I breathe, collapse in half, breathe again.
I haven’t prayed in a long time, but here and now, on this corner of hell, I pray that McEvoy does get on that boat. And if the monsters out there don’t get him, that me and my Unit will.
A NIGHT OF CHANCES
JOAN
In the morning, right before practice, Gunn pulls me into his office and shuts the door. His eyes are so bright, they’re practically glowing. “It’s happening, Joan,” he says. “I won them over. All of them. And Colletto’s ready to initiate a deal for our new shine—all we need to do is show him that the product is real, and everything falls into place.”
Colletto, D Street—I still don’t fully understand, but I’ve never seen Gunn so lit up before. My relief, my nerves, it all comes to a head, compounds the shine-induced high I’ve been trying to ignore all morning. “When, what’s the deal?”
“Colletto wants fifty gallons by next Thursday.”
I gasp before I can help it. Fifty gallons means fifty sacrifices of blood, fifty blood-spells—and that’s assuming D Street wants the shine stored in gallons. “Sir, that’s a lot, in not a lot of time. I’m going to need to train the troupe to perform the caging spell too, and the double-edged trick, of course, so we can divide and conquer and get this done. There’s no guarantee all of them will be able to pull it off, either. Blood-spells require a particular mindset, absolute control—”
“That’s why you’re doing this entire round,” Gunn says flatly. “I don’t want any mistakes. Our entire future rides on this shipment. The troupe will brew the shine, and you’ll bind each container. You’ll get relief after this, I promise you.”
I’m doing all the spellbinding. Fifty spells, fifty sacrifices. If not more. My body shrinks away in response. It’s too much.
“McEvoy has poisoned relations between the Shaws and D Street these past few years, so naturally, I understand Colletto’s insistence that he see our magic happen in the flesh.” Gunn looks up at me. “So he’s bringing his underbosses in for a demonstration tomorrow. I’ll have my top men too.” My top men. Not McEvoy’s, I notice. And yet, that doesn’t surprise me, not when I think back to all the little jagged pieces Gunn gave me to the puzzle. Of course this isn’t about a huge deal for McEvoy. This is about a huge deal that lets Gunn take everything away from him—though how D Street plays into this, and why, I still don’t know. My God, when I think about the risk Gunn took with this deal, the risk I was forced to take just by working with him, what would have happened had either of us failed—
“The deal I offered Colletto is a complete partnership, so we’re giving them a demonstration of everything we have to offer,” Gunn cuts through my thoughts. “I want you to put on the immersive performance of your lives, show him the strength of the troupe’s shine, and then you’ll blood-cage one of the bottles to make it last. His team will take the sample, confirm that it survives magic’s shelf life, make sure we’re legitimate,” he says. “When they come back to shake hands, our fifty gallons will already be waiting for him. I want this to be flawless. I want us to wow him, just like we’ve wowed and surprised everyone else. And nothing, no one, is standing in my way anymore.”
Gunn really managed to pull this all off. You pulled this off. The deal is real. The deal is happening.
“Perform the caging spell discreetly, Joan, so Colletto doesn’t get any funny ideas like going off to replicate it on his own.” Gunn puts his hand on his desk, inches from mine. “But if he tries to claim our magic without paying for it, he knows he’s starting another war. I’ve got almost all the Shaw underbosses backing me, ensuring that this deal gets done.”
But Gunn’s scheming, his secrets, how he’s managed to turn a failing shining room into a chance to play boss of the Shaws, all of that pales in light of his word choice, our magic. The words are simple ones, but they drive home just how far I’ve come, how much I’ve given away, how in bed with Gunn I am. Long ago there was a family magic, a mother’s magic, a secret to keep from the world—
“And our deal, sir, your promise if this all comes to pass?” I scrub my mind clean of what’s been done, what can’t be changed, force myself to focus only on the future. “You promised me ten percent.”