“You know I don’t like to go to clubs,” Jonah grumbled as they turned onto West Ninth Street.

“Cheer up,” Natalie Diaz said. “You’ll be perfectly safe. I’ll be your bodyguard.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Jonah said. “As soon as we walk through the door, you’ll forget all about that plan. You’ll all be up onstage, and I’ll be left to fend for myself.”

“Oh, quit whining, Kinlock,” Alison said, rolling her eyes. “At least you could’ve shown us some skin.” It seemed she’d taken her own advice. She wore a very short tank dress with a blue jean jacket, tights, and boots, feathers pinned into her purple-streaked hair, eyes smoky with kohl. Ready to rock-and-roll.

Jonah hunched his shoulders inside his leather jacket. It was October, three months since his failed rescue of Jeanette, and the weather was getting cooler. Which finally gave him an excuse to cover up.

Natalie laughed. “Maybe you could’ve worn a burka,” she said. “You’re nearly there anyway.”

“Would you quit criticizing my clothes?” As soon as Jonah agreed to go to the club with them, Natalie had showed up at his door, wanting to go through his closet and put his look together. He’d flatly refused. “I’m not the one onstage,” he said. “Forget it.”

“You need to get out more,” Natalie said. “It’s not healthy to stay in your room all the time.”

“I do get out,” Jonah said. “I’ve been in—what?—four countries this month.”

“I don’t mean working. I mean playing.”

She paused and, when Jonah didn’t respond, said, “It wouldn’t hurt you to get to know some girls, Jonah. Nobody’s asking you to sign anything.” She narrowed her eyes at him. Or touch anybody was the subtext.

“No.”

“It’s not like they’re going to attack you.”

That’s what you think.

“You might even have fun.”

“Let it go, Nat.”

So Natalie Diaz let it go. She always knew just how far she could push him.

Alison, Natalie, Mose, and Rudy were in a band together—Alison on bass, Mose on guitar and vocals, Nat on drums, and Rudy on keyboards and backup vocals. They called themselves Fault Tolerant. The name was Rudy’s idea. It was geek-speak for a system that continues to operate even if one element fails.

Given the arts focus of the school, bands came and went at the Anchorage like mushrooms after a rain. Fault Tolerant was different. Natalie didn’t suffer fools, and she didn’t put up with laziness. Neither did Rudy. And that made for a great band. They should call it Fault Intolerant, Jonah thought.

“I know!” Alison said. “Join the band. Then you won’t be sitting alone.”

Jonah snorted. “To do what? Play the tambourine?”

“We could always use more sex appeal,” Alison said, smirking at him.

“Hey!” Rudy Severino called out, raking back his hair and delivering a smoldering pout. “Sex appeal right here.”

“You don’t need another split in those big paychecks,” Jonah said.

“If you refuse to play your music in public, you should at least let us play it for you,” Natalie said. “Somebody ought to hear it.”

“I hear it,” Jonah said. “And Kenzie. And you. That’s enough.” He had agreed to come after weeks of badgering from Natalie. She’d taken him on as a project ever since his meltdown in Gabriel’s office. He’d been missing a lot of classes since Jeanette died, and when he came to a class, he often slept through it. Natalie suspected depression. Jonah suspected she was right, although, in his opinion, depression was a perfectly reasonable reaction to their situation.

They cut across the street, dodging traffic. They were coming up on Club Catastrophe. Music poured from the front door, and an easel out front displayed a sign: TEEN NIGHT TONIGHT FEATURING FAULT TOLERANT—LIVE AND IN PERSON.

They entered through the rear door, threading their way through a clutter of cleaning supplies, extra furniture, and paper products. They found Mose having a smoke amid the flammables. He’d driven the equipment van over, because he never would have made it on foot.

Mose was prone to self-medicating and looked the part—he was as gaunt as an end-stage addict, pierced to the max, every inch of exposed flesh covered in Gabriel’s ink therapy. Like a prayer to the gods that had gone unanswered.

Jonah couldn’t blame Mose for wanting to blunt the edge. A seer savant, Mose had the gift of seeing death coming before it arrived. He’d become a key asset to Safe Passage, the hospice program at the Anchorage. He and Jonah were a team. Like Dr. Death and his front man.

These days, Mose sat during their sets, and his voice had weakened considerably, but he was still the best singer in the band and he was a demon on guitar.

Maybe “Last Legs” would be a better name for this band, Jonah thought.

Mose lit up a little when he saw Jonah. He sat up a little straighter, finger-combing his hair. “Hey, Jonah! If I’d known you were coming, I’d of worn the good clothes.”

“Hey, Mose,” Jonah said, doing the old fist bump. “What’s up?”

