“Romeo and Juliet,” I realized.

“They aren’t in costume,” Ezra noted, “but we should probably wait for their rehearsal to finish.”

Relieved he didn’t plan to burst in on the performance, I sidled into the nearest row and dropped onto the second seat. Ezra took the one beside me. Sighing with relief to be off my feet, I stretched my legs out.

He watched the stage, his expression guarding his thoughts. Despite having spent the better part of a day in his company, I couldn’t get a read on him. I had no idea what kind of person he was—but I’d gotten a few more glimpses of his viper stare, and each time it unnerved me more than the last.

I turned my focus to the performance. Yana should have been here with the other students. What had her role been? The ineffective Lady Capulet? The Nurse, Juliet’s confidant? Fragile Lady Montague? Or had she played na?ve, tragic Juliet?

“Do you think Yana is dead?” I asked softly.

“We don’t know what the sorcerer does with his victims,” Ezra said heavily, “but it’s been almost a week. I don’t think her chances are good.”

My shoulders slumped.

“We’ll find him,” he promised. “If you and I don’t manage it, we’ll get the others to help once they’re back.”

“When are they returning?”

“I don’t know.”

Brow furrowing, I blurted without thinking, “Aren’t you all best friends?”

He looked at me with that cold stare, saying nothing. My face flushed and I hastily focused on the stage—a mistake, for Romeo had just drawn Juliet close.

“Then move not,” he breathed, “while my prayer’s effect I take.”

He lowered his head and their lips met in a kiss somehow chaste and burning with passion at the same time. He lifted his mouth, staring besotted into Juliet’s face.

“Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged.”

Juliet leaned into him, her chin tilted up. “Then have my lips the sin that they have took.”

“Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!” Romeo exclaimed with a roguish smile. “Give me my sin again.”

His lips met hers a second time, and their kiss deepened—fervor overtaking chaste reserve. A kiss between forbidden lovers. The sin of their passion, shared by both.

I dropped my gaze to my lap, my heart beating strangely fast and my body flushed with heat. What was wrong with me?

The instructor called a stop, and when I looked up, the woman was ascending the stairs toward us. Ezra rose to his feet, and I followed him into the aisle.

“How can I help you?” the instructor asked.

“Ezra Rowe,” he said in a professional tone. “And my partner, Robin Page. We’re private investigators looking into Yana Deneva’s disappearance. Would—”

“Disappearance?” The woman’s jaw trembled. “Don’t you mean murder?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Her murder! Her body was found this morning. What sort of investigators wouldn’t know that already?”

Her body? I went cold all over.

“We are aware,” Ezra lied smoothly. “However, we didn’t want to be insensitive in case you didn’t know.”

“Oh.” She sniffed wetly. “The faculty knows—they told us so we wouldn’t find out on the evening news tonight. Yana was such a personality—perfect for the stage. She …” Another sniff. “What do you need?”

I tugged the sorcerer’s photo out of my pocket. “Have you ever seen this man?”

The instructor squinted at it. “Does he have albinism? There was a pale blond man at our last performance of The Glass Menagerie, the Wednesday before last. He sat in the front row.”

“Is this the same man?”

She gave the photo another assessment. “It could be, but I thought he was older … I’m sorry. I can’t be certain.”

Ezra and I asked her a few more questions, but she had nothing else to share. Thanking her for her time, we left the theater room and hurried out of the school.

Back on the sidewalk, I stuffed my hands in my pockets to hide their slight tremble. “Yana is dead.”

Ezra slid his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll have Felix get the location where her body was found, but we won’t be able to get near it today. We’ll need to wait for the police to finish with the crime scene.”

“Will you send me the location as soon as you have it?”

His gaze flicked to mine, his hesitation so slight I might’ve imagined it. “Sure. Until then …”

Until then, there was nothing we could do. We had no leads aside from the possibility that the sorcerer had attended a play at the college.

“Keep me posted,” I said.

“I will.” With a wave, he walked away.

I watched him go, my skin prickling with inexplicable dread.

“Three,” I said, “two, one. Luce!”

“Luce,” Zylas said with me.

The cantrip, drawn in his glowing red magic, didn’t react. Our palms were pressed together, our fingers linked, but at the simultaneous incantations, nothing happened.

I dropped my hand into my lap. The faint crimson glow veining his wrist faded, and the cantrip disappeared.

“Why won’t it work?” I huffed. “We’ve shared magic twice before.”

He shrugged. “Times of battle are different.”

“But we couldn’t do it a few days ago and that was in battle.” I tucked my hair behind my ears. “We should try again.”

“Why? We have tried many times.” He gave me a hard look. “Or do you think my magic is not enough?”

“Your magic is extremely powerful and you know it. But combining our magic … that could be more powerful. That’s how we defeated Vasilii, and we can use it against Nazhivēr too.”

He grunted.

I studied the demon sitting cross-legged on the opposite side of the coffee table. Socks was crouched beside the TV stand, watching the barbed end of his tail twitch with her ears perked.

Yesterday’s incident with the chocolates lurked in the back of my thoughts, refusing to be forgotten. Feeding him had meant something—something more than merely sharing food—but I wasn’t sure what. His reaction …