Page 2 of Trick Me (Immortal Vices and Virtues: All Hallows’ Eve)

“The dead don’t exactly feel compelled to kiss and tell.” That’s not entirely true. Sometimes they won’t shut up about their conquests. But Erik seems more concerned with making it up to his wife.

Dmitri goes back to his work, and across from me, Marcus is chatting with a manager about what sounds like a haunted house situation, before the boss man leaves. The other desks are empty right now.

We all live in the House of Gold and Garnet, which rules our corner of the world, demanding excellence in all things. We’re the cleanup crew for the aftermath of magic, the ones who deal with what happens when spells go wrong, when the dead won’t stay dead, when curses take root and spread.

When the portals in our world first opened to a world ruled by humans and magic flooded in like a tsunami, the majority of humanity died in the first wave.

The survivors either adapted, evolved, or got very good at hiding.

Then the world slowly divided into Houses, taking control over various countries and seas.

These Houses now rule what’s left of the world, each seeming to attract a certain type of magic and supernaturals.

And in the House of Gold and Garnet, we got death, wealth, and violence.

We’re the dangerous side of the world, the flashy, profitable, and hiding-bodies-in-the-basement kind.

Our territory stretches across several countries, all under the rule of King Kaspian, who governs from his modern palace in Reykjavík.

They say he bathes in blood and eats diamonds for breakfast. They say a lot of things.

All I know is our pay each month clears.

The Institute is one of the crown jewels of our House’s death services.

We handle everything from simple hauntings to mass possessions, from curse breaking to spiritual negotiations.

And then there’s me, the only natural medium in the Institute who doesn’t need rituals, blood sacrifice, or machinery to talk to the dead.

Lucky me.

The Institute found me three years ago during what the newspapers called “The Helsinki Library Disaster.” I was studying, minding my own business in the library, when the construction crew breaking ground on the new wing hit something they shouldn’t have.

Turns out there was a mass grave under the library. Viking raiders from a long time ago, buried without proper rites, their spirits bound to the earth by violence and rage. When the construction crew’s drill hit the first skull, all forty-three Vikings woke up at once.

And they were pissed.

Twenty-three students started speaking in Old Norse, warning about blood and vengeance.

The temperature dropped so fast that the windows shattered.

Books flew off shelves, forming words in languages that had been dead for centuries.

And me? I was the only one who could see them, all forty-three Viking warriors in full battle gear, axes raised, ready to possess every living soul in a three-block radius .

I don’t remember much of what happened next.

The security footage showed me rising four feet off the ground, my eyes going solid white, speaking fluent Old Norse despite never studying it.

I bound all forty-three spirits and sent them to their rest, but not before every camera in the area caught me looking like something out of a horror movie.

The Institute’s recruiters got to me fast. Offered me a salary I couldn’t refuse.

My calendar pings. Next appointment in fifteen minutes with a CEO who wants to know if his business partner is really dead or just faking it for the insurance money. These are my favorite cases. Half the time, the ghost is actually just a very much alive person hiding.

The pneumatic tube beside my desk makes its distinctive whoosh.

The Institute loves them, and they’re powered by compressed air spirits (don’t ask) and can deliver anything from case files to coffee orders anywhere in the building.

They painted them brass and added unnecessary gears because someone in Facilities Management has read too many adventure novels about old airships and clockwork.

I’m expecting case files.

Instead, a black envelope with a gold seal lands on my desk. It’s a serpent eating its own tail, picked out in gold wax. I break the seal.

The whisper starts immediately, not in my ears but in my bones: The frozen heart seeks flame. The burning soul seeks ice.

Strange, but I often hear voices and have become accustomed to ignoring them.

Inside, the invitation is written on translucent parchment with glittering black text. It features the serpent logo at the top and reads…

A night of mischief, magic, and mayhem awaits you. You are cordially invited to the first All Hallows’ Eve Ball at Crossroads. Arrive by the stroke of ten, dressed in your finest enchantments, or forfeit your place. Masks are optional. Secrets are not.

See you soon, Erynn M?kinen.

Coordinates are included on the back of the invitation.

I stare at the invitation, at the serpent insignia, my mind racing.

The logo belongs to Vaelora. Everyone knows about her, even if no one I know has actually met her.

She’s a mysterious fae who recently arrived at Crossroads, a few months after the portal opened.

She’s known for being extremely powerful and throwing grand, seductive events that are full of magic, inviting a variety of random people.

Rumors say that no one declines her invitations…

These are parties you will never forget.

“Fuck me sideways, you got one too?”

I nearly jump out of my skin. Sera perches on my desk like she owns it, which, knowing Sera, she probably thinks she does. She’s the Institute’s emergency response specialist, a blood witch who can stop a rampaging revenant with three drops of virgin blood and a dirty limerick.

Today she’s wearing a leather pencil skirt and a silk blouse the color of fresh blood that brings out the burgundy in her hair. Her lips are painted the exact shade, and her nails are sharp.

She’s also my best friend, and I absolutely adore her.

“Tell me that’s not what I think it is,” I say, nodding at the matching black envelope in her hand.

