Page 19

Chapter 19

H alf of me celebrated the fact a magical security measure faced us; security meant they didn't want us to get in. In my experience, breaking into a place too easily meant someone wanted to catch you inside. But the other half worried that the Franklins had some fancy measures in place that would catch us unprepared.

"Got a read on it?" I asked, wincing as she kneaded my shoulder.

"Feels like something offensive."

That bode well. Detection-only enchantments risked an alarm sounding, but if the Franklin family had installed something that would disintegrate my face, I had a much higher chance of dismantling it without incident. Or at least, Hecate would.

"Anything you can handle?" I asked.

Hecate thrust her nose in the air. "Please."

"All right then Miss. Hoity-Toity. Don't leave me in suspense."

I shone the light crystal up toward the trapdoor, where a smattering of crystals embedded in the doorframe glinted back at me. A part of me wondered if the enchantments didn't have some kick to them, given that the Franklins hadn't put much more than a human deterrent at the perimeter of the grounds. But Hecate seemed confident.

"Don't lose a life up there." Asher grinned at Hecate who hissed back at him.

Hecate rested her two front paws on the top of my head and reached up toward the trapdoor, giving the air a few good sniffs. I craned my neck to watch what she was doing, just able to see out of the corner of my eye.

She lifted a paw toward the trapdoor, stretching her toes apart. The magic from the trapdoor collected into a ball in the palm of her paw, writhing like snakes in a pit. She grabbed the ball in her jaws and jumped down off my shoulders.

This time I had come prepared for her magical extractions and grabbed an empty crystal from my pouch. I held it out toward Hecate who gently touched the ball of magic to the lump of quartz. The magic zipped into the crystal as if it was sucked up the nozzle of a hoover, and I put it back into my pouch.

What I would do with it would have to wait for later.

"All clear?" I asked, as Hecate jumped back onto my shoulders.

"Squeaky clean."

"Great. Can you open it?"

Hecate reached up and swatted at the latch a few times before it came undone and she pressed the trapdoor with both paws, pushing it open. Man, she was a buff kitty.

She leapt up into the room above and I jumped up and grabbed the doorframe, heaving myself up onto a dusty stone floor. Thank goodness for rock wall training.

I rolled away from the trapdoor and my rump bumped into a cardboard box half covered with a sheet. Excellent. This was still a storage room, just as I had hoped.

Asher heaved himself up after me, biceps flexing visibly even through his jacket. Gods, I had to keep a clear head.

I pinched myself through my jacket to shake out any errant lustful thoughts. Celibacy and I did not agree at the best of times, but certainly not after six whole months.

Inhaling a few musty breaths to clear my head, I closed the trapdoor behind us.

"What's the plan now?" Asher asked, blowing at a long cobweb that hung near his head.

"My plan actually involved sneaking around here invisible." I straightened up and dusted off my jacket. "So...maybe you should stay here and wait until we're done?"

"Not a chance." Asher strode over to me and I took a step back, glaring at the hand he offered me.

"What?" I asked. "Want me to hold your hand? Are you scared?"

"I actually do, but only because I know that invisibility power you pilfered affects what you allow it to." Asher waggled his fingers at me. "So you don't have to change your plan after all."

I grimaced, stuffing the little spark of joy the idea gave me so far down that I would hopefully crap it out later.

"For the record," I said, taking his hand. "This sucks."

I killed the light crystal and tapped into the invisibility power I had brought along for the ride. If anyone wandered around looking for the bathroom that night, they wouldn't see a thing.

Asher disappeared from view, the two of us inking into the background like ghosts in the night. Hecate jumped onto my shoulders and she vanished along with us. I edged my way between the boxes, leading Asher to the door which I opened with every ounce of caution I possessed.

The floodlights from outside lit up the corridor through the stained glass windows, sending dull rainbows across every pompous bust and oil painting. Who even had the money for this rubbish?

I slinked into the corridor, closed the door, and hurried away as fast as I dared, ensuring I stepped on the fancy rugs as I did so. I had memorised the route to Troy's room that evening, calculating a path that would avoid as many bedrooms as possible.

"Asher, you can haul one of those paintings home for me." Hecate jabbed a paw toward an oil painting of a frilly lady giving a most contentious stare, and holding a fan almost as if she planned to use it as a weapon.

"That thing would weigh a tonne," Asher muttered. "I couldn't lift it off the wall, let alone carry it home."

"She's not having it anyway," I whispered.

"It'd look so good above your vanity."

I snorted. The last thing I wanted to look at when I was putting my earrings in every morning was some snooty long-dead lady.

"I'm more of a watercolour girl," I muttered.

"Of course. It's all about your tastes ."

"Listen sassy-pants. You know the rules: you take what you can carry. You ."

"Then I'd like to change the terms of our agreement."

"Not in the middle of a job you're not, now will you please focus?"

We made our way into a large entrance hall and up the giant staircase that sported busts all the way up the stone banisters, some of the missing noses and with cracks in their faces. In the corridors on the first floor, there were fewer expensive items on display but many more doors. Thank goodness I already knew where to go. Getting lost in this place would have been so easy if I hadn't done my homework.

I tried my hardest not to let the sensation of holding Asher's hand again distract me. His skin felt softer than I remembered, with only a few of the calluses left over from his hard life as a grifter. Its warmth enveloped my cold digits; a comfort I couldn't enjoy in quite the same way with gloves. I liked it.

We sneaked to the door of what I hoped was Troy's bedroom, and I crouched down to put my eye to the ornate keyhole. A tangled lump of sheets and duvet sat on top of the bed, with a few tattooed limbs protruding out of them. A dozen soda and beer cans lay sprawled on the floor and shoved together on top of the bedside table. So far, everything pointed to that half-naked lump being Troy.

I grasped the door handle and inched it down little by little until the door opened with the slightest of clicks. Sneaking into the room, I edged nearer to Troy, reaching out with my power to try and find his. Grabbing a crystal out of my pouch, my power graced Troy's as it lay, unmoving and undisturbed inside him. I wrapped my power around it and extracted it from Troy without so much as an uncomfortable wriggle.

Maybe the damn thing wanted out of him as much as everyone else did.

I tucked the power into the crystal and slipped it into my pouch before edging back out of the room. I chewed my lip as I closed the door and breathed a long sigh of relief.

That was it. I had the first piece of the puzzle to finding out about my prophecy. Unlike the other powers I had stolen, this one actually felt like stolen property. All the people I had taken powers from before had never crossed paths with me, likely never would, and even if they did, wouldn't know who I was. Taking something from Troy Franklin, who had seen my face on more than one occasion, and whose family had some serious resources behind them, felt alien. But if I was going to get to Romilda and the knowledge she had about me, I had no other choice.

"Got it?" Asher whispered.

"Yep. Now let's get out of here."

I turned around and my forehead smacked into something hard; it felt like Asher's collarbone. As I staggered backward, his grip on my hand tightened, but I tumbled onto my back even so. Asher grunted somewhere above me and I wheezed as he landed on top of me, squeezing all the air from my lungs. Hecate fell off my shoulders and landed on her paws, turning visible just a few feet away. She strolled back over to bat at my head.

"What did you do that for?" Asher muttered.

"I didn't do it on purpose. I can't see ," I whispered.

I made to get up, but Asher pressed his weight down on me so hard that I struggled to breathe.

"What are you doing ?" I hissed.

"Don't move." Asher had barely finished speaking when a door just down the hall from Troy's swung open, and a ruddy man dressed only in boxers appeared in the doorway, looking up and down the hallway.

Shoot. One of Troy's insomniac family had heard us.