Page 119 of No Charm Done

Her throat tightened. “What if someday never comes?”

Mama was quiet for a moment, and then said, “I suppose if I said this was all actually good for you . . . you might be annoyed?”

Luna grunted. “If you say this is all good for me, I will start screaming and never stop.”

“Fair enough. I didn’t say it.” She kissed her instead. Then she stood, pulling Luna up with her. “For now, you need some sleep. Real sleep, not the shenanigans you got up to last night.”

“No way I can sleep.”

“Try anyway.” Mama guided her toward the door, one arm still around her shoulders. “And tomorrow, we’ll start figuring out what comes next.”

Luna stopped at the door, looking back at the empty porch, the dark street beyond. “Do you think there might be a way? To get him back?”

“I think,” Mama said carefully, “that you need to take care of yourself, no matter what happens. Can you do that for me?”

Luna took in a shaky breath. “I can try.”

“That’s all I’m asking. Just have a little faith. Not in me, not in Louise, but in yourself. You’re stronger than you think you are. You always have been.”

She nodded, not trusting her voice, and let her mother guide her inside. But before the door closed, she looked back one more time at the night sky.

I’m not giving up on you, she thought. Wherever you are, whatever year it is . . . I’m not giving up.

She didn’t know if Elias could hear her across time and space and Louise Demain’s cosmic indifference.

But she meant it anyway.

Chapter 31

Let Me Call You Sweetheart

Did it work?

Three months after the explosion, Elias Shaw was counting money for Al Capone, still waiting for an answer.

Capone’s basement smelled like mold, syrupy red wine, cigarette smoke . . . and a particular brand of desperation that came from counting other people’s money while two gorillas watched you like you might sprout wings and fly away with it.

Elias sat at a folding table under a single bare bulb, sorting bills into neat stacks by denomination. Ones. Fives. Tens. Twenties. The occasional fifty that made his guards tense up and lean forward, as if a fifty-dollar bill might be the thing that finally inspired Elias to make a break for it.

Three. Months.

His hands moved automatically now—grab, check, sort, stack. Grab, check, sort, stack. The rhythm was hypnotic in the worst possible way.

Luna, did it work?

The question circled his mind like a vulture, constant and patient. He’d been asking himself that same question since the moment he woke up in that alley, dressed like some kind of psychedelic nightmare, with no memory of how he got there.

The last thing he remembered clearly: Burke’s spell screaming toward the rack. Himself, dropping to the floor. The explosion. The feedback wave hitting him like a building collapse. Colors that didn’t have names.

Then Chicago, 1926. Then three months in a basement. And no way to learn what happened on a day that hadn’t happened yet.

One of the guards—Little Tuna, presumably not his Christian name—shifted his weight and cracked his knuckles. The sound echoed in the basement like a gunshot, but Elias didn’t look up. He’d learned early on that looking up got interpreted as “planning something,” and planning something got you a visit from Pete’s meaty fists.

Does Luna lie awake at night thinking of me, too? Or does she dream only of how I failed her?

These questions kept him awake at night, staring up at the chipped plaster ceiling in a flophouse. He’d tried to warn the Melroses. Called the inn, tried to tell them about Burke’s wards. But Delilah had recognized his voice and hung up on him.

Which . . . fair enough. He’d stolen from Luna. Betrayed her trust. Gone after Burke because his personal revenge had been more important. More important than the woman he’d loved too late.