21

21

This Is Real

Every pledge who graduates to master thief magically receives a relic. We believe the gifts are from Hermes for use in our trade. It is the only thing of significant value that we never have to steal or surrender to pad the Order’s pockets.

However, as a clerk, I didn’t technically graduate. There was no ceremony. No relic should have come to me.

But this axe showed up on my bed one day.

Silver with golden markings, it has a gold handle, the end wrapped in turquoise leather. A circle with a symbol of Zeus’ head stamped on it divides the larger blade from a smaller one on the backside that’s shaped more like a tip of a spear.

I assumed one of the other pledges was playing a mean trick, trying to get me caught with a relic that wasn’t mine, but every time I returned it to the coffers, it magically returned to me. No one—I mean absolutely no one—knows I have it.

“What is that?” I try to play naive. The relic looks like an ordinary handle to a weapon or tool, if only the handle remained, and I turn it this way and that as though trying to figure out what it is.

Boone rolls his eyes. “I’ve known about this for the past few years,” he says.

And never turned me in to Felix? I eye him sideways. “How?”

“I saw you practicing in the weapons range one night when I was late returning from a score gone sideways,” he says.

Oh.

Well…

Blast and brimstone.

I swallow.

Boone isn’t done, though.

Next, he pulls out a lockpicking kit. Not one of the cheap, larger, unwieldier ones the Order provides, though. This is Boone’s personal kit that he paid for himself, having to work off his own family’s debts for longer to buy it. It’s smaller. I’ll be able to slip it into the biggest pocket on the back of my tactical vest.

But… I shake my head. This is worth a lot to him. “I can’t.”

“You can,” he insists. “I’ll just use one of the Order’s until you get back.”

I stare at him. “I might not come back.”

His lips go crooked, but he doesn’t say anything before he digs back into the duffel bag. “And then there’s these.”

He holds out a drawstring leather pouch that rattles a little, something inside clacking. Curiosity always was a failing of mine. When I don’t immediately reach for it, he bounces it on his palm. “Come on, Lyra-Loo-Hoo. You know you want to.”

I pluck it from his grasp, then pour what’s inside into my hand and stare.

Teeth?

“Um…” I look at Boone. “Gross?”

“My relic,” he says, as if that’s not a big deal.

I almost drop them right there, and they clatter in my hand a bit. “Hells, Boone. You can’t give these to me.”

“They’re my relic. I can do what I want with them.” He shrugs. “They haven’t been useful to me as a thief anyway, so…”

I still don’t want to take them. “What are they?”

“Dragon teeth.”

The teeth are stark white, tan at the roots, and they come in so many different shapes, all of which remind me of ancient weapons. Single long, curved swords. Tiny, straight daggers. Three-pronged caltrops. And hammer-like molars made to crush instead of rend. “They’re so…”

“Impressive?”

“Small.”

I glance up to find his shoulders silently shaking. “They’ve been enchanted to be carried more easily, but they will still work fine. You plant them in the ground—any ground—and within minutes they will grow into bone soldiers that cannot be killed and who will obey your commands. Use them wisely.”

“What, exactly, do you think I’ll be doing?” I ask cautiously. It’s almost like he has an idea, but I’m well aware that’s not possible.

“Who knows?” he says. “If you use them, great. If not, I’ll take them when you get back.”

He has no idea that of all the things he brought me tonight, if I’m going against monsters at some point, these teeth might come in the handiest. Even so, I can’t take his relic. “These…have to be worth a small fortune. Even if you don’t use them, you could sell them and finish paying off your debts ten times over, probably.”

He shrugs. “I received my Deed of Fulfillment two years ago.”

I go still, staring at him with wide eyes. Two years? “So you want to stay in the Order?” I ask slowly. “Become a boss?”

“I have reasons for hanging around.”

I don’t ask. He doesn’t say.

“Still…these could set you up when you go legit.” I hold them out. “You shouldn’t give them to me. Everything else is more than enough.”

He lets me pour them into his palm, then takes the leather pouch and drops them in with little clicks of bone on bone…and holds the pouch out to me.

I have no clue what to do with this Boone. Yes, he’s always been nice to me, but in an oblivious, we-work-together sort of way, layered with the flirty way he is with everyone. Maybe even in a pity sort of way. But self-sacrificing friendship? No.

For the second time in two nights, tears mist my eyes, and I blink at the sting.

“If you don’t take them, I’ll just throw them away,” he says.

Knowing him, he means it, too. I huff. “Stubborn to the bitter end.”

Boone winks. “Says the pot.”

I grumble some more, but I snatch the bag from his hand. “How long will they last?”

“Until whatever you need them for is over. One use only.”

“Got it.” I set the pouch on the bedside table and look at him expectantly.

Only instead of leaving or whatever else he thinks he needs to do, he remains still as an awkward silence fills the room.

“You were always fascinated by dragons,” I say to break the silence. “Always reading about them. I guess now I know why.”

He glances away, and I realize that we aren’t close enough for me to know that. I’m giving myself away a bit, except he already knows about my feelings from Chance.

Boone gets up off the bed, and I’m not sure why, but I get up, too, and walk him to the door of the bedroom.

“I’ll check if it’s all clear,” I tell him.

It feels like the world flipped upside down and started spinning backward—him in my room, the risk he took to help me tonight.

I reach for the doorknob, but he gets there first, stopping me. “Something else?” I ask.

He searches my gaze, but differently now, like he’s trying to find a secret in my eyes. He hitches his chin as if he’s silently laughing to himself. Or maybe at himself, because his expression is solemn.

“You’ve always thought I hated you. That we all did,” he says.

“I…” Someone put me out of my misery. “Not hated…exactly.”

“I know I’m right. Don’t bother denying it.”

I slowly close my mouth, and he nods, again to himself. He turns the knob and sticks his head into the hall, taking a good look, then pulls back inside. “For the record, we didn’t hate you.”

I twist my lips around the tears clogging my throat and around the words that would tell him why I already know that. The thing I figured out a long time ago about my curse is that it doesn’t make people hate me, it just makes them…not choose me.

But not after the Crucible. Not if I win.

And it hits me for the first time that maybe with the curse lifted I have a shot with Boone. It’s strange that I didn’t think of it before. Then again, I was dealing with some shit.

“See you in a month,” he says and offers me that signature cocky pirate grin before slipping away.

I close the door and lean against it, my head dropping back with a soft thump.

“Fuck,” I mutter.

Boone coming here cleared the fog of denial I’ve existed in since the moment Hades called my name. Or maybe it’s the fact that he was concerned enough to bring me all these things that finally has me thinking straighter.

Either way, the truth I’ve been avoiding until right this second is now crystal clear, flashing in neon lights in front of my face. Inescapable.

There’s no way I can get out of playing in the Crucible.

I’m really going to have to do this.

And now I have a stake in the game.