The GPS squawked a reroute in the same cheery tone you’d use to announce a birthday cake. “Arriving at your destination in point five miles.”

  Elly muttered something unprintable in two languages, yanked the wheel into the next lane, and parked the car in front of a corner bodega that had no business being open, if the exterior state of the building were any indication of the interior. Half the neon letters in its sign were burned out, leaving only the cheerful glow of “O E A” above the door.

  Before I could ask, she was out of the car, jacket drawn tight against the wind, muttering, “Stay put. No touching.”

  That was the last instruction I got before she darted inside.

  I sat there, watching through the windshield as she approached the counter of the small shop. It was hard to make out exactly what I was seeing, but I could see a man in a stained apron counted what looked like scales—actual scales, glimmering in the fluorescent light—while Elly argued with him across the counter.

  At one point he held up a glass jar, something swimming lazily inside, and Elly shook her head so hard her hair nearly smacked a rack of jerky. Then there was a lot of pointing, a quick flash of coins I couldn’t identify, and finally she stuffed something into her bag, tossed the guy what looked like a copper button, and stormed back to the car.

  She yanked the door shut, cheeks flushed.

  “Don’t,” she said before I could open my mouth.

  I raised both hands. “I wasn’t gonna say anything. I didn’t even see anything with buttons or whatever.”

  “Good.” She stuffed the bag under her seat. “Don’t.”

  “…What exactly did you buy?”

  She shoved the car into drive. “Currency.”

  “Currency?”

  “For… things. Don’t ask.”

  “I feel like I need to ask.”

  Her ears went pink, the tips just visible through her short hair. “Daniel. Don’t ask.”

  I leaned back, trying not to smirk. “Uh huh. So we’re carrying… what? Fairy gold? Magic beans? The souls of your enemies in Fun Size packets?”

  “Shut up,” she muttered, reaching over to push down my leg, so my foot went harder on the accelerator.

  Her blush said everything. I made a mental note to file this moment away under “leverage.” Or possibly “blackmail.”

  The GPS chimed again, pulling my attention to the darkened street ahead.

  Harlowe Street.

  The name looked harmless enough on the glowing screen, but the closer we got, the heavier the air felt. Not physically—this wasn’t like stepping into Jade’s office, thick with ambient dragon-pressure—but more like the absence of something. A quiet that pressed down on the ears, muffling the city.

  Elly slowed the car. “Here.”

  We pulled up in front of a laundromat that had seen better decades. The sign out front promised “Clean Clothes Fast!” but half the letters were missing, so now it just read “C es ast.” The windows were dark, the door locked, the place dead.

  “What’s with the signs today? It’s like the world’s most broken scrabble set.” I muttered.

  “Magic shorts out stuff.”

  I glanced around. Nothing but closed shops, a flickering streetlamp, and a convenience store that might’ve been abandoned or might’ve been a set from a zombie movie.

  “…Okay,” I said, finally. “What exactly are we doing here?”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Elly reached under her seat and pulled out the bag she’d gotten from the bodega. She set it in my lap.

  I opened it. Inside were… things. There were tokens, a hodgepodge of things: a subway token with no city on it, a glass bead that hummed faintly, something that looked suspiciously like a molar carved with runes, a scale that felt warm beneath my fingers.

  I looked up at her. “This is… money?”

  “In the right circles. I got a little of everything.”

  “Okay, but—” I held up the bead. “—what are we paying for?”

  Her jaw tightened. “The instructions were simple: no red, exact change.”

  “That’s not an instruction, that’s a trap. Who the hell deals in riddles like this?”

  She shot me a sharp look. “Dragons. Remember who we’re working for.”

  I sighed, rubbing my face. “Fine. Fine. No red, exact change. Got it. So… how do we know what exact change is?”

  “You’ll know,” she said flatly.

  “That’s not reassuring.”

  “Welcome to my life,” she shot back.

  We got out of the car. The street was cold, quiet, the kind of quiet that made you glance over your shoulder every three steps. I shoved my hands in my hoodie pocket, where my fingers brushed the little charm Elly had slipped there months ago—a square-cut iron nail wrapped in red thread done in Celtic knotwork.

  She saw the motion and blinked. “I thought you’d throw it out. Or forget it. Humans always—” She stopped, biting her lip.

  “…Always what?” I asked gently.