“Invitation to Vaelora’s ball? The party everyone whispers about but no one admits attending? The event that supposedly changes your life forever?” Sera grins, and her canines are just a little too sharp to be human. “Oh, yeah, baby. We’re going to party with the fae.”

“No.” I shake my head. “I haven’t decided if I’m going yet.”

“When was the last time you went out?” Sera asks, examining her nails like she’s not about to emotionally manipulate me.

“I went to the store last week.”

“Doesn’t count.”

“There were people there.”

“Living people? ”

I pause. “The security guard. Probably. He was very solid-looking.”

Sera hops off my desk and leans over, dropping her head to the top of it dramatically. “You’re going to die alone, surrounded by ghosts who are probably terrible conversationalists.”

I notice that Dmitri is getting up and leaving his desk, and I feel it has everything to do with our loud conversation.

“They’re not so bad,” I answer Sera. “They have literally nothing but time.”

“Erynn.” She looks up, and there’s something serious in her expression. “Rich might be there.”

Ah. Richard. Sera’s on-again, off-again whatever-he-is. Tall, dark, and handsome in that I-definitely-kill-people-for-money way. He disappears for months at a time, comes back with expensive gifts, and rocks Sera’s world just long enough to make her stupid before vanishing again.

“He’s been gone for two months,” she continues. “This is exactly the kind of place he’d resurface. All mysterious and dangerous and?—”

“And toxic,” I interrupt. “Sera, he treats you like a pit stop between murder tours.”

“I know.” She sighs. “But gods, Erynn, you should see what that man can do with his tongue. I swear he’s part demon. The things he does to my?—”

“And we’re done with that conversation,” Marcus calls from his desk, not looking up from his computer. “Some of us are trying to eat lunch.”

“It’s ten in the morning,” Sera points out.

“I had an early start.”

“Anyway, Rich isn’t my actual boyfriend,” Sera explains automatically. “He’s my… complicated sexual arrangement and rare emotional vulnerability.”

“That’s actually worse,” I tell her.

She sighs. “I know.” She turns back to me, and now she’s in full pleading mode. “Please come with me? Please? I need moral support. And someone to keep me from doing something stupid when Rich shows up looking all brooding and dangerous.”

“You’re going to do something stupid regardless.”

“Yes, but with you there, I’ll at least feel guilty about it.”

I look down at the invitation. The serpent seal seems to wink at me, which is disturbing on multiple levels. The whisper echoes in my mind: Stay away.

I try one last time. “I have four clients booked on Halloween, so I can’t really go.”

“Cancel them. Tell them the dead will still be dead next week.”

“That’s terrible customer service.”

“You know what’s horrible? Your social life. When was the last time you got laid?”

Marcus makes a choking sound. “And that’s my cue to take an early break.” He practically runs for the elevator.

“Sera—”

“Six months? A year?”

“I don’t?—”

“Two years?” Her eyes widen. “Oh my, it’s been more than two years, hasn’t it?”

“Can we not?—”

She leans in. “Your vagina is going to seal shut. Like, literally close for business. Put up a little Closed Indefinitely sign.”

“That’s not how anatomy works.”

“It is when you ignore it for that long. Trust me, I’m a blood witch. I know things about bodies.”

“You know how to explode them, not maintain them.”

“Same principle.” She leans even closer, grabbing my hands. Her skin is always fever-warm, a side effect of all the blood magic. “Please. One night. Wear something pretty, drink something irresponsible, maybe talk to someone who has a pulse. What’s the worst that could happen?”

At a fae party at Crossroads on Halloween?

My imagination immediately supplies about seventeen different scenarios, each worse than the last. Everything from being turned into a toad to having my soul stolen to ending up in a different dimension where everything is made of teeth .

But Sera is staring at me with those big emerald eyes, and I can feel the invitation pulse in my hand like a heartbeat.

“Fine,” I say, already regretting it. “But I’m not wearing anything ridiculous.”

“Yes!” Sera literally bounces. “This is going to be amazing! I have the perfect dress for you. It’s a shimmery blue, and it’s going to look like you have nothing to do with death.”

I arch a brow, but she’s already too deep in the fantasy to notice. Her excitement is practically vibrating off her, and damn it, I’ve never been good at resisting her when she gets like this, sparkling eyes, wild gestures, the whole manic friend thing in full force. My resolve wavers.

“The point is, you’re going to look hot, and we’re going to find someone to break your dry spell.”

I snort. “I don’t have a?—”

“Two years, Erynn. Two. Years. You admitted it.”

I hold up my hands in protest but decide it’s easier to surrender, as she isn’t going to let this go. “Okay. But if something goes horribly wrong, I’m blaming you.”

“It’s just a party.”

I think about Mrs. Lindqvist and her dead husband, about the ghosts that sometimes crowd around me when I’m in old places. About two years of nothing but work and sleep and the occasional conversation with someone who doesn’t have a pulse.

Maybe change isn’t the worst thing that could happen.

Maybe it’s exactly what I need.

I tuck the invitation into my desk drawer. “We’re going to a party.”

Sera squeals and hugs me, and I pretend not to notice that the temperature in the room drops five degrees.

After all, what’s the worst that could happen at a Halloween party thrown by a fae?