Given that this was a weekday, several folks moved through the area. People coming inside to make deposits, others leaving after having handed over their money, bankers carrying papers from one desk to another. Tellers typed away on their keyboards, and the murmur of half a dozen conversations filled the air, along with an occasional high-pitched beep-beep from a cell phone.

   Once again, my gaze was drawn to the giant guards, all eight of them, stationed in teams of two in the four corners of the lobby, all on high alert, with their hands on their guns, just like the four guards outside had been. Normally, I would have gone over to the receptionist—another newly installed giant guard—sitting at a desk close to the entrance and told her whom I was here to see, but a man standing by the tellers’ counter waved at me.

   “Gin!” he called out. “Over here!”

   His voice wasn’t all that loud, but compared to the other hushed murmurs, it boomed like thunder through the open space, and everyone stopped what they were doing to look at him, then me. I grimaced and tightened my grip on the box of food. Still aware of the guards’ gazes on me, I walked over to the counter, which ran along the back wall.

   Finnegan Lane, my foster brother, straightened up at my approach. To the casual observer, he looked the same as always—a handsome investment banker poured into a slick Fiona Fine suit. But his walnut-brown hair was more mussed than styled, his white shirt was rumpled, and his navy-blue suit jacket hung loosely on his shoulders, instead of being impeccably tailored. He’d lost weight these past few weeks, despite all my attempts to coax him to eat.

   Finn eyed the cardboard box in my hands and sighed. “More food? I still have leftovers from the barbecue chicken that you brought over for lunch a few days ago.”

   I passed the box over to him. “Well, now you have more.”

   He nodded his thanks, but his green gaze moved past me and darted around the lobby before focusing on a spot along the left wall—the same spot where he’d first found out that Deirdre Shaw was his mother. Finn’s shoulders sagged, making his suit jacket droop even more, and I could tell that he was reliving her betrayal yet again.

   Deirdre had claimed that Fletcher had threatened her, forced her to leave Finn behind, and kept her away from her own son for almost Finn’s entire life. She’d swooped back into Ashland a few weeks ago, saying that with Fletcher dead, she could come home, get to know her son, and finally be a part of Finn’s life.

   Damn, dirty lies, all of it.

   In reality, all those years ago Deirdre had threatened to freeze a newborn Finn with her Ice magic if Fletcher didn’t let her leave town. She hadn’t cared about Finn at all—until she needed him to help her rob First Trust in a desperate, last-ditch effort to pay back the millions that she owed to Tucker and the rest of the Circle.

   Finn stared at that spot along the wall a second longer before turning away and screwing a smile on his face, as though everything were normal, and he were still the carefree, happy-go-lucky guy he’d been before Deirdre had blown into town. Before she’d ripped his heart to shreds and betrayed him in the worst way possible. Before she’d tortured him with her Ice magic. Before he’d killed his own mother to save me.

   “Alrighty. Let’s get this show on the road,” Finn chirped.

   He left the tellers’ counter behind and walked over to a metal door set into the back left corner of the lobby. The two giants stationed there eyed me, but Finn showed them his access card, and they opened the door. I followed Finn down a long flight of stairs that led to the basement, where the senior bank officials’ offices were located. Finn left me standing in the hallway while he ducked into his office and put the box of food on his desk. Then, together, the two of us walked over to Big Bertha.

   Big Bertha was the bank’s largest and most secure vault, featuring hundreds of safety-deposit boxes that were a literal treasure trove of cash, precious jewels, stocks, bonds, and other valuables. Since this was a normal business day, the vault’s thick outer metal door was wide-open, although the inner door was still shut and locked. That inner door was actually a tight mesh of silverstone, an extremely tough and durable metal that could absorb and store magic. The mesh had three distinct layers now, each separated a few inches from the next, instead of the one layer that Deirdre had so easily blasted through with her Ice magic during the attempted robbery.

   To my surprise, a dwarf with wavy silver hair, sharp hazel eyes, and rough, craggy features was standing in front of the vault, waiting for us. Stuart Mosley, the head of First Trust, and Finn’s boss.

   I looked at Finn, who shrugged at me. “No one goes into the vault now without Mosley’s approval. I had to tell him what I wanted in there.”

   I didn’t like anyone knowing what we were up to, especially not Mosley, since I had no idea if we could trust him. But there was no way to avoid the dwarf, so we walked over to him.

   “Ms. Blanco,” Mosley said in a deep, gravelly voice. “So nice to see you again.”

   “Mr. Mosley.”

   We shook hands, as though this were just an innocent business transaction, then Mosley looked at Finn. “You have the key?”

   Finn nodded, reached into his pants pocket, and drew out a safety-deposit box key, which he held up for his boss’s inspection. Mosley stared at the number—1300—that was engraved in the metal. For a moment, a hint of a smile played across the dwarf’s face, deepening the lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth, but it was gone so quickly that I wondered if I’d only imagined the amused emotion. I stared at Mosley, but his face was stone-cold somber again, and I couldn’t get a read on what he was thinking.

   Mosley turned around and punched in a code on a keypad that was attached to the first silverstone mesh door. The light on the keypad flashed green before winking back to red. He punched in two more codes; the light flashed green twice more before staying that color, and all three of the silverstone mesh doors slowly slid back one after another.

   “Well, you know where that box is, Finn,” Mosley rumbled. “I’ll leave you to it. Be sure and lock the vault again when you’re done.”