Page 65 of House of Pain
But it was rare that other Houses did the same. It would be the first place others would look.
And if you didn’t have elaborate wards, it would be easy to steal.
Val broke the spell by stepping away from her spot, the wind around them dying down immediately.
“Do you think they got better wards this year?” Jolene asked.
“Could be,” Val agreed, her eyes focused on something in the distance. “We’ll need to either find a way to break them to get in—”
“Orwe could draw them out,” Alecto interrupted. She had settled on the altar at the base of the statue, her feet hovering good few inches over the floor.
Val’s gaze snapped to her, her eyebrows hiking all the way to her hairline.
“You’ve got something on your mind, Black?”
Alecto took them all in, her lips blooming into a mischievous smirk.
Nobody expected to hear the next words coming out ofhermouth.
“How do we feel about burning the House of Tigers down?” Alecto asked, voice light. “That will surely cause enough havoc to give us an opportunity to swoop in and steal the Book.”
The silence in the church was deafening. And then, Andro and Jolene burst into laughter.
“You’re fucking crazy,” Andro almost screamed. “You’re out of your fucking mind. I love it.”
“Sign me the fuck up,” Jolene said, lifting an arm.
Val glared at Alecto for a moment, her face unreadable. Then she nodded. “Bitch, I think I might be in love.”
Alecto barked a laugh, her blue eyes filled with genuine…joy.
Blaze was too stunned to muster a response.
“Next week, after the game, the party is at the Rats’ House. Everyone will be there. We come in while everyone’s distracted, light the fucking House on fire, and go to the party.”
“This is not going to be as easy,” Andro warned Alecto. “They’ll know about the fire almost immediately.”
“That is why we create astral projections of ourselves and let them attend the party for everyone to see.”
Blaze blinked, still taken aback.
Alecto really had thought it all through already.
“Smart.” Jolene nodded. “The only issue is that it’s a fourth-year spell and none of us has attempted it before.”
“We’ve got the Book. What, suddenly we can’t fucking read?”
“And we have a few bookworms on our hands. This is wonderful,” Val said, grinning. “Demon boy, you will ensure that people are focused on you next weekend while we destroy the Tigers.”
Rogue glanced at them all before shrugging his shoulders. “Sounds like a plan.”
Blaze wasn’t sure why he had bothered answering. It was not like Val gave him another option anyway.
Jolene flipped through their Book. “We’ll need smoke quartz for the spell.”
“I’m going to get us something better than smoke quartz, don’t worry about it,” Val said.
Jolene laughed. “Oh, this is going to be priceless.”
