“Where’s the blue bottle tree?” Poppy asks suddenly.
I stop short. “The what?”
She stands, squaring off with me. “The blue bottle tree I made for the house. It used to be in the front yard. Where is it?”
I frown, shaking my head. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Just answer the question. What did you do with it?”
“I must have…” I swallow, chest tightening. “I needed money—”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “Yousoldit?”
“Jobs cost money,” I say weakly.
“I can’t believe you.”
I throw up my hands. “All this about some bottles? You’ve been here at least, what? Six times on this job? And you’re just now noticing it’s gone? It couldn’t have been that important.”
“I noticed it was gone the first day, but I assumed it was out back or in storage. Do you know the time and power I put into that? It took me months to find some of those runes! I never imagined you would be so thoughtless and self-absorbed.”
“We’re conmen! We’re all thoughtless and self-absorbed!”
“No, this is you doing what you always do—thinking only about yourself and acting out every single inane, selfish whim that pops into your head!”
“Ithink only about myself? I’m not the one who turned around and went to work for CJ’s family!”
I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth.
The room falls silent.
Poppy closes her eyes and hangs her head. It wasn’t supposed to come out like this. It wasn’t supposed to come out at all.
CJ exhales roughly, tongue poking their cheek, face ashen. After a moment, they stand stiffly. They don’t give Poppy a single glance as they storm past her and out the door, slamming it behind them.
Poppy looks at me for a moment, a weird expression on her face, like she can’t decide if she wants to yell at me or cry on me. She just shakes her head, grabs her coat, and leaves.
Tolliver rises slowly, eyes red.
“Not cool, Elle,” he says before he, too, walks out.
I stare at the closed door. Mind quiet for once.
Ezra clears his throat, sits forward, and meets my gaze with a smug smile. “And that’s why I don’t do teams.”
Twenty-Seven
Okay, things are not ideal. Some might even call them bad. But when the going gets bad, the bad get out of the house to clear their head. And nothing clears the head like a little grave robbing. The spell said we needed a bone from the deceased, so I’m going to get a bone from the deceased.
That’s how I find myself in a graveyard at midnight with Rook, lugging shovels and a crowbar.
Moonlight casts long shadows across the headstones, mist curling over the ground. It’s bitingly cold, the only sounds an occasional hoot of an owl and the crunch of leaves underfoot. That whole spooky thing the others would appreciate, but whatever.
I mean, yeah, it sucks they left. But they walked out before, and I was fine.
I’m fine.
We’ve forgone flashlights so as not to garner attention. If Credence were buried in the cemetery across from my house, we’d have to deal with the city lights and passing cars. But luckily, we’re far enough into the suburbs that as long as we stay out from under the streetlights, we should go unnoticed.