Page 83 of No Charm Done

“No,” Luna said firmly. “No, he held his cool because he’s committed to the plan and he won’t do anything to risk it. You guys barely even know him⁠—”

“Some of us can recognize someone carrying a grudge,” Kelly said.

“He’s not—” She stopped. Took a breath. “Look. Everything is going exactly according to plan. Better than the plan, actually, because we stumbled into a meeting that had all the major investors at the same time. Which means we only needed one meeting to goose their investments, and we still have two tokens left!” She pulled the leather satchel from her pocket with a flourish, holding it up like a trophy. “Listen to this!” She gave it a shake. “The tinkling of these tokens tells you that we still have two left and we’re already⁠—”

She stopped.

There was no tinkling sound.

The satchel felt wrong in her hand. She loosened the drawstring and reached inside. She found one token, still warm and humming with stored power. A second, cold and black and soft. And . . . that was it.

“Luna?” Scarlett tilted her head, concerned. “Are you short a token? My gods, you didn’t drop it somewhere, did you?”

“No. No, I had the bag the entire time. I never let it out of my⁠—”

The memory hit her like cold water to the face.

“Oh shit.”

Chapter 24

Sharks

The damn locator spell wasn’t working right.

Luna stood in an East Village alley that reeked of garbage and pricey coffee. But the air flickered like a buffering GPS. The locator spell should’ve glowed steadily, offering a floating map to its target. It was a simple charm she’d used a hundred times. Instead, her magic sputtered and dimmed, then flared brightly, only to dim again.

“Come on,” she muttered, turning in a slow circle. “Don’t do this to me now.”

The map flared—pointing north, maybe?—then died completely, replaced by a flashing error message: MAGIC ANOMALY DETECTED—PLEASE STAND BY

Luna wanted to scream. CastR again. The app was disrupting natural magic like a chorus of cell phones making a speaker shriek with feedback.

She closed her eyes, focused harder, and poured more energy into the spell. The map flared hot all around her. There.

Following the map, Luna began walking north, then west. The streets blurred past. Tourists with shopping bags, finance bros in expensive suits, some poor soul walking five dogs at once.

Luna stopped in front of a decrepit-looking brownstone. Made absolutely sure she had the address right. Then she visualized the space. Two-bedroom apartment, third floor, street-side. She let the portal spell build in her chest, in her fingertips, in the air that bent around her intentions. After a deep breath, she materialized in a cozy living room.

A family sat on the couch: mom, dad, two kids. They ate pizza from the box and watched something animated on TV. A dog sprawled on the rug. Domestic contentment radiated—until Luna appeared like a cockroach in a punch bowl.

“Where’s Elias Shaw?” she demanded.

The dad, holding a slice in mid-bite, blinked at her. He was maybe forty, soft around the middle, with the resigned expression of a man whose Monday had just gotten significantly weirder. “Uh . . . right here? I usually go by Eli, though.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Wrong Shaw. Goddamn CastR.

“Who are you?!” The mom had found her voice, rising from the couch with the air of someone prepared to defend her pizza with violence. “What are you doing in our apartment?”

The kids screamed. The dog started barking. The dad just sat there with his slice, looking bewildered.

“Sorry!” Luna backed up, hands raised. “Wrong Shaw. I’m looking for a different. . . um . . . this is a locator spell malfunction. It shouldn’t have . . . I’m so sorry . . .”

She turned to leave—gracefully, she hoped, like someone who had her life together and hadn’t just invaded a stranger’s home—and immediately knocked over a two-liter bottle of Sprite. Luna lunged for the bottle as it toppled off the coffee table but missed, and it hit the hardwood floor, exploding in a sticky fountain.

“Get out!”

“So sorry!” Luna tried to vanish, couldn’t get the portal open fast enough, and ended up tripping over the coffee table instead. She went down hard, caught herself on the arm of the couch, finally got the portal open, and tumbled through it like she was fleeing a crime scene.