Page 43 of A Sin So Pure

“You’re not going to disagree?” I say with mock outrage.

“You’re a little green, Mo,” Conor snickers, wrapping one arm around me and pinching my cheek between his fingers. “You need to work on keeping your emotions to yourself if you want to take over for me one day.”

“And what makes you think I want to do that?”

“Because I don’t want to sire any crotch-goblins. Therefore, next in line is you.”

I bat his hand away as the front door opens with a rush of spring air. In walks Leo and his mother, my own mother’s Second.

“That’s our cue,” Conor says.

He pulls me back into his side by brute force. Conor is a lot taller than me, and I fit under the crook of his arm snugly. Squeezing me tightly, he shakes me back and forth. It’s a silly little habit he developed when he was little to annoy me.

I might grumble at his antics, but I secretly love them.

“We should be back by one,” he says, releasing me. “So hopefully, I’ll be able to catch last call to celebrate with you.”

A genuine smile spreads across my teeth. Conor knows how much this means to me—even if a lot of the operations are being hijacked by my mother and him.

“I’d love that,” I say. “Don’t get too smoked at the Royal’s mixer though. I know they’re not your favorite.”

“Are they anyone’s?” Conor murmurs, tone dripping with sarcasm. “See you later, Mo.”

Then he’s gone, hopping back over the bar, slapping Leo on the shoulder.

“Leo, watch over my little sister, will ya?” Conor says.

“Like she’s my own,” Leo replies with a laugh.

Conor leads our mothers to the door, swiftly opening it for them. He’s a picture of the perfect gentleman, exactly what he was raised to be. I lean against the bar, waiting for a goodbye from my mother, but it doesn’t come.

And as the door swings shut, I call out, “Bye, Ma!”

“Bye, baby!” she yells, not even peeking back.

The door closes.

The opening goes well; the bar is busy, and patrons are happily drunk. The band is a hit, and the dance floor is packed like a can of sardines. There are folks from every House present, and the houselights Leo and I installed never fall from their precarious perches.

All miracles in their own right.

And when midnight strikes, the front door opens again. My magic tunes into a dead frequency—a radio station playing static instead of the music of emotion. Her black hair bounces around her chin as she strides through the maze of patrons, eyes locked on where I stand behind the bar.

“Imogen.”

Nora settles against the bar to my right, leaning over on her elbows. She’s changed out of her standard uniform of dress pants and a blouse tonight, opting for a simple black dress. It is plain compared to the rest of the flapper-like frocks donned by the women on the dance floor, but the silk shines just as brightly against her pale skin.

“You came,” I say, mouth ajar.

“Of course, we came,” Josie says from my left. I twist to see her beaming, dimpled smile. “We couldn’t miss this.”

“We would have been here earlier, but I had to deal with Pride,” Nora says, rolling her eyes. “You know how he is.”

I know as much as they’ll tell me, which isn’t much, but what little I do know is nothing good.

“He didn’t want you to come here?” I ask.

“No, he doesn’t care about that,” Nora says, waving a gloved hand in the air. “He wanted to lecture me about making smart choices now that I’m his Second. As if I don’t already have Josie to do that.”

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