Page 124 of In Prey We Trust

“It’s not.” Rufus smirks. “But it’s going to require a lot of planning on our part just the same.”

Fitz frowns and hops on the bed, pulling me onto his lap. “Why’s that Cotton-Eyed Bro?”

“Because we have to go to a goddamn ball as bait.” The guys look at me, blinking in surprise, so I add, “Where my parents will be in attendance.”

“Shit.”

I nod at Chess, then sigh again. “Which begs the question…”

Cori’s eyes dance as she leaps to her feet, bouncing on my bed. “What are we gonna wear?”

I think we fixed her Giselle moping.

Born For This

Felix

While the Princess and her friend focus on exams, it left the rest of us to finish going through the shit from the vaults and come up with a plan for the night of the ball. I don’t trust the mercs from my father’s security for a second—and the Council shouldn’t either—so I’m busy working with Fitz on the map of the school. We believe the only entrance to the tunnels is in the spot Holliday located, so that will need guards. There are several other ingress and egress points beside the primary route that sneaky infiltrators could use, so Zhenga is contacting as many of the Pred Games people she knows are trustworthy to help us smuggle in protection we can actually depend on.

My twin is hacking like a madman, consuming everything from energy drinks to narcotics to stay awake. He’s hoping to find more information on the other academies’ missing and whispers about the event on the dark web. I had to take his exam drives to his classes for him so he didn’t have to stop working. His computer nerds shrugged and went to work at their stations while I sat at the front drawing diagram after diagram of the campus. My goal is to cover the gaps in physical coverage and camera blind spots, but this is pretty last minute. Every time I try to do it with the amount of people we have so far, it fails, and a group of invaders can slink through the spaces I can’t fill.

My phone buzzes and I pick it up, seeing the group chat light up.

TigerWoody: How’s the exam going, bro? I’m striking out big time on the academies, but I think I found some breadcrumbs about the event.

TigerKing: Tell me.

CSpot: Spill it, Fitzy. And I can hear your teeth chattering from here.

TigerWoody: Okay, okay! Chillax guys. So I found this thread on a message board talking about the full moon.

EmoBatman: Fitz, that could be magic users planning normal things. Moon phases are—

LustyLibrarian: The full moon in December is on Yule Eve. That is not a coincidence.

TigerWoody: That’s what I thought!

TigerKing: Fitz, for the love of Jupiter’s sandals…

TigerWoody: Alright, alright. I found this group of weirdos talking about the full moon and ceremonies. They had a couple separate forums—more than five, so don’t ask. I don’t know if our magic assholes are hiding among normie magic peeps, if that’s even a thing.

EmoBatman: It would be brilliant to hide in plain sight and speak in codes.

LustyLibrarian: How the fuck is the dark web plain sight?

TigerWoody: Look, Pepper Pants, not everyone hates tech as much as you. And people who have to live in hiding definitely take refuge there. I’m pretty sure the crap they’re blathering on about with opening doors and harnessing the moon and blessing the waters is about the ball. But I could use some help of the poetic variety, if you know what I mean.

EmoBatman: I’ll come assist once my Victorian Lit exam is over.

LustyLibrarian: Fuck that. I’ll come cover the stupid exam and you go to Fitz.

TigerKing: I still can’t figure out how to close the gaps in security, FYI.

TigerWoody: Is there a nerdy looking little fuck that smells like Funyuns?

Arching my brow, I rise from the chair to walk around the room. When I hit the scent, I almost recoil, but pull back before the kid sees me. He’s greasy as hell and looks like he might be from one of the vulpine families.

TigerKing: Found him.

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