  She shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing at all.” But the faint, wobbly smile tugging at her mouth said it wasn’t nothing at all.

  The laundromat door was locked, but when Elly pressed her hand against the glass, the bolt clicked open. The smell hit immediately—mothballs and damp stone, like someone had stuffed an old basement into a dryer.

  Inside, the machines sat silent, rows of dead washers and dryers. At the far counter, an ancient brass-and-wood register waited, faint light pulsing between its keys like a heartbeat.

  Elly’s smile faltered. “Oh. That’s… not good.”

  “What?”

  She pointed. “That. Pay-to-play metaphysics. Jade wasn’t kidding.”

  I stepped closer, curiosity outweighing good judgment. “So we’re supposed to… pay?”

  “Exact change,” she said quickly. Too quickly.

  I opened the bag, staring at the mix of tokens, beads, and one very uncomfortable rune-carved tooth. “Which one?”

  “We’ll know when we try to use the machine,” she muttered, narrowing her eyes at the register.

  I took a breath. “Maybe I should—”

  The moment I leaned over the counter, the register hissed. Sparks spat between its keys like angry static. The hum of magic stuttered, then flared, lights in the laundromat flickering in sympathy.

  Elly shrieked, “Daniel! Step back before you short the damn thing out!”

  I jerked away, hands up, as the sparks died down. The laundromat sighed, settling.

  I blinked. “Oh. Right. Magical EMP. Duh.”

  Elly glared daggers. “You forgot?”

  “In my defense, I don’t usually wander into haunted laundromats.”

  “Never. Touch. The. Register.” She yanked the bag from me, muttering something very Fae and very profane under her breath.

  I stood there lamely, while she sifted through the tokens, fingers hovering until she settled on a subway coin worn smooth with use. “This one feels right.”

  “That’s guessing.”

  “That’s intuition.”

  “That’s guessing with extra syllables!” I protested.

  Her eyes narrowed, but she dropped the coin into the open drawer. The register slammed shut, the crank spun once, and the machine chimed—a sound absurdly loud for the little room. The echo rattled my teeth.

  Then, with a metallic cough, it spat out a slip of paper stapled to a tiny, grease-stained envelope no bigger than a teabag. The letters on the receipt weren’t printed but burned into the fibers:

  BALANCE ACCEPTED. TRANSACTION LOGGED.

  But that wasn’t all, underneath it said:

  DELIVER UNOPENED.

  And there was another address.

  I swallowed. “Okay. That wasn’t terrifying at all.”

  Elly didn’t answer right away. Her gaze was locked on the packet, and when she finally spoke, her voice was thin. “That’s worse than a receipt.”

  I plucked it up between two fingers. It smelled faintly herbal, oily, almost alive. “…It’s a teabag?”

  Her expression hardened. “It’s a seed. A red one at that.’

  “I thought it said no red stuff.”

  “Yeah. Fun stuff, right? And if Jade didn’t tell us what kind of seed this is, it’s because knowing would make us hesitate.”

  The hairs on my arms prickled. “So we’re couriers now?”

  The lights flickered overhead, too long, too deliberate. That was enough. Elly grabbed my arm and shoved me out the door before the dryers decided to spin on their own or the register spit out more gifts.

  Back in the car, Elly slammed the locks down and gripped the wheel like she might strangle it. She’d taken the reins once more, and I was relegated to shotgun once more.

  I looked down at the slip in my hand. The neat, burned letters. The address. “…So. Favor one complete?”

  Her laugh was sharp, too loud. “No. That was just the cover charge.”

  I leaned back, exhaling. “You know, if you hadn’t been here, I couldn’t have done this at all. Jade had to know that. Which means she wasn’t summoning me. Not really. She was summoning us. At least Lily and me. But then… could Lily even have pulled that off?”

  Elly swore softly under her breath. Then again, louder. Her knuckles whitened against the wheel. “She knew.”

  “Knew what?”

  “That it would be me. That I’d be the one to come with you. That somehow I’d end up right here, steering you through this garbage.”

  I frowned. “But how? How could she know?”

  Elly’s lips pressed tight, then curled in a humorless smile. “Because Jade understands women.”

  I blinked. “…That’s not vague at all.”

  She rolled her shoulders, like shaking something off. “You’ll figure it out eventually. Or you won’t. Either way, buckle up, bucko.”

  I looked down at the slip again, the address burning in my hand like it knew more than I did.