~ Sylas ~

The last thing I want to do is lie and keep secrets from Jaxon. And yet, by the time we're back home in Covey Bend that evening, finishing off a dinner of Chinese takeout we'd picked up on the way, I still haven't figured a way out of doing just that.

If I tell Jaxon everything, Edwards and his weird little machines will know. Even if he didn't find out, there's no way Jaxon would let me meet the guy alone—much less with Aurelio.

So, even while knowing it's the wrong thing to do, I keep quiet, and let this new secret rest like a stone at the bottom of my heart.

"Not hungry?" Jaxon asks, eyeing my uneaten dumplings.

I push my plate towards him. "I had a late lunch."

He eyes me suspiciously, but in this case I'm telling the truth.

"So, you learn anything?" he asks, transferring a dumpling to his mouth with his bamboo chopsticks.

We hadn't spoken much on the drive home. Jaxon had picked me up at a coffee shop a few blocks from campus where we'd agreed to meet, and while less tense than when we'd parted that morning, it was clear he was in a bad mood. It was only lifting now, as he packed himself full of dumplings, broccoli beef, sesame chicken, and shrimp fried rice.

"Not much," I say, answering his question as vaguely as I can. "The professors mostly talked about assignments and due dates and stuff."

"Mm." He pushes some rejected broccoli stems around his plate.

"What about you?" I ask. "Did you, um, have a good day?"

He flexes a shoulder in the semblance of a shrug and gives me a half-twist of a smile. "Eh. Learned I hate my job. Only thing else I learned is the place is full of entitled snobs. You wanna be invisible? Try working in a place where everyone automatically assumes they're better and smarter than you because of what you do."

"Sounds like you have a chip on your shoulder," I say carefully.

He sighs and stabs the last dumpling. "Guess that's what comes of being the only brother out of three who didn't go to a fancy school. You fit in well, though."

Considering what he just said, I'm not sure this is a compliment.

"I mean being a student," he clarifies, maybe seeing the doubt on my face. "It suits you."

"Oh." I shrug. Actually, he's not wrong. Everything else aside, I did enjoy it—the ritual of arriving in a classroom and sitting at a desk, and listening and taking notes, and having books to read and papers to write. "I guess so. Maybe once this is all over, I'll apply for real."

"You should," Jaxon says with a firmness that surprises me. "You deserve the chance to go after your dreams."

"So do you," I remind him, showing him I mean it with a smile.

He reaches across our little table and takes my hand. "No more running, no more hiding, no more Spellwright bullshit, and a life with you is dream enough for me."

"You sap," I laugh, even as guilt kicks me in the gut. "You're too good for me."

I'm not even lying.

"That's my line," he says, and holds my gaze long enough to make my heart beat a little faster. Then he winks and breaks the tension, and gets up to clear away the remains of our meal.

To distract myself from the uncomfortable feeling in my chest, I unwrap a fortune cookie and crack it open, pulling out the little slip of paper inside.

Your family is your treasure, it says.

I snort. Jaxon should've gotten that one. Then I sober.

I've hardly thought of Lyssa all day. A few months ago, she'd have been the one sitting across from me, eating takeout and laughing about some dumb thing or other, making plans and talking about dreams.

I wonder if Marcus makes her laugh, or if he just makes her do other things.

Suddenly, I'm glad I didn't eat that many dumplings, after all.

I'm doing this for her, I remind myself. She's the one in danger, if Marcus gets his hands on that book of spells.

"Have you ever heard of a place called 'The Spire?'" I ask, as Jaxon rejoins me and opens a cookie of his own. "I heard it mentioned, and it's not familiar."

At least all of that is true.

"Yeah," Jaxon grunts. "It's a Crafter club—like an old-fashioned gentleman's club, but without the sexist restrictions. Crafters only, though."

I swallow, breaking my cookie into smaller and smaller pieces without eating it. "Where is it?"

"Huh? Oh, I dunno. Only members know, and I don't belong. Dad used to, and 'Rel does. Why d'ya ask?"

"Just curious." I shrug.

"You wouldn't like it," he says, studying his fortune-cookie message. "Talk about a bunch of entitled snobs. Hey—I wonder if a Crafter wrote these fortunes. Mine's true."

He hands it across the table to me, and I read it aloud.

"Your true love is already in front of you."

I laugh and toss it back at him. And then, because I'm feeling guilty as shit, and because I'm about to do even worse, I let him take me to bed.

✧ ✧ ✧

I don't have classes the next day, but I tell Jaxon I want to study in the library and see what I can dig up on the Devil's Song. It's the truth—just a twisted, incomplete version of it.

He drops me at the corner as he had the day before, and I wait until he's out of sight before I pull out my phone.

In the middle of the night, after he'd surprised me and demonstrated his love by simply falling asleep at my side—nothing else asked for or required—I'd unlocked his phone with his thumbprint and gotten Aurelio's number from his contacts.

