“Probably not,” Scout said.

Realization struck as I took the final sip. “We’re thinking about this Veronica thing too hard.”

“How so?” Scout asked.

“She’s already thinking about another guy, right? Someone other than Creed? She said so at her locker the other day. She just doesn’t know who the other guy is.”

“So?”

“So we bring the guy to her.”

“Parker, I am intrigued.”

“I knew you would be,” I said, and laid out our plan.

12

I didn’t waste time when we got back to the suite. Scout headed to her room to unload and organize her stuff from the shop. I was still thinking about the stuff we’d heard at the shop, including that fairy tale the “old” Reapers were supposedly talking about.

And what was the most efficient way to learn more about Reaper topics of conversation? Ask one. So I headed to my room, grabbed my phone, and called Sebastian.

“Lily?” he answered.

I sat down on my bed. “Hey, I need a favor. Well, information, anyway.”

“Okay,” he slowly said. “What do you want to know?”

I swallowed down a moment of panic, then threw it out there. “Do you know the story of Campbell? The fairy tale, I mean?”

There was a pause. “The fairy tale of Campbell?”

There was something strange in his voice, but I kept going. “So, there’s this fairy tale about a boy named Campbell who overthrew an evil baron or something. I hear Reapers are talking about that story a lot—maybe because they’re unhappy with Jeremiah. Do you know anything about it? Have you heard the story?”

Another pause, which just seemed that much more suspicious.

“Sebastian?”

“I’m here.”

“Okay. Any ideas?”

“I have—I have to go,” he said, and the line went dead.

I blinked at the phone for a minute, then flipped it in my hand while I thought through the call.

I’d asked Sebastian only about a fairy tale, and he seemed to freak out. He definitely hung up. Did the fairy tale mean something to him? Or did he know a boy named “Campbell” the Reapers might be secretly referring to?

“Maybe there’s a Campbell out there trying to make a name for himself,” I said quietly.

I grabbed my laptop from the bookshelf and carried it back to the bed, then flipped it open. The hard drive whirred a bit while the computer started up. As soon as it was ready, I dug into the Internet and tried my first search: the words “Campbell” and “fairy tale.”

Sure enough, I found a Web site of old Scottish fairy tales, including one called “Campbell and the Evil Lorde” that was pretty much the same as Kite had explained. Boy managed to win despite huge odds against him, but boy became as evil as the guy he’d overthrown. I think the moral of the story was basically “the grass isn’t always greener.”

Chin in my hand, I scrolled through the search results just in case there was anything else interesting. I didn’t see anything . . . until I got to the end of the fourth page. There, on the very bottom, was another Campbell story—a news report. The title read: CAMPBELL KIN RETURNS TO CITY FATHER CALLED HOME. And when I clicked on the article . . . a color picture of Fayden freaking Campbell stared back at me.

“Oh, crap,” I muttered, an uncomfortable flutter in my chest, as I scanned the article.

Turns out, Fayden Campbell’s father—Sebastian’s uncle—was from Chicago. He’d been a big shot in a tech company in California before he died earlier in the year. And just like Sebastian had said, Fayden had moved from California to Chicago, her father’s hometown, to finish law school.

So, to review:

Sebastian’s cousin, Fayden, just moved to Chicago. The Reaper gossip was about some fairy tale “Campbell” who was looking to take over the Reapers. And Sebastian’s cousin’s last name was “Campbell.”

Sebastian said she didn’t have magic. But this whole “Campbell” thing was a coincidence, wasn’t it?

Crap—I’d just told Sebastian that we suspected a “Campbell” might be involved. Sure, only in fairy tale terms, but I’d just given him the only clue I had, and he’d immediately hung up. What if he’d called Fayden and given her a heads-up?

Suddenly sick to my stomach, I shut the computer again. Had I done something awful? Had I trusted Sebastian too much?

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the kind of thing I could stash away and refuse to think about again. I had to tell someone. I had to tell Scout. And eventually, probably, I’d have to tell Jason and Daniel and the rest of Enclave. There was no avoiding it.

I flopped back on the bed. How did I get into messes like this? How did I end up in this bedroom in Chicago afraid to tell my new best friend that I might have accidentally given away details about our magical investigation to a guy who may or may not be totally evil . . . or who may or may not have told his cousin, the bad girl, that we were on her case.

I put my laptop back on the shelf in case I needed to run back into my room and flop on my bed in tears—or to hide from whatever Scout might throw at me.

I blew out a breath, and headed across the room.

Scout was organizing her new Gaslight Goods stuff when I opened the door. But when she looked back at me and saw the expression on my face, hers drooped.

“What’s wrong?”