Page 105 of No Charm Done

Left at the main corridor. Through the forest of blinking lights. Past the cage labeled 4A. Then 5A. Then⁠—

Or had it been 4B?

Christ.

Footsteps echoed from the next aisle over. Couldn’t be sentinels, those bastards were too stealthy. If they were after him, they’d be on him before he had a chance to breathe. No, these were human footsteps. Workers. Shaw tried to shrink into the rack while two men in matching shirts walked past arguing about whether the Royals had a shot at the pennant this year. He waited until they’d passed before moving again.

The magic pulsed. Shaw could feel it even more strongly now. Whatever Vex was doing, he was escalating.

Luna.

He shoved down the spike of fear and kept moving. Stay low. Use the racks as cover. Find cage 7B.

There—a chain-link enclosure. He crept closer, checked the stenciled number.

6A.

Damn it!

He was going the wrong direction.

Another pulse. The lights overhead flickered. Shaw heard something electronic deeper in the facility make a sound like a garbage disposal eating silverware.

He reversed course, moved faster now, heart hammering. The aisles all looked the same. The cages all looked the same. And he could picture the sentinels somewhere behind him. Searching, patient and methodical as death.

There. Another cage.

6B again.

“Ughhh, come on!”

* * *

“We need to regroup,” Mama laid her hand on Luna’s shoulder. “Figure out a different approach⁠—”

“There isn’t time.” Luna’s voice came out harder than she intended. “Every spell he casts, the network gets stronger. We’re out of runway.”

“Then what do we do?” Delilah asked.

Luna didn’t have an answer.

Polly was helping Violet to her feet now, supporting her daughter’s weight, murmuring reassurances that Violet was trying to wave off despite the fact that she was clearly still dizzy.

In the gazebo, Vex was recovering. He turned back to the cameras, that showman smile firmly in place. “Magic is powerful, yes. Sometimes unpredictable. But with the right systems, the right safeguards—” he gestured at his phone “—CastR makes it accessible.”

Luna felt sick. He was spinning Violet’s injury into a selling point.

“He’s good,” Scarlett muttered darkly.

“He’s a snake oil salesman,” Luna said.

But the chat was delighted. The scroll speed had only increased.

Vex tapped something on his phone screen. “Now let me show you something that really demonstrates the power of our network⁠—”

The air beside him shimmered and tore open like a window. Through it, Luna could see what looked like a beach at sunset, waves rolling in, impossibly detailed.

“This portal,” Vex said, gesturing to the shimmering window, “is showing you a live view of Malibu Beach. Right now. In real time. CastR doesn’t just create magic—it connects magic across distances.”