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The Queen, her color high from anger, leaned heavily on her cane at the front of the room. “It seems we have ourselves a bit of a quandary. Sabina, you claim Alexis was responsible for four murders—”
“What?” Alexis jumped out of her chair, looking like she was ready to rumble again.
The Queen’s head snapped around to glare at her. “Sit down or I will have you thrown in a cell, guilty or no!” Alexis narrowed her eyes and blew out a hard breath. But she dropped back in her chair and settled for shooting me venomous glares.
“As I was saying,” the Queen said in an overly patient tone. “Sabina believes Alexis is the killer. However, other than hearsay, I have seen no physical evidence of her guilt.”
“I—” I began.
Suddenly, I was on the receiving end of the same look she’d given Alexis. “Let me finish!” She slammed her cane against the floor like a gavel. I muttered an apology and slumped down in my chair. “Then Alexis arrives and accuses Sabina of the same murders. Since Sabina was given the chance to share her evidence, I feel it is only fair to allow Miss Vega to present hers.”
Alexis shot me a superior look. Since I wasn’t guilty, I shrugged. “Fine by me.” Then I crossed my arms and settled in for the show.
“Miss Vega, you have the floor,” the Queen said, pointing to the front of the room with her cane. At this point, most of the guards and staff had now taken their seats like a jury.
Alexis walked to the front of the room, her head high despite her ripped and soiled gown. Her cherry-red hair stood in odd tufts and angles. I would have been amused but I was pretty sure I wasn’t looking any better.
“Thank you, Your Benevolence,” Alexis began. “I’ll need a computer.” She removed a small black cartridge from the bodice of her gown.
The Queen frowned at the request, but she nodded at a nearby mage to retrieve a laptop. While the young male ran off, Alexis cleared her throat and began pacing like Perry Fucking Mason.
“As you know, I believed that Tiny Malone was the party responsible for the murder of both the human and the mage. But over the last few days, new information has come to light that leads me to believe we killed the wrong party.”
“There was no ‘we’—you killed Tiny Malone,” I couldn’t help pointing out.
“Sabina,” the Queen said in a warning tone. “My patience for interruptions is wearing thin.”
Alexis shot me a shit-eating grin. I pursed my lips and took my frustration out on the armrest of my chair.
“Regardless, I didn’t want to believe Sabina might be responsible for such senseless acts of violence. But the more I put the pieces together, the more I realized she was the most likely culprit.” She spun around and walked in the other direction, ticking off allegations on her fingers. “First, I saw Sabina leaving Central Park the night the human was murdered. When I had a chance to meet her, I disregarded her as a suspect because of her ties to the Council. But then the mage died. Like others, I believed the murderer was most likely a vampire.”
I frowned. Hadn’t I used similar arguments when I tried to convince the Queen that Alexis was the murderer?
“Sabina, as a former acolyte to the Temple of Lilith and granddaughter of the Alpha Domina Lavinia Kane, saw the virgin bloodletting ritual in person.” She turned to the Queen. “As you said, though, hard evidence is needed to prove such a serious allegation. So I started digging into Sabina’s life. It was only after Tiny had been killed and we believed the case closed that I realized Sabina had a motive for discrediting Slade Corbin.” She paused dramatically.
My heart kicked into a rapid staccato. Surely she didn’t know about—
“Sabina wanted Slade Corbin out of the picture because she was terrified that her mage lover, Adam Lazarus, would discover Sabina’s secret affair with Mr. Corbin.”
Gasps rippled through the crowd. I jumped out of my seat. “That’s a f**king lie!”
The Queen’s eyes narrowed. “You deny you slept with Slade Corbin?”
My guilty gaze flew toward Rhea. Her hand went to her lips in shock, but she refused to look at me. I didn’t want to admit the truth in front of her. But I knew that lying now would only damn me further. I squeezed my eyes closed. When I opened them, I whispered, “No, I can’t deny it.”
Dozens of pairs of damning gazes burned into me. The Queen’s scathing judgment didn’t bode well for my immediate future. Giguhl looked like he wanted to jump to my defense, but I shook my head. I had to deal with this on my own. “But I didn’t kill anyone. The night the mage was murdered I was with Sl—” I stopped, realizing that claiming Slade as an alibi wouldn’t do me any favors. I cleared my throat and changed tactics. “I’d have to be a complete psychopath to murder innocents to cover up a stupid one-night stand.”
“I’m glad you brought that up,” Alexis said. To the room she called, “Last evening, I personally witnessed Sabina maim an innocent faery during a Roller Derby match. Sabina broke the faery’s spine without one sign of remorse.”
I rounded on her. “You’re twisting the truth!”
“Oh, really? How about this for truth: After Sabina was ejected from the Roller Derby match, she proceeded to stalk an innocent human male to his home. If I hadn’t stopped her, she would have murdered the man along with his wife and baby.”
Outraged shouts came from the mages assembled. My stomach sank. This was bad. Really, really bad.
“She’s lying,” I cried. “She didn’t stop me. I changed my mind!” Oh gods, that didn’t sound any better.
The Queen raised a brow. I could practically see her adding this evidence to her own memories of how I killed one of her favorite ambassadors. She looked ready to declare me guilty.
“You don’t understand,” I cried. “She’s twisting the truth to frame me for murders she committed!”
Just then, the young mage returned with a laptop. Alexis whispered instructions to him.
While he went to do what she’d asked of him, she turned back to the audience. “Of course, none of my accusations are hard evidence of Sabina’s guilt. However, after my beloved leader, the Despina, was murdered, I ran back to the manor to check security tapes.”
My eyebrows slammed down. What kind of game was she playing now? My stomach felt like I’d swallowed an iceberg.
While Alexis did her grandstanding, the young mage busied himself with setting up the projection system. He punched a button on a hidden console and a large white screen descended. He hooked the computer up to the projector and plugged in the thumb drive Alexis had provided.
