Telling myself that this wasn’t a date didn’t make my pulse slow one bit as I made my way to the table Milo had claimed. To my surprise, he wasn’t on his phone as he waited, but rather he had a mini sketchbook out, expression intent as his pencil moved across the page. I allowed myself the pleasure of watching him work for a few moments before I set the little plastic tent with our order number on the table.

“Oh, there you are.” His smile made my toes curl inside my sneakers. “Gonna tell me what you got?”

“Nope.” I grinned at him. “Gonna show me your sketch?”

“I don’t usually draw around people I know, but I had this idea and you didn’t laugh at my earlier one—”

“Of course not!” I glared at him. He was crazy-talented and couldn’t seem to see it. His Neptune had looked exactly like a promo piece for a Disney movie. Preferably one where the prince got his guy.

“Okay, okay. This is a rough idea of something I might do bigger if you don’t think it would be too stupid.” He tore the sheet out of the book and passed it over.

My breath literally caught, as if my oxygen had snagged on all the too-sharp emotions assaulting me. It was Chase, but not Chase like he’d been that afternoon, tired and hurting. Rather, it was Chase as a superhero, cape flapping behind him, wearing a big smile like the one he’d had for Milo that first day.

“Wow. That’s incredible. You have to give that to him and his dad. Please. I bet it would mean a lot to them.”

“Okay. I’ll try to do a bigger version. Better. Less smudgy.” Milo’s mouth pursed like he was seeing something different than the near-lifelike drawing in front of us. I’d always had mad respect for anyone who had art skills, and I had enough artsy friends to know when I was seeing true talent.

“Perfectionist.”

“Maybe.” His cheeks turned an adorable shade of pink, but the tilt of his chin said that he was secretly pleased at my compliments.

My phone buzzed, and I used him turning to put the sketchbook away to sneak a glance at my messages.

“Oh, cool. This is actually relevant to our card search.”

“Yeah?” Milo leaned forward.

“I told my friend Conrad about our quest. Not the why, of course, but I wanted his opinion on locating the remaining Royal Frog Court cards on the cheap.”

“What did he say?” Milo’s mouth stayed flat, but his eyes glimmered, like he didn’t want to get his hopes up.

“That Odyssey tends to pretend that the secondary market for cards doesn’t exist. And that corporate doesn’t have a secret vault of them where he can score them.”