I swallow. “I can’t just —”
“The awry protect awry. You can. And solely on that basis alone.”
Kitty looks up at me. She’s holding my phone now, and I realize she’s found the first picture Tommy ever sent me. The one with the building in the background — and the stamp on the brick just over their shoulder.
“Can I send this picture to my phone?” Kitty asks.
Tommy deleted the earliest messages and photos he’d sent me, as if afraid of someone seeing them. “Yes.”
She doesn’t look away, so I just hold her gaze steadily and wait.
“Tommy too, right, Mirth?” she asks in a whisper. “Even if he doesn’t have purple eyes? You’ll look after Tommy too? That’s what guardianship means, right?”
“Yes.”
Kitty frowns deeply. “The wolf is going to be very bossy.”
I laugh involuntarily, opening my mouth to tell her that wild, carefree Bolan is the last person who would tell anyone what to do with their lives. Then I see a shimmer of light behind Kitty’s eyes — a shift in essence within those dark-blue depths.
I close my mouth, knowing she’s right. Bolan is going to be a crazy strict parent. Sully and Elias are going to be the pushovers.
Oddly, the idea of all that — building a life together and all it entails — doesn’t concern me. Whether or not I understand every last nuance of what’s going on between us all, I’ve already made my choice. My choices.
Kitty huffs, my silence only confirming her assessment of Bolan, and returns her attention to the phones, transferring more photos between them.
I eye the rest of the contents of the safe. “Coda. Do you really need all the money and —”
“If I’m going to trace it,” Coda says. “So yes. Also, I’m pretty certain you aren’t going to agree to just burning the building down, so I need to plunder what assets I can. To fund our cause, you know.”
Awry protecting awry.
Giving in, I look around for something to cart around the remainder of the safe’s contents. I’m not sure how much that many stacks of paper money and bonds combined with the one-ounce gold and silver bars weigh, but they’ll need to be carried in something solid. Spotting a trashcan with a liner in it, I straighten and step away from the safe to see if —
“Now …” Coda murmurs thoughtfully. “Where does this go?”
A section of the paneled wall behind the desk slides open, revealing a doorway and a sporadically lit, brick-walled passageway beyond.
I blink at the gaping hole in the back wall. “Well … cutting through the brick was definitely not permitted under the heritage restoration bylaws.”
Coda cackles.
Kitty, still hovering by the safe, whimpers quietly, drawing my attention. She presses her phone to her chest, eyes wideand fear shimmering off her in waves. “That’s where they took Tommy,” she whispers.
“All right,” I say, stepping back to pick up her backpack and help her get it settled on her back. I retrieve my phone, ignoring the rest of what’s in the safe. “Then that’s where we’re headed.”
“I don’t have access to the cameras through there, Princess,” Coda says, sounding actually cautious.
“We’ll come back for the money.”
“That is so not the point,” Coda mutters.
I take Kitty’s hand. She clutches her phone in her other hand.
“These people …” Coda’s fingers are flying over their keyboards again, likely trying to gain access to whatever tech is beyond the passageway. “They care more about your purple eyes than your rank or, like, the societal standards or whatever normally keep you relatively safe. You don’t have your entourage to protect you, Mirth. Wait for them, then we’ll all look for the boy.”
“I never actually needed anyone to protect me, Coda.” I squeeze Kitty’s hand. “I’m in disguise, you see. The pearls, the perfect smile, the sweet demeanor. The crown. Underneath, slumbering deep, deep down, I’m the one to be truly feared. And there’s only one way to wake me …”
Kitty squeezes my hand back, not the least bit scared of me.