“I’ve been meaning to mention this—I’ve been sorting through some stuff, need to simplify, know what I mean? I wondered if you had room in that palace of yours for my vinyl collection.” Mose had a stellar collection of vintage vinyl, and a sweet turntable to play it on.

“Your vinyl? No way,” Jonah said. “That is not what you get rid of. If you’re short on room, put your bed on the curb.”

“I don’t play them much anymore,” Mose said. “Can you at least come have a look, maybe pick out some tunes?”

“Sure,” Jonah said. “If you want. We’ll call it a loan.”

“How about tonight, right after the gig?” Mose persisted. Adopting a throaty, seductive voice, he added, “Wanna come to my place and listen to some records?”

“Tonight?” Jonah hesitated. Mose always flirted with him shamelessly, but there was a desperate undercurrent in his voice that hadn’t been there before.

“Don’t you think you’ll be tired, after the show?” Alison said, over Jonah’s shoulder. Jonah jumped. He’d forgotten she was there. “Who knows how late it’ll go.”

“Please,” Mose said, looking Jonah in the eyes.

“Sure,” Jonah said. “After the gig.”

“You good, Mose?” Natalie put a hand on his shoulder and leaned down to look into his face.

“Me?” He grinned wickedly. “I’m always good.”

Natalie chewed her lower lip. She wasn’t buying it.

“I’ll start setting up,” Jonah said.

Music was blasting from the overhead speakers and the dance floor was crowded an hour before the official showtime. For Club Catastrophe, Teen Night was an add-on, a way to bring in customers on slow nights. They’d filled the rear of the room with billiards tables, dartboards, and vintage pinball machines to give younger patrons something to do.

As soon as Jonah appeared onstage to set up, a faint cheer went up. Fault Tolerant had a following around town. They even sometimes opened for national touring bands that Gabriel booked into the Keep.

Scanning the crowd, Jonah saw some familiar faces. Being walking distance from school, the club was a popular hangout for savants. The rest of the crowd was a mingle of Anaweir and mainliners. There was lots of Weir action in town, due to Cleveland’s proximity to the seat of Weir government in Trinity.

Jonah had learned to ignore the whispers, nudges, and pointed fingers from guildlings. Still, he couldn’t help picking out a faint chant of “Labrats!” from a crowd of mainliners at two tables next to the stage.

The Anaweir were, as always, oblivious.

Jonah began hauling amplifiers onstage, taping down power cords, testing mikes, and generally making himself useful. When he’d finished the setup, he collected a soda from the bar and carried it backstage. He found a viewing spot from stage right as the club manager ran through the usual announcements about restrooms, smoking, drugs, wristbands, and warnings that Teen Nights were a privilege that could be revoked if there were any more problems.

“And now, without further ado, Club Catastrophe welcomes Fault Tolerant!”

Lusty shouts and foot stomping ushered Jonah’s friends onto the stage. Natalie strode back to the drums, Severino took his place behind his Roland, and Alison and Mose carried their guitars out from backstage and plugged in.

All of the songs were familiar. Natalie had written most of them, some in partnership with Severino, and she and Jonah usually jammed on them before she ever brought them to the band. “Never Say Die.” “Straw Man.” “Caliente.” “No Way Home.” It was all original music. Natalie believed in controlling the whole package.

Jonah breathed in the usual crowd funk of sweat, perfume, and raging hormones. Then caught a whiff of mischief mixed in. That was his term for the nose-prickling mingle of shade magic and rotting flesh. Shades? This close to the Anchorage?

He leaned forward and peered out from the wings, scanning the crowd. Blinded as he was by the stage lights, all he could see was a murk of dark moving bodies, studded with the patches of light that denoted the gifted.

Turning up the collar of his jacket, hunching his shoulders, Jonah slipped offstage and walked down the aisle, turning his head from side to side. But he couldn’t pinpoint the source, and then he lost the scent.

Ditching his sanctuary backstage, Jonah found a table in the corner closest to the door where he could keep a better watch on comings and goings. There was a price to pay, now that he was out in the open. He kept having to snarl at those who wandered over, thinking he looked lonely, sitting there by himself.

Every so often he breathed in the stench of decay or the burned-insulation scent of shade magic, but could never figure out exactly where it was coming from.

When the first set was over, the club sound track came on, and Natalie and Rudy waded into the crowd on the dance floor. Mose shuffled back outside to smoke, and Alison joined Jonah at his table.

“’Sup, Jonah?” Alison asked, tucking her hair behind her ears. She’d peeled off her jacket during the set, revealing her muscled arms. “How come you’re sitting out here?”

“Do you smell anything unusual?” Jonah asked, trying not to ask a leading question.

Alison wrinkled her nose. “Dude at the next table should go easy on the cologne,” she said. “And I think somebody’s been smoking weed in the ladies’ room. That what you mean?”

He shook his head. “I could’ve sworn I smelled a shade.”

