that Ezra Crowley was too convenient a suspect.

‘If we can find a connection between Ezra and the vics, then we’ve got cause to bring him in. Without evidence, we can’t really hold onto him. Then we run the risk of him fleeing.’

Luca came over, tapped the book. ‘This isn’t evidence? I busted my ass to get that. You know how nervous I was back there? If those guys turned on me, I could be on a slab right now.’

‘You did incredible. It’s just…’

‘Just what? Because I didn’t want to go in there. You made me, and if it was all for nothing, then…’

‘No. I didn’t mean it like that. Seriously. I couldn’t have done what you did. I just want to be sure.’

Luca lowered himself back onto the bed. ‘Well I say we strike fast, because you couldn’t find jack on those symbols anywhere, and Ezra had them laid out on the table like he wanted someone to find them.’

And that there was the problem, Ella thought, but she kept her concerns to herself because poor Hawkins had risked his life tonight. ‘I’m sorry I asked you to go in there. If I’d have known they were armed…’

'Yeah, well, I had to sit there while a grown man talked about breathing with the universe . I had to fake-chant in Latin while inhaling what was probably toxic waste. I had to pretend I understood what the hell transmutation meant, all while I stared at a bunch of weapons at my feet. Think about that next time you ask me to do something stupid that might not even be worth the results.’

Luca rolled over and showed his back to Ella. The words hit harder than she expected. She forgot sometimes that this was all new to him. That four months ago, he'd been a fresh-faced rookie who'd never stared death in the face. Now he'd been undercover, infiltrated a cult, faced down eight armed suspects. And she'd thrown him into it without a second thought .

‘Luca-’

‘Don’t bother. Get some sleep. The book'll still be crazy in the morning.’

She knew there was no point continuing this conversation. She stared at the blanked-shaped mountain that concealed her boyfriend within and suddenly wished she’d done this differently. She'd pushed too hard, expected too much. Rookie mistake for a mentor. And even for all her hastiness, putting Luca in a life-or-death situation where results weren’t even guaranteed, Luca had still found gold amongst lead. Maybe he was the real alchemist here.

But as always, he had a point. If Ezra Crowley was their killer, understanding his obsession with these symbols wouldn’t make a difference. A solid motive might add a few years onto his sentence, but the important part was getting him in front of a judge in the first place.

If she could just find one little thing that linked him to either victim, she could drag him into the holding cells and keep him there.

Although there was one problem.

She still didn’t know his real name.