Page 30 of Fool Me Twice

Hart

To: Nexus

Subject: Curse Diagnosis

I am writing on behalf of the Slatehollow cursebreaking team to ask for consultation on a case I’m currently working on.

It has yet to be confirmed as a curse as diagnostics have shown nothing, but I am almost completely positive it is one. I have attached the current notes I have of all the particulars for your perusal.

It’s a curious case, and looking through past case files I’ve found nothing to match its details as of yet in our database. If you know of any precedent I kindly ask you to send me the case number or relevant files. Any other thoughts you have on this, please let me know at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,

Hart

He reread the email before hitting send, checking that his daily affirmation for the team had also been distributed without any problems before pushing his chair back with a sigh.

He really needed a cigarette.

The secondhand whiff he’d gotten from Cane was now two days old, and it had faded until it wasn’t taking the edge off anymore.

There truly had never been a case like this one. Curses just didn’t appear and disappear at will. Not without some kind of intervention from a caster or cursebreaker. But he could just feel that something was afoot. Something was slipping by him, he just needed to work out what.

It was slightly maddening.

Which fit the person it was supposedly attached to.

Hart huffed as his brain pulled Cane out from behind the barred door he’d shoved him into. He was just such a…such a…brute. A heathen. An ill-mannered, casually violent, unbelievably attractive criminal that he wanted to lick all over—

His eyes shot wide open.

No, no, no.

That wasn’t what he meant at all. Not at all.

He mentally dragged Cane back behind the door and locked it tight, pressing his weight against it, holding back every other thought and memory that threatened to spill out. He could feel his face was flushed, and he looked around his empty office like someone was going to appear out of thin air and accuse him of every secret thought and action. He patted his hot cheeks and readjusted his tie even though it didn’t need it.

He was composed.

He was fine.

He was—

“Hart?”

“I’M FINE!” he shouted.

Fix blinked bemusedly at him from the doorway. “Clearly.”

Hart’s cheeks burned hotter. “Did you need something?”

Fix twisted his mouth and Hart could see the desire in his eyes to press the matter, but thankfully he let it pass. “The Cane case. I just got back from the twins’ place.”

“Oh, right, yes,” Hart said, picking up his pencil pot and setting it back down in the same place. He then fussed with the files on his desk even though they were perfectly stacked. He was normal. Everything was perfectly average. He was not in a spiral. “I assume you found nothing on them?”

“Nope, same as with Cane. It’s not anything to do with me as far as I can tell,” Fix said, eyes following his fussing.

“Ash said the same thing.” Hart sighed. “And Midas swept both the ring and the twins’ apartment yesterday. No cursed objects in sight. No bond traces.”

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