Page 3 of Trick Me
The Institute’s recruiters got to me fast. Offered me a salary I couldn’t refuse.
My calendar pings. Next appointment in fifteen minutes with a CEO who wants to know if his business partner is really dead or just faking it for the insurance money. These are my favorite cases. Half the time, the ghost is actually just a very much alive person hiding.
The pneumatic tube beside my desk makes its distinctive whoosh. The Institute loves them, and they’re powered by compressed air spirits (don’t ask) and can deliver anything from case files to coffee orders anywhere in the building. They painted them brass and added unnecessary gears because someone in Facilities Management has read too many adventure novels about old airships and clockwork.
I’m expecting case files.
Instead, a black envelope with a gold seal lands on my desk. It’s a serpent eating its own tail, picked out in gold wax. I break the seal.
The whisper starts immediately, not in my ears butin my bones:The frozen heart seeks flame. The burning soul seeks ice.
Strange, but I often hear voices and have become accustomed to ignoring them.
Inside, the invitation is written on translucent parchment with glittering black text. It features the serpent logo at the top and reads…
A night of mischief, magic, and mayhem awaits you. You are cordially invited to the first All Hallows’ Eve Ball at Crossroads. Arrive by the stroke of ten, dressed in your finest enchantments, or forfeit your place. Masks are optional. Secrets are not.
See you soon, Erynn Mäkinen.
Coordinates are included on the back of the invitation.
I stare at the invitation, at the serpent insignia, my mind racing. The logo belongs to Vaelora. Everyone knows about her, even if no one I know has actually met her. She’s a mysterious fae who recently arrived at Crossroads, a few months after the portal opened. She’s known for being extremely powerful and throwing grand, seductive events that are full of magic, inviting a variety of random people. Rumors say that no one declines her invitations… These are parties you will never forget.
“Fuck me sideways, you got one too?”
I nearly jump out of my skin. Sera perches on my desk like she owns it, which, knowing Sera, sheprobably thinks she does. She’s the Institute’s emergency response specialist, a blood witch who can stop a rampaging revenant with three drops of virgin blood and a dirty limerick.
Today she’s wearing a leather pencil skirt and a silk blouse the color of fresh blood that brings out the burgundy in her hair. Her lips are painted the exact shade, and her nails are sharp.
She’s also my best friend, and I absolutely adore her.
“Tell me that’s not what I think it is,” I say, nodding at the matching black envelope in her hand.
“Invitation to Vaelora’s ball? The party everyone whispers about but no one admits attending? The event that supposedly changes your life forever?” Sera grins, and her canines are just a little too sharp to be human. “Oh, yeah, baby. We’re going to party with the fae.”
“No.” I shake my head. “I haven’t decided if I’m going yet.”
“When was the last time you went out?” Sera asks, examining her nails like she’s not about to emotionally manipulate me.
“I went to the store last week.”
“Doesn’t count.”
“There were people there.”
“Living people?”
I pause. “The security guard. Probably. He was very solid-looking.”
Sera hops off my desk and leans over, dropping her head to the top of it dramatically. “You’re going to die alone, surrounded by ghosts who are probably terrible conversationalists.”
I notice that Dmitri is getting up and leaving his desk, and I feel it has everything to do with our loud conversation.
“They’re not so bad,” I answer Sera. “They have literally nothing but time.”
“Erynn.” She looks up, and there’s something serious in her expression. “Rich might be there.”
Ah. Richard. Sera’s on-again, off-again whatever-he-is. Tall, dark, and handsome in that I-definitely-kill-people-for-money way. He disappears for months at a time, comes back with expensive gifts, and rocks Sera’s world just long enough to make her stupid before vanishing again.
