Shadow Thief - Eva Chase Page 0,64

the risk, especially when investigating on our own had been my idea.

“Make note of any male who leaves the premises, then.”

“But—”

Thorn’s dark eyes turned hard as obsidian. “You’re staying here. There’s nothing you can do inside to help our investigation that we can’t do ourselves.”

That statement stung. I stiffened, groping for an argument in response that I thought he’d accept. “He’s not likely to have left any obvious evidence of where he works just lying around, considering how careful the sword-star bunch are obviously being. I know the city—I know mortals. I might realize something is significant that you wouldn’t.”

“If we turn nothing up, then we’ll consider it.”

“He may be home,” Ruse pointed out with an apologetic note in his voice. “You couldn’t go waltzing into his apartment while he’s there anyway.”

I sighed. “Fine.” As I sank back against the patchouli-scented seat, the reminder prompted a question I hadn’t thought to ask before. I turned to Snap. “If Meriden is in there… can you test him and pick up impressions of other places he’s gone, or—”

At the flinch that tightened the shadowkind’s heavenly face, I cut myself off. His whole body had tensed, his green eyes going momentarily dark and distant, as if he was seeing something a long ways away that he wished he’d never had to see at all. Then he was looking to his companions, still rigid in his seat.

“No,” he said, a quiver running through his clear voice. “I won’t. Omen said— We agreed—”

“Hey,” Ruse said in the same warm, gentle tone he’d used with me when I’d been reeling from the drugged air the other night. He reached over to grasp Snap’s hand. “We’re not asking anything like that of you. Don’t worry about it. She was just curious—she didn’t know.”

I glanced between the two of them. “What don’t I know?”

Snap’s shoulders had come down at the incubus’s reassurance, but he still looked haunted, as if a different sort of shadow had risen up through his usual brightness. He exhaled sharply and appeared to get a grip on whatever emotions my question had dredged up. “It’s different with living things. It isn’t something I would ever want to do.”

I could hear an unspoken again in the resistance that wound through his voice and the way his gaze darted away from me. Something about his abilities… horrified him? Sweet harping Hades, how bad could it be for him to react like this?

Under all that joyful innocence, this god of sunshine had scars of his own. Scars and secrets.

I had the urge to touch him like Ruse had, to tell him that I knew what it was like to swallow down pain—that whatever haunted him, I wasn’t going to judge him for it. But now wasn’t the time for uncovering those secrets. We’d delayed here long enough.

I let myself give his arm a quick squeeze. “I’m sorry I brought it up. I had no idea. I’m sure you can dig up all kinds of useful dirt your regular way. You’re the one who brought us here, after all.”

Snap blinked at me, and a glimmer of his usual curious demeanor returned. He turned to Ruse. “Why would we want dirt?”

The incubus cracked a smile. “Another one of those silly mortal expressions. Come on. If we don’t get moving soon, Thorn’s likely to explode with his impatience.”

“I’m hardly that limited in self-control,” our warrior muttered, but he did vanish into the shadows around his seat awfully quickly after Ruse’s remark. The other two slipped away a second later.

I refused to let myself slump. Although maybe it would have been a good tactic to avoid anyone wondering why I was sitting out here on my own. I settled for fiddling with my phone instead, as if I just had to finish this level of Whatever The Hot New Game Was before I could haul ass to wherever I was going.

Every few seconds, I glanced toward Meriden’s house and all around, but no one emerged from either door, and of course I couldn’t see my shadowy friends. “Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world,” I muttered to myself.

As if on cue, the phone in my hands vibrated. Vivi’s number came up on the display. My throat tightened as I answered it, even though I should have welcomed the distraction.

“Hey!” I said with as much normal enthusiasm as I could feign. “What’s up?”

“I was calling to ask you that, girl. You seem to be making all kinds of mysterious