Gray frowned, unsure what he was looking at. “Is everything fine?”
“Hm?” Shadow turned their way, but when he did so, Gray wished he were still oblivious to what was going on. Shadow was licking the wall, and his long tongue stuck out, tracing the black and green growth.
Rev’s mouth twisted. “That’s beyond nasty.”
A mild sense of nausea curled in Gray’s throat, but this was hardly the first time he’d seen Shadow consume inedible things, and he much preferred him to lick walls than suck on spider legs as if they were toothpicks.
“Okay. Bon appetit, and all that.”
“Not with everyone watching,” Shadow mumbled and walked up to the table with a childish pout. “What are we doing?”
Rev shook his head. “Have you been listening at all? Anyway, it doesn’t even matter. You’re only going with Gray so that he can do the job more easily.”
Gray’s gaze fixed on the table as silence stretched a bit too long. “He can do more than that,” he said.
Vars cleared his throat. “In any case, Magpie had the owner’s address for us, along with some information about the house, but obviously take it all with a grain of salt. You know what happened last time.”
Gray’s mouth soured. Nobody would let him forget how he’d risked it all only to fall for a decoy and lead armed men into their clubhouse.
Shadow reached out for one of the rings resting on the table, but Rev slapped his hand away.
“What do you think you’re doing? These are precious. More precious than your whole existence.”
Shadow growled in that low, guttural way that gave Gray the shivers. “And why is that?”
“Because they can save us all from your master flooding the world with more creatures like you.”
Shadow crossed his arms, his face still pinched into a frown. “How so?”
Rev shook his head. “I don’t know yet. Maybe if we put enough of them on his sigil next door, it’ll block him from coming out.”
Shadow frowned, staring at the table. “But you’d need rubies to affect his power. And there are none here.”
“Gray, get him out of here, or I’m gonna smack him!”
Gray raised his hand, suddenly cold in the pit of his stomach. “No, let him speak. Shadow, why do you think that?”
Vars and Jake gravitated closer, eyeing the precious jewelry that had become the focus of their existence.
Shadow looked around. “I can smell it. Can’t you? A real ruby is nutritious. I could eat it like I had the one buried in the chest with the bones. That one was enough to sustain my existence for the three new moons, and awaken the trees. These are nothing like it.”
Rev hissed and hit the table so hard the tools laid out on it clattered. “That’s a load of horseshit! I already had a look at a few of them!”
Gray eyed Shadow with a sense of emptiness in his chest. He picked up an earring with a tear-shaped ruby and showed it to him. “Are you sure? Every one of those?”
Shadow met his gaze and eventually took the earring. He put it in his mouth and sucked on it as if it were a piece of hard candy, but after several tense moments, his lips crooked as if he’d just gotten to the acidic center. He spat it out on his hand and shook his head. “It’s similar, but doesn’t taste quite right. As if… as if it has been grown too fast. It has no smell, no flavor.”
Rev took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a few seconds, but then opened all the remaining boxes. “Any of these?”
Shadow leaned down to smell the jewels, but shook his head.
Rev’s face was flushed, and he shook his head, clearly uneasy that his competencies were being questioned. “This must be a mistake. I fucking know my stuff!”
Vars chewed on his lip. “They might still be rubies, but Magpie said they need to be natural. Could those be lab-made?”
Rev’s arms dropped, but at least he seemed that tiny bit calmer now. “That’s the only logical explanation.”
Shadow cleared his throat several times in a row, but he only spoke when Gray caught on and asked him what he wanted to say.
“You do have one in the clubhouse. There’s a ring on Beast’s finger, and it definitely holds a real ruby.”
Jake’s shoulders relaxed, and he barked out a laugh. “Just imagine it. Beast’s engagement ring saves the world.”
Gray didn’t feel like laughing at all. “What is this shit? There’s always some fakes in each transport, and I’m sure many of the jewels we passed on to Magpie had been industrial-made but this? It’s ridiculous.”
“Maybe your monster is lying. He might follow your orders for the most part, but he is still serving his master,” Rev said in a cool, smoke-rasped voice, his gaze licking up Shadow’s face with distaste.