Page 39

Kierse hightailed it back across town, making it back into Graves’s brownstone before she was even missed.

She found Laz seated at the breakfast table with Gen.

His plate was full of some sort of bread pudding delicacy—Kierse didn’t know the name, but it was one of Isolde’s specialties—and enough fruit to feed a small nation.

He was speaking on his phone as Kierse popped a few raspberries in her mouth before taking a scoop of the bread pudding and a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice.

“Yes. Sure. Got it. I’ll let him know.” Laz mouthed a silent good morning at Kierse as she took a seat. “When do you think that’ll be?” A cleared throat. “Sure. I’ll tell the boss. See you then.” He hung up and flung the phone down. His smile was all teeth. “Bastard is finally fucking here.”

Gen’s eyebrows rose. “Who?”

“Schwartz,” Laz said.

“Oh, good,” Kierse said.

Graves had said that they were waiting to make their move until Schwartz was in place. She didn’t know exactly what that meant yet, but she also knew that Graves divulged just enough information before he had all the facts. She’d know the whole picture once he also had it. Probably.

“You were up early,” Gen said.

“I got up to see Nate. Last night was the last full moon of this cycle.”

“Eesh,” she muttered. “How was he?”

“Rough. I saw Ronan, too,” she said with a wink. “Think he’d be interested in seeing you.”

Gen flushed. “Well, yeah, I mean…”

Kierse let her flounder for a second before giving her an out. “Nate gave me this, though.” She tossed the wedding invitation across the kitchen island.

“Oh my God!” Gen cried. “A wedding! And so soon!”

“So it seems.”

“Is Maura pregnant?”

“He said no,” Kierse said with a pang of worry for them. She wanted to tell Gen what they’d confided, but it wasn’t her secret to tell. “Also they’re having an engagement party and will get details out soon.”

Gen was beaming with delight. “I’m so happy for them.”

Graves stepped into the room at that moment. “Got your text. Schwartz messaged me as well. Meeting in the library in twenty.”

“Sir,” Laz said with a little salute.

Kierse nodded. His eyes slid over her, catching on her lips. She centered herself around the way that one look made her feel.

“I need to talk to you,” Kierse told him.

He arched an eyebrow. “Should I be concerned?”

“It’s a favor.”

That made his entire expression shift to intrigued. “Color me interested.”

Gen looked between them. “Um…am I invited to the meeting?”

Graves spared her a glance. “Sure.”

And that was that. Gen headed upstairs while Kierse and Graves waited to be alone.

“A favor now, Wren? Don’t you have to trust someone for that?”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s not for me.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Do you know a cure for the incubus curse?”

Graves’s eyes widened. “I’m glad that you started by clarifying it wasn’t a favor for you. Who is this favor for?”

“Maura,” Kierse confessed with a wince.

“Ah,” he said as if all the pieces slipped together in his brilliant mind. “She and Nate are getting married. They want to have kids.”

“Yes. They’ve exhausted all the options they have. I think you’re their hail mary.”

“No,” Graves said slowly. “There is no known cure.”

Kierse deflated. “I thought not.”

“But…”

Her eyes jumped back to his. “But?”

“There may be one, if we get the cauldron.”

Kierse’s mind whirled at the implication. “You think the cauldron could cure the curse?”

“A curse is a magical ailment. A magical healing might be possible,” he conceded. “We’d have to get our hands on it first.”

And now Kierse was more determined than ever to succeed at this heist.

Twenty minutes later, they were back in the library. Anne was perched on Gen’s lap, purring. Legitimately purring with contentment as Gen stroked her back. As if that cat let anyone pet her.

“You’re a witch,” Kierse said as she sank into a seat across from them.

Graves blinked at the sight. “Have you bespelled her?”

“Animals like me,” Gen said with a smile for Anne. “She knows who to trust.”

Graves and Kierse looked up at each other, and Kierse bit her lip to contain a laugh. Perhaps that was a fair assessment.

Laz yawned as he stretched out all of his khaki onto the blue chaise that had been brought in for Kierse’s training sessions. “He’s late.”

“He usually is,” Graves said in irritation.

At that moment, the library door flew open, and in walked a massive man with the gait of a sailor.

His stride was a sway more than a prowl, as if he was still on the deck of a boat out to sea.

He was built like a tank, all broad shoulders and thick waist, and he had russet-brown skin with black hair in long locs down his back.

It wasn’t until he was closer that she could see the webbing between his fingers and spattering of iridescent blue scales that glittered along his wrists and neck. He was a mer.

She was surprised. As far as she knew, Graves didn’t normally work with monsters. She hadn’t known what to expect from Schwartz, but she had assumed he was human like Laz.