Sneaking around behind Jaxon's back is bad enough; doing it with his brother seems even worse.

But it's for Jaxon, as well as Lyssa, that I'm doing it at all, I remind myself; if I don't go along, Edwards could blow both our covers.

I still feel like a traitor as I tap out a text asking Aurelio to call me, and hit 'send.'

My phone rings less than a minute later, and I almost drop it in surprise.

"Lovecraft? What's wrong?" Aurelio's smooth voice and cultured accent comes across crisp and clear. He sounds mildly concerned, and I realize he probably thinks the only reason I'd call him is if something had happened to Jaxon.

Quickly, I explain about Edwards and what he'd proposed.

"Damn Linden and his damned machines," Aurelio swears with soft vehemence. "I was almost certain I'd compensated for his infernal devices. What did he get you with?"

I tell him about the deception detector.

"Damn," Aurelio repeats. "That's a new one. Well, never mind. We'll deal with it. I'll pick you up at quarter till, by the east gate."

He disconnects, leaving me to guess that he means a quarter to twelve, on the east side of campus.

If not, he has my number now.

I spend the morning in the library, as I'd told Jaxon I would, but I'm too nervous to concentrate, and fail to find any new information or retain what I read.

At eleven, I pack up and walk across campus to the east entrance, and settle to wait on a bench, and at exactly 11:45, a shiny silver Jaguar with tinted windows pulls up beside the bench where I sit, and the driver-side window lowers a crack.

"Get in," Aurelio says.

I slide in on cream leather and a wave of fresh-scented chilled air, and when I shut the door after me, the noise of the outside world is cut off. All I hear are the low strains of classical music rising from what must be the best sound system money can buy. As Aurelio pulls away from the curb, I barely feel the motion of the car: it's like riding along in a little capsule of smooth, silent luxury.

"There's a box in the back seat," Aurelio says by way of greeting. "Open it."

I twist and look back to see a long, narrow box. Warily, I take it and lift the top, revealing a burgundy silk shirt, a black tie, and a thin leather belt.

"I guessed your size. Put them on."

"This isn't really my—"

"Believe me, you'll stand out less in them than out of them. The Spire is the sort of place for peacockery."

I pick up the shirt and examine it. There are no markings or tags, but it certainly didn't come from Walmart. "Why would Edwards make me meet him there?"

"To goad me, most likely, and to rope me into this—to show he's got the upper hand. You can't get into The Spire without me, and you can't refuse to go without risking everything; ergo, I must take you there. Forcing the hand of an opponent is a favorite strategy of his. He told you we were rivals, at school?"

"He did." I shrug out of my t-shirt, pull the silk garment on and button it, then slip the belt through the loops of my black jeans. The tie I leave in the box.

"There was seldom a clear victor between us. Logically, I concluded this meant we were evenly matched; he refused to accept this outcome. I've moved past childish competition; clearly he has not."

He speaks in a light, clipped tone, and while outwardly cool, I sense anger beneath.

"He thinks you sent me to his class as a test," I say. "Did you?"

To my surprise, Aurelio laughs. "Hardly. Linden thinks too much of himself. No, Lovecraft, what I told you is true—I sent you to him because he's among those I deemed most likely to know of the Devil's Song. He's obsessed with esoteric knowledge—with anything that could give him an edge. Got a bit of an inferiority complex, if you ask me."

He takes a sharp turn, accelerating so quickly I feel myself pressed against my seat. The city whisks by outside my window, and I see we're headed towards the upscale waterfront district.

"Inferiority?" I ask. "But his machines must be unique. I've never seen magic like that before."

"It's a matter of capacity," Aurelio says, pulling onto a long, straight stretch of road with the bay on one side. "He's limited by his own store of magic, as are we all. Except you, maybe."

He lifts a shoulder in a shrug, bringing the car to a halt in front of a long, private pier, alongside which several large yachts are moored.

"It's not about skill, but...magnitude," he says, looking over at me. "A tiny bottle of powerful poison could kill a thousand men; a large bottle of weak poison might not kill one. Linden's mind is brilliant, his talent can't be questioned, but his magic lacks potency. For which I think we may be grateful. Perhaps the world would be a wondrous place, filled with magical machines; then again, perhaps not."

He reaches over and lifts the tie from the box, slips it around my neck, and deftly fastens it in a perfect knot, tightening it gently at the base of my throat.

"Well," he looks me up and down. "Let's see exactly what it is the Professor 'desires,' shall we?"

With no other option, I don't bother answering, and the two of us get out.

A man in a valet's uniform appears and takes Aurelio's keys with a very slight bow, as if honored to receive them.

Then, to my confusion, Aurelio turns and walks away down the long, yacht-lined dock. I follow, feeling like a dog running at the heels of its master, until he reaches the end and stops before the grandest among the moored vessels. And at last I understand why the place is hard to find unless you know where it is.

'The Spire' is a boat.