Page 123 of Moonlight Hearts

Echo waved dismissively.“Doesn’t matter.It wasn’t going to work anyway, and from that point on, things would’ve gotten worse.”He looked at me.“That’s what’s going on here.Now things aren’t worse, and that’s the point.They’re still not better though, so we have to fix that.”

“Fix—what are you even talking about?”

The Sandman drummed his fingers on the dashboard.“If it’s a secret, don’t tell me.My favor is done.”

I clenched my jaw before speaking.“I thought you and Soyer were friendly.Are you just going to leave me with him, Sandman?”

He turned in his seat.“Yes.Echo is resourceful and would’ve set it up in such a way that I’d stick around to help if he needed me, but he doesn’t.You’re in better hands than most of us usually have the luxury of.The Black Shuck is lucky to have found a mate who befriended Echo without even knowing him.”

“Huh?”

Echo sighed.“We’re dropping off the Sandman at his hotel, and then we’re going to head out to the Hawthorne estate.”

I put my right hand over the face of my watch to calm myself.“And what are we going to do there?”

“We’re going to see Elias, obviously.”

I still wasn’t sure I trusted Echo.For all I knew, Thaeros had gotten us into a mess neither of us wanted to be in.Either way, I did trust Elias, and with any luck, he’d have his Ben there to help sort out this situation.

Chapter Thirty-Four

WedroppedtheSandmanat the Four Seasons, then continued on to Elias’s place.I knew my way around Newstaten relatively well, but it was a big city.The area where the Hawthorne place was wasn’t one I’d been to before, and the buildings, the streets, were all unfamiliar.

There were alleys here, and it was mostly residential.We passed a park with a wrought iron fence and a fountain I could see through the greenery.We went down another street and past a large cemetery.It said North Cemetery on the gate, which would put this in the North End.That had never been a relevant area to me personally, given it was mostly nice houses with big gardens, very expensive, and it had no sights or landmarks of note apart from the old cemetery.

In the front, Thaeros tapped his fingers against the wheel.“Echo, are you sure this is a good idea?”

“I don’t have ideas, just paths forward.”

I reached for my watch, covering the face with my hand to calm myself.“How do you know which path is the right one?”

He rubbed his face.“Because… I don’t know how to explain it.I shouldn’t tell you, not yet.But imagine you are given the choice to go through two doors.One is a little narrow, the other has sharp spikes and barbed wire around the frame.You’d know which one to go through, right?”

“Then why does this feel like such a bad idea?”Thaeros asked.

He had a point.I rubbed my hands on my knees.“That lawyer Brit…he was at the Moonlight.I remember him.He didn’t just come to Newstaten today.”

“No, but I was never sure where he was staying,” Echo said.“Besides, getting to him wouldn’t have done anything about the problem.”

“Which is?”

He looked at me.“It’s Cecil, all right, but…are you familiar with the adage ‘dosis facit venenum’?”

Thaeros clicked his teeth.“That’s the original Latin for ‘the dose makes the poison.’Suitable, given the guy’s a snake.”

Echo shook his head.“No, it’s not like that.It’s not Cecil who’s the poison.It’s that he had potential, but a drop of greed here, a dash of jealousy there, and that potential turns dark.It had years and years to fester, to ruin all that potential.”

I didn’t respond.I still wasn’t sure Echo had the good intentions he proclaimed to have.At the same time, Soyerhadbeen…fond of Caecilius, if that was the word.If Caecilius had been totally rotten, I didn’t think someone who’d baked cookies for children and taught them that beet juice was a potion would have even given him the time of day.

“By all accounts, he does have potential for stupid ideas,” Thaeros said.

Echo turned his hands palm up, looking at them as if he were reading his own future there.“You’re not wrong.It was never going to go anywhere.Maybe someday, but not that way.Not with a class system, not with humans becoming our slaves.”He sighed.“He’s not able to see how flawed his plan is, not anymore.”

The conversation trailed off there, and about five minutes later, we arrived at a gate set in the middle of a wall that was about as tall as two of me.I leaned forward over the middle console to get a better look.

“Thisis where Elias lives?”

“It really is difficult to believe you don’t hang out here all the time,” Thaeros said.“Echo, what now?”