your family and tell them that Mr. Fullerton from Scroll is coming to pick up the bones. He’ll need complete privacy.”
I let out a breath, took out my phone, and called Bern.
“Yes?” my cousin said.
“There is a plastic bin in the cage. Please get it and take it to the conference room. Mr. Fullerton from Scroll is on his way to you. Please show him the bones when he arrives. Please don’t tell anyone and don’t ask any questions.”
“Will do.”
The conference room had an excellent security camera concealed in the smoke alarm. Whatever Fullerton did with the bones, I wanted to know about it.
I put the phone down and looked at Linus. “What’s going on?”
“The proverbial shit has hit the fan and now we’re all getting splattered with it. Let’s eat. We will know more once Fullerton calls. While we’re eating, tell me everything about the warped mage. Don’t leave anything out.”
Fullerton called twenty minutes later. By this point, we had finished eating. Linus answered the call and walked away to the house.
While he was on the phone, Arabella, Runa, and Leon simultaneously texted me three different pictures of the same helicopter landing in front of our warehouse followed by their versions of “What the hell is going on and why wasn’t I told about it?”
If I had told them about it, Fullerton would find them playing beer pong with Lawrence’s bones. There was no better way to prank my sister than to hand her a box with a glitter bomb inside and tell her to not open it. She never met a secret she could resist.
I didn’t even know Scroll had a helicopter. Scroll was an independent entity that worked for everyone but answered to no one. Why was Fullerton obeying Linus without question? Why did I have a feeling that everything had just gotten dramatically worse?
We already had an assassin firm gunning for us. How much worse could it get?
“What exactly is your relationship with Linus Duncan?” Alessandro asked.
That was an excellent question. I got the plastic lids for the bowls from their spot in the outdoor kitchen cupboard and began putting the food up.
“He served as a witness to the formation of our House. There is an old tradition among the Houses that a witness also acts as a guide and adviser. Like a godfather or godmother but for the entire family. Linus takes it seriously.” I hadn’t realized until ten minutes ago how seriously.
“It’s more than that.”
“What are you implying?” Because if he was implying what I thought he was implying, he needed to backpedal real fast or I would stuff his head into that chiminea.
“Not that.” Alessandro looked at Linus, then looked at me, then looked at Linus again, opened his mouth . . .
“What is it?”
Alessandro started to speak and clamped his mouth shut, staring behind me. I turned around. At the house, Linus was looking straight at us. He shook his head once with deliberate precision and went back to his phone call.
“Sono un idiota,” Alessandro muttered.
And he’d just called himself an idiot. While I agreed in principle, he hadn’t done anything particularly stupid right this second. Something obvious must’ve occurred to him and I wanted to know what it was.
“Do you want to enlighten me?”
“Never mind,” he said. “Your godfather is walking over, and he looks unhappy.”
At least unhappy was an improvement over homicidal.
Linus marched toward us. “Come with me.” It didn’t sound like a request.
“Do you want me to bring the food to the kitchen?”
“Leave it, please.”
We followed him into the study, a place of floor-to-ceiling mahogany shelves, leather chairs, and original art on the walls. The air smelled of aromatic cigars. Linus shut the doors. A metallic click announced the lock engaging. Great. Now we were locked in.
Next to me, Alessandro was still, but ready, his magic coiled like a python about to strike.
Linus strode to his desk and placed a palm on the glass plate within it. A drawer slid open from the wall. Linus walked to it and retrieved a wooden box about a foot long and half as wide. He set the box on the desk.
“Do you want to find Halle?”
What kind of question was that? “Yes.”
“And you, do you want to find Sigourney’s killer?”
“That’s why I’m here,” Alessandro said.
“You two have stumbled onto a uniquely dangerous secret. There are three types of people who have this knowledge: the soon-to-be-dead, the criminals, and the Wardens. The only way for you to avoid the first two categories is