“Ah, Schwartzy!” Laz said, jumping to his feet. He clapped hands with the man, and they bumped chests.

“Lazarus,” Schwartz said in a deep voice with the hint of a Caribbean accent she couldn’t place more precisely. “My brother.”

“Find the shipwreck I told you about off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago?” Laz asked with a grin.

“If I did, I certainly wouldn’t tell you,” he rumbled with a chuckle. He pushed past Laz and held his hand out to Graves. “Boss.”

Graves shook his hand. “Good to have you on board.”

“Good to be back in the city. The weather is more to my liking.”

“Hot,” Graves grumbled.

“I come from warm waters and clear currents,” he said simply. “Your Central Park is far from that.”

“I converted the swimming pool to salt,” Graves said.

Schwartz grinned, revealing stark-white teeth. “That will do.”

“Swimming pool?” Kierse demanded. “You have a swimming pool?”

“Of course I do,” Graves said.

Gen raised her eyebrows. “Of course he does.”

Kierse was baffled. She had cased this place, covering every inch of the townhouse the last time she lived here. Where was the fucking pool?

“Allow me to introduce you to Augustin Saint-Fleur Schwartz.”

Schwartz screwed up his face. “My full name, Boss? Should we start calling you Brannon?”

“Not if you want to keep your head,” Graves said mildly.

Schwartz laughed and leaned back against the table. “My mother is a Haitian mer, and my father was a missionary. She wanted me to have both names,” he said by way of explanation. “Schwartz just stuck. As did Graves.”

Graves continued, “Schwartz here is in security. He’s gotten a job in the company in charge of protecting the auction items.” Graves nodded at Schwartz. “Why don’t you report?”

Schwartz handed Graves a sheaf of paper. “The list of attendees. No one outside of the expected list.”

Graves looked it over and sighed. “Indeed. Lorcan is going to be there.”

“Is that a problem?” Kierse asked.

“He’s always a problem.” His eyes continued down the names. “A few billionaires you’ve probably stolen for or from, some monsters—I can guess what they’re after—Amberdash.”

Kierse jolted. “What’s he doing there?”

Gregory Amberdash was a wraith businessman. He’d been a middleman for Kierse’s thievery jobs after she’d dispatched Jason. He’d warned her that something was coming for her after the job to steal from Graves, but she hadn’t known where his allegiances lay. She still didn’t.

“Same thing he always is,” Graves said, “meddling and trying to look important.” He tossed the paper aside. “No one who should interfere. How do we get the cauldron?”

Schwartz gestured with one hand. “No way that I can discern. I wrote up the system in place, and no one is stealing this thing.”

“Can I see?” Kierse asked. Schwartz passed her a paper, and her eyes widened in shock and appreciation.

The security around the cauldron was like nothing she’d ever seen.

Top-of-the-line vault with a card reader, user-specific codes, and multiple biometric sensors needed to deactivate.

If she managed to get through all of that, then she’d have to deal with the anti-tampering technology—cutting-edge equipment intended to deter brute-force attacks by destroying internal components before the thief could get inside.

Not to mention an entire team of mercenary monsters, Schwartz included, to guard the thing.

Their best bet would be to get it when it was being transported, but it would be shipped in essentially a bulletproof tank with yet more armed guards. It even made her pause.

“Fuck,” she said, passing it back. “Exactly how big is the thing?”

“Dimensions are here,” Schwartz pointed out to her.

Kierse held her hand out to measure the estimated size of the box that would hold the cauldron. It wasn’t that big. A two-foot cube with all that security wasn’t holding a very large item.

“I don’t know why I thought it would be bigger.”

Gen snorted. “You’ve said that before.”

Kierse laughed. “I almost always say that.”

Laz guffawed, and Schwartz shook his head. Kierse glanced up at Graves and arched an eyebrow. He was definitely the reason she said almost always.

“But seriously, isn’t some ancient cauldron supposed to be large and impressive? To like, hold ingredients and shit?”

“Apparently not,” Graves said. “There are legends that suggest it isn’t a cauldron at all, but a chalice.”

“Like a cup?” Kierse asked.

“Indeed. In some iterations the sword is a ‘torch,’ as well. It lights the way for the truth,” Graves said. “We’ll see what iteration of the cauldron we get when we steal it.”

Gen raised her hand. Graves’s expression filled with amusement. “You don’t have to raise your hand.”

“Oh,” she said with a shrug. “Sorry. That is a lot of security for one item. What exactly does the cauldron do?”

Kierse would have laughed at her directness, but she appreciated it. Gen had a way of cutting through all the bullshit to the point.