“Codex,” Poppy interrupts. “And it’s at Yale. Are we breaking into Yale?”
“Back to New Haven?” Tolliver asks, another piece of popcorn bouncing off his forehead.
Crowlene hops from her perch to snatch it up. She crunches for a moment before swallowing. The masticated kernel falls out of a hole in her stomach onto the floor.
“Nope,” I say, popping theP. “Because the one at Yale is a fake.”
“Of course it is,” CJ mutters.
Poppy’s eyes narrow. “How do you know all this?”
I shrug. “Groundwork. What have you guys been doing the past twenty-four hours?”
“Playing Nintendo, mostly,” Tolliver says. “Why? What have you been doing?”
I give him an indulgent smile, sit cross-legged on the floor, and open my laptop on a thrifted rickety coffee table.
“The real book,” I explain, “has been in the hands of the Coven since one of Hecate’s descendants was in charge of digitizing Yale’s rare books collection in the aughts.”
I open my schematic of the Getty Villa in Malibu and turn my laptop around so the others can see my screen. “And wouldn’t you know, it will be on display at the All Saints Gala that the Coven is hosting in two weeks.”
“What’s the All Saints Gala?” Rook asks.
“It’s like the Met Gala but attended by Dead people,” Poppy says without looking up from where she’s studying the blueprints on my laptop.
Rook blanches, but I don’t know if it’s from Poppy’s explanation or because Crowlene has placed her chewed piece of popcorn in front of him, tilting her head back and forth as she waits to see what he’ll do.
CJ sits forward. “So, what’s the play?”
I huff, massaging my temple. “As loath as I am to admit it, I don’t think we can con someone out of the book—”
“Codex,” Poppy says.
“—Codex.” I roll my eyes. “Maybe if we had a few months, we could do a Fiddle Game or a Kansas City Shuffle—”
“That one’s my favorite,” Tolliver whispers to Rook.
“—but the only time we know for certain the location of the book—”
“Codex,” Poppy and CJ say together, which suddenly makes CJ turn red. Interesting.
“—is Halloween, from eight to eleven thirty p.m. at the Getty Villa in Malibu.”
Tolliver jumps into a sitting position, hands clenched in excitement. “So, it’s a heist?”
I groan. “So, it’s a heist.”
Tolliver and Poppy high-five. CJ’s lips twitch into what could almost, in some cultures, be considered a smile.
“Heathens,” I mutter, but I’m grinning. This is just like old times.
“You know,” Tolliver says, “Dante would’ve called it a heist even if we were doing a Kansas City Shuffle.”
Despite myself, I laugh. “Dante would have called it a heist if we mugged someone on the street.”
“One time—” Poppy giggles. “One time, a barista thought he was cute and gave him his coffee for free, and he called that a heist.”
Tolliver doubles over laughing. CJ snorts.