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Chapter 60

Theo

The noise and heat hit them before they were fully through the doors. Bodies were packed in so tightly that it was a struggle to press into the fray. People in work clothes or their evening best pushed to and from a bar that was slinging drinks sloppily. On the other side of the hall, a messy press of bodies crowded at a betting window, brandishing numbered paper slips and cash.

Somewhere in this chaos was the man who had taken money to confess to Verity’s murder. And if that money had been from the Grims, he might have a way to reach them. For days, it had seemed to Theo the Grims were everywhere. Watching his every move. Waiting for him to deliver them a ring.

And now that he had it, had a way to get his brother back, they were nowhere to be found.

Even now, he caught himself hunting for the sharp angled face of the fox girl here, the way she’d seemed to be everywhere before the attacks.

She might not have made it out alive.

Or if she had, she might have written him off as a traitor and slit Alaric’s throat.

Theo pushed that thought aside.

The raised voices mingled with the music that clanged through the dance hall, a red-faced band in the corner playing loudly. The dance floor was dug out a few feet below them, ringed on all sides with a viewing platform where people crowded against the railing to watch. Dozens of couples danced feverishly. At the edges of the dance floor, a few couples were sitting down, breathing hard. One woman’s ankle was propped up with ice on it.

Dance until you drop!

100 zaub to enter!

Last couple standing wins 1,000 zaub!

These were the couples who had already dropped. They looked miserable, their precious 100-zaub entry fee gone, and their shot at winning 1,000 vanished. Every single one of these couples was willing to push themselves to the brink of exhaustion for a shot at that amount of money.

But the viewing gallery was having the time of their lives. The viewers were doubled over laughing, pointing out different couples and placing bets. A man hanging over the railings with a glass in his hands slopped his drink carelessly, sending a splash of beer across the dance floor as a dancer twirled his partner straight into it. Naturally she slipped, crashing to the floor.

“Whoopsie daisy!” a voice boomed over the magical vox through the room. A man was hanging louchely over an announcer’s booth. The master of ceremonies in all this. “Better luck next time, couple twenty-five.” Around the platform, a few people booed the young couple, throwing balled-up betting slips as the young man helped his teary girlfriend off the floor.

Fighting against the crowd, the four of them moved through the dance hall, following the hands of the watch in Nora’s hands, their gazes darting around. As if Lukas Schuld might be leaning up against the bar, drink in hand.

The charmed watch led them through the other side of the dance hall. A small inconspicuous door was marked No Entry .

Obviously Nora took that as an invitation.

The door opened easily under the lasa charm on her hand.

The laughter and music dulled behind them as they made their way into what appeared to be a stockroom. Wooden crates filled with bottles lined the walls, with one corner dedicated to piles of betting slips.

The watch on Nora’s wrist pointed directly toward a wall lined with crates of champagne.

“Anyone want a drink?” August joked.

Theo stepped forward, already pushing up his sleeves, ready to lug the wall of crates out of the way one by one.

“I don’t drink warm champagne,” Nora said shortly.

Theo realized what she was going to do a second before she did it. He just had time to step back, shielding Lotte, when Nora slammed her hands down. Six crates exploded, flooding the stockroom with alcohol and glass and shards of wood.

Revealing a door behind where it had been.

Nora climbed over the debris with the casualness of arriving at a party that had long awaited her.

That door opened as easily as the one to the stockroom had.

And behind it, illuminated by one stray oil lamp, was Lukas Schuld.