Page 49 of Suspicions on the Stage
“Look, everyone here is out for themselves an’ sometimes their wallets. Gettin’ a Fae prince shoved me up the line. I wouldn’t put it past some random douche to ask a favorite pourer to do somethin’ stupid. It doesn’t matter what species or gender—anyone who gets in the way of cash might be a target.”
Restaurant work isn’t any less dramatic than our world, I suppose.
“Speaking of being out for the green…” Lucas drawls as he turns a megawatt grin on the girl. “I bet some others are working side hustles in here, mm? There’s probably… some sort of menu for that kind of request?”
Our server’s face falls, and she shrinks back, licking her lips. “Um, there is, but… I… I don’t do that. I can… find someone to?—”
“Dixie, calm down,” Slade says. His gentle calm floods the table and he looks at the girl seriously. “We don’t want tousethose services. We’re looking for one of our friends who came here earlier tonight. He’s probably snooping around that world at the moment, and we’re worried he might get himself in trouble.”
“Well, hewill,” she replies vehemently. “The others who work for the crooks are basically owned by them. Bein’ paid that much money makes everyone stupid, an’ they get so addicted to the excess that they can’t leave.”
“VeryHotel California,” Iggy mutters. “Okay. If they’ve trapped themselves through greed, we can’t worry about them. We areconcerned that whomever our friend is working with will find out he’s connected to us—even if he’s pretending not to be.”
“Like a secret agent?” Dixie muses. “Yeah, he’d be in deep shit if the backers figured that out. There’s bookies, dealers, pimps, assassins… you name it, the secret menus can connect you with the right folks. The owners just look the other way to get whatever it is the criminals are givin’ them for lettin’ the staff sell.”
“Itoldyou rich people are evil,” Morgana says as she crosses her arms over her chest. “This place is no less full of rotten cockwaffles than any dive bar.”
“Babe, I didn’t argue with you. Rich kid prep school, coked out parents… remember?” Lucas’s eyes twinkle and for a second, I marvel at how at ease he is with the shitty situation he grew up in. Other than the money, the kid had issues and if his grandmother hadn’t been so decent, he’d be just like the morons who birthed him.
“True. I guess you guys know how crooked wealthy fucks are personally,” she admits as she leans against the bear. “I justhateinequality—it’s the gorgon, you know. She always wants justice.”
Dixie nods, her eyes wide. “I can understand, ma’am. It ruffles my feather, too. But like I said when y’all arrived… This is where I can make enough to keep myself afloat durin’ the semesters. I can’t do much more than keep my nose clean in case somethin’ changes and there’s a raid.”
Sighing, I think about how we can approach this without getting Dixie booted from our serviceorexposing Kaspar if he’s still undercover. “Is there a show tonight?”
“Nope. The stage is free because a dance troupe got held up on a previous stop.” Dixie frowns as she squints down at the empty space from our box. “But I’ll tell you the same thing I tell other folks I host that aren’t shitty—don’t go up there.”
My eyes narrow. “Why? Do you think I’ll bomb? I’m very powerful, you know.”
“Don’t beridiculous, Your Highness. Of course, you’re powerful enough to be entertaining. But calling attention to that in this place with as many eyes that are on it isn’t worth the payoff.” The server bites her lip and shakes her head. “I’ve seen people come off so drained they could barely move, an’ they didn’t do enough to be like that. It’s cursed or somethin’. Bad, bad mojo.”
That I can work with—I should be able to read the magical signature of whatever shady being put a feeding spell on it to track them.
“Liam, if you’re thinking about tracking one of the dealers through the curse… I don’t think that’s safe.” Iggy frowns at me as he holds up his fingers. “One, we have no clue what species or realm they’re from. Do you want to get stuck with something from Hell… or worse?”
Waving my hand, I wink at the mage. “I have you to help with that, right? You’re from a big shot magical family, Briarton. I don’t think you’ve shown us asliverof what you can do yet. I’ve done most of the magical heavy lifting.”
He huffs, adjusting his collar as he mumbles under his breath. When I don’t look away, he sighs. “Fine. I couldn’t work with the poison because of the reasons you stated, but I can probably try to unwind the curse from here.MaybeI can break it…ifthe damn thing isn’t sealed with shit I don’t have experience in.”
“Was that so hard?” Slade says as he looks at his roommate. “It didn’t look like you were in pain.”
“Ha ha,” Ignatius says as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. “Mind you… this patent is still pending and my father wouldmurderme for showing it to you guys while it’s in R & D.”
The mage aims his phone at the stage as he unlocks the screen and pulls the camera up. Once it’s steadily capturing the stage area, he clicks the button on the side three times, then chants in Latin softly. The screen lights up, flashing as if he took a picture, then shows the stage in some sort of… magical infrared?
“What. Is. That,” Morgana breathes as she stares. “Holy fuck, Iggy.”
“It’s a… fuck, I don’t know the science part, okay? That’s some technomage working for the family. But the magic part? It’s basically combining with light and whatever to reveal the hidden enchantments on a space. I was using it at Lucas’s place, but I said nothing because it wasn’tworking.”
I arch a brow. “Is that unusual?”
“No, Liam, it is not. This tech is… very close to coming to the market. Perhaps only for the right customers, but it’s not half-done. I don’t have acluewhy it didn’t work in the dorm.”
“No wonder you were being so grumpy,” Lucas says. “I thought I pissed you off or something.”
“Um…”
We whirl around, looking at the shocked face Dixie is making, and Morgana groans.
