The Enchanter Heir

hyperkinetic . . . way too frisky for strings or keyboards.” He flailed his arms around to demonstrate just as Jonah walked in, looking weary and pissed. He shed that face immediately when he saw his brother.

“Kenzie, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times: humans are not made to fly.”

Kenzie dropped his arms to his sides. “It’s just like you to walk in when all the drama is over.”

Jonah studied the three of them, huddled together on Kenzie’s bed. “What’s going on? Natalie said you were in a bad way.”

Kenzie said, “Going on? We’re kicking back, listening to some tunes. Feeling ravenous.”

“You’re always starving after you catch fire. I asked Martha to bring back some food,” Jonah said. He squatted in front of Kenzie, looking him over. “How are you feeling?

Are you up to the minute on your meds?”

“I need the whole entire bedtime regimen,” Kenzie said, yawning. “Except the Weirsbane. This one shot me full of it a few minutes ago.” He scowled at Emma.

“Emma did?” Jonah took a quick breath, as if he might ask a follow-up question, but then seemed to decide against it. “Natalie says your room will be prepped in a few minutes.

Are you about ready to move?”

“Not before the food comes,” Kenzie said.

Just then, Martha appeared in the doorway with a stack of box lunches. “All they had left was—” She stopped, eyes wide, listening. “Who is that? That band is absolutely fantastic. I don’t think I’ve heard them before.”

“That’s our band,” Rudy said happily, finally basking in the praise he’d been fishing for.

Our band, Emma thought. Maybe Jonah Kinlock was crazy and they would never be together and his younger brother tended to catch fire and she was caught in a web of secrets and lies and violence, but . . . there was this. Our band. She really liked the sound of that.

Chapter Forty-two

Got Ourselves a Gig

“I’m not doing it,” Jonah said flatly. “No. Absolutely not.”

“But . . . I already said we would,” Natalie said. “You don’t have plans for Halloween, do you?”

“Do I ever have plans?” Jonah rolled his eyes. “Since I haven’t been traveling, I—oh, wait, I do. I’m clipping my toenails. If there’s time left, I’m doing my fingernails, too.”

“It’s a paying gig,” Rudy said. “They’re offering good money, in fact. And Gabriel says they’re really excited about having us come.”

“Of course they are,” Jonah muttered. “Don’t you see? It’s Halloween. Invite the monsters in to entertain at your party.”

Rudy and Natalie looked at each other. “I don’t think that’s why they invited us, Jonah,” Natalie said. “Patrick gave them a list of bands, and I guess Ellen Stephenson heard Fault Tolerant at one of the teen nights downtown, and so when we showed up on the list, they chose us.”

“There are a lot of bands in town,” Jonah said. “They can pick another one.”

“We don’t want them to pick another band,” Rudy said. “We need to get out in front of some audiences and build some buzz. Once we get a good set list of original music, I’d like to go into the studio and record an EP. We’ll need money to do that.”

“Gabriel will front us the money,” Jonah said. “Studio space, equipment, everything.”

“Gabriel’s the one who wants us to do this gig.”

They were in the first-floor practice room of Oxbow, which had become their default hangout over the weeks since Mose died. Even Jonah had to admit, the more they practiced, the better they sounded. More cohesive. More than the sum of their parts. As Natalie said, the best band she’d ever been in, meaning no disrespect to Mose.

Emma had been cool and distant to Jonah since the night of the visit to Cleveland Heights. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?

At least she’d shown no signs that she recognized him as the one who’d murdered her father. Maybe Fortune had finally decided to shine on him, for some unfathomable reason.

What he hadn’t expected was the relationship that was developing between Emma and Kenzie. She’d been over to see him several times since he moved to Steel Wool. They had a lot in common, in particular a knack for music theory and composition. She’d take her guitar and serve as the voice for Kenzie’s flights of fancy. When Jonah asked, Emma said she liked Kenzie because he told the truth. Which to Jonah’s ears sounded like a barb at the rest of them.

She knew they were keeping secrets. Jonah knew how that felt, now that he was on the outside, no longer a part of Nightshade. He knew Alison still went out on missions . . . in fact, her frequent absences were becoming an issue when it came to scheduling practices. Jonah knew the shadehunters were still holding meetings and planning strategy and launching aggressive killing operations. He just wasn’t privy to their activities anymore. Was it because he didn’t need to know, or because Gabriel didn’t trust him?

Emma had remained silent through the argument, head bent over her fingerboard. She was playing one of her own guitars, an electrified acoustic with a fabulous voice. But she still wasn’t satisfied with the action. Now she spoke up. “Who’s having the party?” she asked.

“Gabriel’s contacts were Jack Swift and Ellen Stephenson,” Natalie said. “But the party is at Seph McCauley’s house, and I think Madison Moss is cohosting. It’s a kind of open house . . . members from all the guilds are invited. Apparently it’s gotten to be a Halloween tradition.”

“Well,” Emma said. “I could stand to make some money. I’m building guitars, but I haven’t had as much time to work on them, what with practice and school and all that.”

“If you need money,” Jonah said, “I know that Gabriel would be glad to—”

“I’m not talking about walking-around money,” Emma said. “I need to make enough money to open my own shop. I’ve got some saved up, but not enough. I’m already living on Gabriel’s dime. I don’t expect him to stake my business.”

“He probably would,” Jonah said. “He’d love to show you off . . . ‘Savant Makes Good, Starts Own Business. Film at eleven.’ ”

“I said no.” Emma punctuated this with a trill of notes.

“I said no, too, but nobody seems to be listening.” Jonah looked around the circle of faces and saw no support at all.

To buy some time, he set his guitar in its stand, crossed to the refrigerator, and pulled out a can of pop. Taking a long pull, he considered his options. He could try using his powers of persuasion, but he knew Natalie would call him on it. She had a habit of drowning him out with a drum solo whenever she felt he wasn’t playing fair.

“Alison?” Jonah looked to the one person he thought might back him up, though she’d been even harder to read and predict since Mose had died. “What do you think? Do you really want to go along with this?”

“Maybe,” Alison replied, with an odd, vague smile. “Can we run amok during the show? Set fire to the stage? Kill a few people?”

No help there.

“You know as well as I do that it was vigilantes from Trinity that tried to blow up Safe Harbor,” Jonah said, “whether Gabriel admits it or not.”

“If that’s true, I’m guessing it wasn’t the people hosting the party,” Natalie said. “You know I’m no fan of wizards, but not everyone over there is a bigot. Mercedes Foster is really—”

“Then let the nonbigots come to the benefit concert in the spring,” Jonah said. “Let them come onto our turf.”

“Gabriel thinks it’s a good idea. It will be good publicity for the school, and it might change some opinions about—”