Because he’s given me this. Because I have my family.
“Why don’t you take an hour break, get them comfortable in here?” Gunn says, then looks at Ben. “Joan’s told me how adept you are working at your father’s shining room, but I bet you’ve never seen a full-scale magic haven before.”
Ben’s as helpless against magic’s spell as anyone else. He shakes his head fervently. “I haven’t, sir.”
“Well, after you get settled, tell Joan to come find me and I’ll give you a tour.”
Ben’s face lights up. “Yes, sir. Thank you, I will.”
Alex’s words from a few nights back, when we were lying in this very room, tangled up and twisted, come floating into my mind like some conjured ghost: Something this big could attract other attention . . . you could end up behind bars for life . . .
It’s one thing to take risky moves, to burn fast and bright as a comet against this dark underworld when I’ve only got myself to worry about. It’s another when my family, the ones I’m fighting for, pledged to die for, have entered the game.
And seeing Ruby and Ben here, standing next to Gunn, in this dangerous, slippery world where someone can kill you just as quick as trick you, makes me wonder if my strategy somehow needs to change.
TIGHT QUARTERS
ALEX
I’m in the Red Den’s VIP lounge. My best guess is it’s Wednesday afternoon, but I can’t be entirely sure, because the only chances I get to see the clock above the performance space’s double doors are when I need to use the john. Meals are brought in by the stagehands. Cigarette breaks are taken in here, or in the hall right outside. If we’re too tired to brew another round of shine at the moment—you can power through a couple of rounds of brewing, but after a while you and your magic begin to fade—there are lounge chairs and sofas for taking short catnaps before raising up the sorcering flag once more.
Ral, Billy, Grace, Tommy, Rose, and me. Brew after brew, sorcerer’s shine after shine, every trick of twelve ounces we brew to be poured into two hundred glass quart jugs that Joan will bind with her blood and trickery, so each jug can last forever on a shelf. Fifty gallons of a magical, wildly addictive drug that will mark the first shipment of shine ever to grace the black market, earmarked for Colletto’s D Street gang to take and distribute up and down the coast and out to smugglers waiting on Magic Row. Fifty gallons that, if Gunn and Win—and Joan—have their way, will be the first of many shipments.
I’ve been trying to get Joan alone—I need to tell her everything, including what she’ll need to do to walk away from this mess, and the only alibi that might save her from prison, once my Unit charges in. But Gunn is keeping her on a short leash. The few times I’ve managed to sneak a spin around the Den, or climb the fire escape to her room, her lights were off, and she was gone. I’ve heard her voice, though, muffled behind Gunn’s office door. It makes me sick, thinking about how for every quart we’re complaining about filling, Joan’s matching it in drops of blood.
“I’m starving,” Billy says, as he collapses into a chair in the corner of the room. They’re the first words anyone has said for hours.
“Me too,” I say quietly.
Billy looks up. “They never brought in lunch, am I right?”
“No. What time is it?” I glance at Ral, the only one of us with a wristwatch.
“Jesus, the hours, the days, are starting to bleed together.” Ral looks at his watch. “It’s nearly three. How long do they intend to keep us going like this?” I assume it’s a rhetorical question, but Ral looks pointedly at me. “Have you spoken to her, Alex, since the night of the demonstration?”
We all know who her is. “I haven’t.”
“I just wish I knew what was in store for us after this deal is done,” Ral says slowly. “I mean, is this our new reality, working around the clock in a tight, windowless room, dumping our magic into a bottle? It can’t be, right?”
“Not what I signed up for,” Tommy grunts from the far corner.
“I don’t know how much longer I can stand it. We’re like prisoners in here.” Grace sits down in another one of the armchairs. She puts her hands over her eyes, like she’s going to attempt a catnap in the middle of this conversation. I can’t blame her.
“Wonder what the princess is doing right now,” Rose mutters, “but I’m sure it’s not this.”
Grace separates her fingers like a peephole and shoots Rose a loaded glance.
Rose just gives her a little smirk. “You know I’m right, Mama Bear.”
“We wouldn’t be in here if it wasn’t for Joan,” Tommy piggybacks. “She’s cursed us, in more ways than one. She has us doing grunt work while she plays partners with Gunn.”