Alison shrugged. “I know you say you can smell them, but I can’t—not from a distance, anyway. I wish I could.”

Jonah grimaced. “No you don’t. Trust me.” He paused. “You’re looking good, Shaw. Did you lose weight or what?”

She looked up, saw that he was kidding about that last part, and grinned. “I’m feeling good,” she said, sipping at her drink. “I’ve been going to a new skin therapist. He is amazing.”

Jonah stared at her, puzzled. Skin art was Gabriel’s specialty, one of the treatments he never delegated. “Really? I didn’t know Gabriel had hired anyone else.”

“He hasn’t. This one’s an independent. Dimitri Weed. He has a clinic on Canal.”

“You’re going outside of the Anchorage for treatment?” Jonah said, beating down surprise.

Alison nodded. She leaned toward Jonah. “Don’t tell Gabriel. Or Natalie. It’s not that I don’t have confidence in them. It’s just, you know, an add-on.”

“How’d you even find this guy?” Jonah said. “Where’d he come from? Is he a sorcerer or what?”

“He’s a sorcerer,” Alison said. “Some of the other savants have been seeing him. They said he works wonders, so I thought I’d give him a try.”

Jonah’s heart sank. Charlatans tended to prey on savants, offering them the kind of hope that Gabriel couldn’t.

“Alison. You know as well as I do that skin therapy is nothing to mess around with. There are lots of quacks out there who are more than willing to take your money. They do more harm than good.” He paused. “What’s he charging you, anyway?”

“It’s pricey,” Alison said evasively. “But what if it works? How much would you pay for something that works?”

Everything, Jonah thought. I’d pay everything for Kenzie.

“Here. Want to see?” She slid her dress off her shoulder to display a new tattoo: a lurid, glittering snake that angled down between her shoulder blades. Jonah leaned in to take a closer look.

“What the hell is that?” Natalie snapped, over Jonah’s shoulder, startling them both.

“Nothing.” Alison jerked her dress back into place and hunched over the table.

Natalie and Rudy stood tableside, still flushed and sweating from dancing, both holding drinks. Nat had a familiar fire in her eyes. Jonah braced himself for incoming.

“I thought there was something different about you,” Natalie said. “Let me see that.”

“No,” Alison said. “I know what you’ll say.”

“You went to that guy on Canal, didn’t you?” Natalie slammed her drink down so hard the contents slopped onto the table. “After I told you not to.”

“Leave her alone, Nat,” Rudy said. “It’s not your business.”

“It is my business,” Natalie retorted. “She’s my friend!”

Alison scraped back her chair and stood. “If I’m your friend, you want what’s best for me, right?”

“Exactly,” Natalie said, eyeing her suspiciously. “That’s why I—”

“Well, I’ve felt better since I’ve been seeing Dimitri than I have in two years,” Alison said. “I’m sorry, but it’s true. I think you’re just jealous of his success.”

“That’s not it,” Natalie said, cheeks flushed. “There just aren’t that many good skin therapists out there. And you don’t go to anyone who doesn’t know what meds you’re taking. Besides, I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something—I don’t know—wrong about his work. I don’t trust him.”

“Well, I do. And so does Rudy.” Alison threw a challenging glare his way.

“What does that mean?” Natalie asked, looking from Alison to Severino.

“Shut up, Alison,” Rudy said, licking his lips nervously. “You promised you wouldn’t—”

“When were you going to tell her?” Alison asked. “In the middle of a hookup? She’s not stupid.”

“I think you’d better tell me now.” Natalie’s voice had gone from fire to ice in an instant.

Jonah wanted nothing more than to escape the oppressive stew of emotions swirling around him—rage, guilt, suspicion, fear. But he was hemmed in by his three friends, with no way out.

Even worse, the shouting match in the corner was drawing attention from onlookers.

“Fine,” Rudy said. “I’ve been seeing Dimitri, too.” Slowly, deliberately, he turned and yanked up his sweater. There, at the base of his spine, curled a dragon. “I feel great, Nat,” he said, over his shoulder. “I’m sleeping better, and I have more energy during the day.”

Natalie stared at the tattoo, the blood draining from her face. “And I guess next you’ll say you can quit anytime you like,” she shouted at his back. “Oh, no, that’s right, you can’t.”

“Don’t be mad, Nat,” Rudy said, turning back around. “Even the music is better. If you’d just keep an open mind, I—”

Natalie leaned toward him, fists clenched. “So the music is better, is it?”

“What’d I miss?” Mose had returned, limping his way through the gawkers. “We’re back on in three, right?”

Fault Tolerant returned to the stage, bodies stiff, glaring at one another.

This is exactly why I don’t like to go to clubs, Jonah thought. Too much drama. And since he only had four friends, this kind of drama seriously affected his quality of life.