Page 43 of Thief of Night (The Charlatan Duology #2)

That’s what Charlie managed to pull up on her phone before she fell asleep on the couch, a veggie burrito still spinning in the microwave.

When she woke, muzzy-headed, but finally no longer hungry, she checked on Red, who was still sleeping.

Then she brushed her teeth and went to see if Posey’s laptop was available to borrow.

It was resting on her bed, beside an old book with a worn leather cover.

The spine read: On the Perils of Possession: A Gentylman’s Guide to Spirites, Influence, and Commande .

It looked like something Charlie would have been sent to steal.

Resolving to ask her sister about its provenance, Charlie grabbed the laptop and brought it out to the common area.

Searching “Solaluna,” and “gloamist” yielded a glossy website advertising the dates—starting on Thursday, the last weekend before Christmas—for the Umbral Elevation Retreat, a “life-altering long weekend, teaching those of you who have had success in the rest of your lives to finally access the incredible power of your shadow” with special guest TikTok star Rooster Argent, as well as a Cabal leader who must remain anonymous, but would speak at length about “the secrets of the gloamists.” To find out more, you were encouraged to fill out a form.

Charlie clicked through and noted that to submit it, you had to pay a nonrefundable hundred-dollar deposit.

It seemed a violation of privacy to look at Posey’s super-secret, self-deleting chat, but Charlie didn’t feel the same way about using Posey’s Reddit account to access private boards. Charlie had worked Posey’s password out ages ago: Lucipurrrlovesmice91.

Her sister’s icon was an anime-style cutesy version of Posey with a giant shadow looming menacingly over her.

Charlie huffed a laugh. Then she pulled up the subreddit r/glooms—one of the bigger private shadow magic discussion boards.

She searched “elevation” because that didn’t seem like a word that got used a lot.

As she hoped, a thread about the conference popped up.

A lot of the discussion around it was speculative.

Were a bunch of one-percenters about to get scammed or were they about to gatekeep the secret to waking shadows?

It was rumored to cost $55,000 per person, not counting the lodging or food. Everyone was pissed off about it.

That certainly qualified as hideously expensive.

Charlie went back to the Umbral Elevation website to put in a request for information for a Vincent Carver. She paid the hundred-dollar surcharge with a credit card she’d nicked from Topher’s wallet.

The reply she got was immediate and obviously automated. All the spots for the retreat were taken, but not to worry, her money would be counted as credit toward the next retreat and she’d be on an early list for the invites. Ah well, she’d tried.

And what was she even doing this for? She had a brick of cash and the promise of a Cabal leader to back her—better, she had something to hold over his head, since she knew his identity and his address.

Once Bellamy figured out that the vial with the remains of Red’s shadow was no longer in his vault, she’d need him on her side.

But Mr. Punch selling stolen shadows to the wealthy wouldn’t leave Charlie’s mind.

Quickened shadows, ripped from people like the girl she’d seen crying in that shadow parlor.

New gloamists, excited about having magic, who were going to be shadowless for the rest of their lives.

They would be crushed. There would be a new “harvester” who wasn’t Charlie, who would be stealing more shadows so wealthy people could burn them up as fast as they bought them.

Unless someone blew up the whole scheme. Unless someone stole those shadows before the rich got what they wanted, so they would no longer consider the Cabals a reliable source.

To do that, with no possible benefit, a person would have to be a fucking idiot.

With a sigh, Charlie went to the booking page for Solaluna. No rooms were available on the weekend when the Umbral Elevation Retreat was scheduled. Nor did the on-site restaurant have any tables available the entire four days, despite being theoretically open to the public.

Maybe that was a sign for her to leave this the hell alone.

She dialed the number on the website.

“I really need your help,” she told the soft-voiced woman who answered, allowing herself to sound as flustered as she felt.

“I’m trying to book a room. Wait, let me start over—I just got this job as an assistant and I am going to get in so much trouble.

My boss is Mr. Carver and his grandmother told him that Solaluna would be the perfect place for him to recuperate and now he’s obsessed and won’t consider anywhere else.

But he says it has to be this weekend, and you’re all booked up . ”

The woman on the other end of the phone was quiet for a moment. “What are the dates he’s hoping for?”

Charlie gave the specifics, trying to keep her voice a little high and panicked. It wasn’t hard.

“I see,” the woman said. “What did you say the name was?”

“Carver,” Charlie repeated. “Remy Carver.”

There was another long pause. “Let me talk to my manager.”

“Thank you.” Either the woman taking reservations at Solaluna was a very nice person or Carver was a very good name to drop.

After a few more minutes, she returned. “There’s a private cottage on the grounds. The person who booked it canceled and my manager said that she would be happy to offer it to Mr. Carver.”

Charlie didn’t even want to think about the price per night, but she knew enough not to ask. “You’re saving my job here.”

“There’s just one thing. This weekend we have a private group in. We can make sure he doesn’t share any of the same spaces and the spa will be open as usual, but some parts of the grounds will be closed off.”

“No problem,” she said into the phone.

“And we need a credit card,” the woman said. “How would you like to pay?”

Charlie read off the numbers on Topher’s credit card before she could think better of it.

“Just to confirm,” the woman said. “We’ll be charging a deposit of eleven thousand dollars to hold the cottage and we’ll charge the rest when Mr. Carver checks in. Please let him know that he will have an on-site butler who can assist him in arranging whatever he needs at any time of day or night.”

Charlie’s palms felt sweaty. Eleven thousand dollars for three nights ? The idea of that much money made her head swim. And that was just the deposit.

“Miss?” the woman asked, into her silence.

“That’s fine,” Charlie ground out, telling herself that Topher would hardly notice. He probably spent that much most weekends, jet-setting, getting bottle service in clubs, and buying those ridiculous outfits.

One of the biggest rules of the con, the rule so obvious that it didn’t need to be repeated, so clear that most people figured it out on their own, was that no scam should touch the scammer’s real life.

You slithered into the lives of the wealthy and then you slithered out again, leaving nothing behind.

But she wasn’t doing that. If Topher realized his card was stolen, he only had to glance at the charge to trace it back to her. And he was bound to realize eventually.

Charlie told herself that once she got to Solaluna, she’d find a way to reverse the charges or slip some other card from some other wallet and use that.

“What are you doing with my computer?” Posey asked from the doorway.

“Hey, you’re home.” Charlie logged out of Reddit as Posey jerked the laptop out of her hands. Not enough time for Charlie to delete the history. “Chill! I needed to look something up.”

“What?” Posey looked at her expectantly.

“A retreat upstate,” Charlie said, since there was no reason to lie about that.

“Funny thing.” Posey sat down on the couch next to her. “I am not going to ask where you went last night or why you ate all our peanut butter, but you should see what’s on the news.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s about the Hatfield Massacre,” Posey said. “They found another body.”