Reluctantly, I stepped back, opening my eyes as I sucked in cool air.
Levi stared back at me, his expression calm. “Will you come over tonight?”
I swallowed to get moisture into my suddenly dry mouth. “Yes.”
“Will you stay all night?”
“Yes?”
His lips quirked up in a half-grin. “This isn’t Jeopardy. Frame your answer as a statement.”
I’d slept over at men’s houses before, guys I’d been casually dating, but they’d been in that box from the get-go. Levi had started out as something much different, and every time our relationship shifted, hell, every time I saw a new side of him, I had to reframe my view of this man. Spending the night curled up against him, asleep and vulnerable, was a huge shift.
Was that a bad thing? Boxes allowed me to distill people, but did that limit my understanding of them? Limit my thinking? I swallowed the knot in my throat. Could I do away with boxes on a case-by-case basis? One person at a time, the same way I solved an investigation one piece at a time? Hadn’t I already, with Eleanor and even Rafael?
I rolled the idea around of taking Levi out of the box I’d comfortably slotted him into and it wasn’t the dark hole of terror I’d expected. If I could save the world, I could have a talk about what exactly we wanted from the other person and then rock the follow-through.
“Well?” he said.
“I’ll take ‘all the ways Levi will entertain Ashira when she stays all night’ for a thousand, Alex.”
He ducked his head, allowing a sweet smile to break free. “Promise?” I nodded and he caught my hand, turning my palm upright and pressing a single kiss into it before leaving.
My fingers traced my swollen lips. If I didn’t run screaming in the night, we’d get to the good stuff. I exhaled sharply. Fuck balls. I didn’t mean sex.
Back in the ballroom, I helped myself to a couple of the tuna tartare on thin spicy crisps.
“Jonah just left,” Rafael said.
“Here.” I handed him one of the appetizers. “Eat. Drink and be merry. Might as well enjoy this fancy-schmancy ball.”
I was licking tuna juice off my finger, which was actually zestier than one would imagine, when Mayan made some excuse to Levi and left the ballroom again.
This time, she left the hotel entirely. All right. Now we were getting somewhere.
Chapter 19
Mayan hailed a taxi from the stand out front of the hotel. Our under-the-speed-limit grand chase landed us at Harbour Center and the entrance to Hedon.
I allowed her a brief head start inside. The Queen hadn’t refused me entry until she’d made her decision regarding our alliance, so I should be allowed in. Would she try to head trip me again? Potentially. Was it worth the risk of solving this case? That remained to be seen, but I’d been hired to find out what Mayan was up to and this was my big break.
Rafael, used to a support position, bless him, didn’t kick up a fuss about me going on my own, though he was impressed that I’d had the foresight to bring the two tokens left over from Miles with me tonight.
“It was kind of a no-brainer,” I said. “Mayan was going there on a regular basis and with Jonah having bought a ticket to the ball, it was a reasonable assumption she’d end up in Hedon again and I’d be traveling.”
My Attendant volunteered to wait for me at Harbour Center. “If you’re not out in two hours, I’ll sound the alarm. Call the rest of the team.”
“That’s an excellent idea.”
Mayan was already in the elevator up to the top floor by the time I’d convinced the security guard on duty to accept my token and let me through. The second my car opened on the restaurant level, I dashed through the slowly revolving doors into Hedon.
I peered down the narrow roads leading away from the small plaza, rewarded with a glimpse of Mayan turning a corner. Silently, I hurried after her.
Since it was always night here, there wasn’t some set sleeping schedule. The world was buzzing with activity, which helped mask my pursuit.
She stopped on a residential street, either side lined with low narrow apartment buildings painted in garish colors. I tailed her into one on the corner that was a violent shade of chartreuse and smelled of cheap incense. The buildings were so skinny that there was only one apartment on each of the four stories.
I pressed into the shadows in the stairwell.
Mayan crouched down by the door knob on the second floor and picked the lock with the ease of a seasoned burglar. Slipping off her shoes, she crept inside.
I removed my own, then flew up the rest of the stairs, racing through the long apartment to the lit bedroom at the back, but when I was only halfway through the living room, Mayan pulled her black rose barrette from her braid and tossed it in the air.
The rose transformed into a black barb, exactly like the poison one in the ring that the steampunk cat had tried to sell me. It zoomed toward Alfie, who sat up in bed, gaping at the barb now embedded in his arm that was already melting into his flesh. Black lines snaked out from the point of impact.
“Gunter,” Alfie croaked. “You still reek of Gitanes.”
“I swore to take everything from you.” Mayan patted his head. “Now I have.”
Alfie tried to raise a hand, but it fell limply back onto the covers.
“Bye, Alfie.” Mayan saw me in the doorway, swore, and bolted for the window.
Alfie was dying and his murderess was getting away in the opposite direction. I couldn’t let either happen.
Alfie rasped in a breath. His complexion was ashen and the left side of his face drooped like a stroke victim.
Trusting I could find Mayan or Gunter or whatever the fuck was going on, I dropped my
