“If not a hundred percent, then what?” Poppy asks.
I throw my hands up. “I don’t know. I can’t give you an exact percentage. I just know there’s a chance. That’s all I need. A chance.”
“Dante would try to save us,” Tolliver says. “Even if there wasnochance.”
I bite back a smile. Oh, he’s good, and he doesn’t even know it.
It’s not true, by the way. Dante never did anything that he wasn’t 100 percent sure would work. But I can tell by the looks on the others’ faces that it’s over. I’ve won.
Poppy rolls her eyes. “If we say no, are you going to yell at us again?”
“Oh my god, I didn’t yell!”
“You’re doing it again!” Tolliver points at me. “You’re yelling right now!”
“This is not yelling! This is a normal volume!”
CJ jerks their head toward the door. “Does he know about Dante?”
“No,” I lower my voice, even though Poppy’s rune is still activated. “And he can’t know. If he knows we have a vested interest in this, he might not pay us, and we need that money. For the job. And stuff.”
“Okay, so we can’t talk about Dante during thisentirejob?” Tolliver asks.
“No, we just can’t mention he’s dead.”
Poppy flares her nostrils. “He’s not just dead, his soul is missing.”
Before I can respond, the library door creaks open. Rook sticks his head in, just as Poppy whispers away the spell. Tolliver tries to surreptitiously cover the rune by sliding his hand to the center of the table and ends up half lounging on it.
“Apologies, but I’m on a schedule,” Rook says. “Are you in or not, Fields?”
I look to the others. Tolliver drums his fingers, hand already in the center of the table. With a heavy sigh, CJ puts theirs on top of his. I wait for Poppy. She’s going to do it—she just needs to be dramatic about it.
She mumbles something about fools under her breath and adds her hand to the pile. Mine goes on top. There’s a tap on the window, and Crowlene is there, her little withered claw stretched toward us.
I turn to Rook, grin on my face.
“Oh, we’re in, Crawford.”
TheRope
Eleven
In 1911, an Italian handyman named Vincenzo Peruggia hid in a closet at the Louvre until it closed, removed theMona Lisafrom its frame, and walked out the next morning with it covered in a blanket. Nobody even noticed the painting was missing until a few days later.
He was able to do this for two simple reasons.
One: CCTV hadn’t been invented yet.
And two: Back then, no one really cared about theMona Lisa.
The point is: It’s easy to steal something no one cares about when no one is looking. It takes true skill to steal something invaluable with all eyes on you.
I make Rook pay half up front, and thanks to his generous donation, I’m able to get my electricity back on, stock the fridge and pantry, and thrift enough furniture to hold a planning session at my house without anyone noticing I’d sold everything for some quick cash. I move the piles of junk to my attic bedroom and add a few succulents throughout the house. As long as no one goes upstairs, the crew will just assume I did some redecorating since Dante’s death.
Though I would have been ready for him, Rook doesn’t return the favor of showing up thirty minutes early. He arrives precisely on time.
By the time everyone is present, I’m buzzing with nervous energy.This is just like the old days, except I’m not sitting on the couch with the crew as we watch Dante with rapt attention. I’m the one they’re listening to now.