“Have you been asking about me?” Darcy asked abruptly as we moved again.
A faint blush heated the back of my neck, although I had nothing to be embarrassed about. Looking into people was my job as a reporter. Plus, someone needed to keep an eye on Darcy, considering what he was capable of. “Seemed only fair since you’ve been paying attention to my family.”
He ran a hand through his short curls and met my gaze. “I’m sorry about what happened with your mother.”
I tried to school my features into something more neutral, even though surprise rocked through me. Darcy didnotseem like the kind of guy to apologize. And why would he be sorry if he’d been the one who set her up?
“I thought she was involved in what happened to Easton,” he continued.
My mouth fell open. Darcy wasn’t lying. He couldn’t be. But if he’d killed Easton, why had he thought Momwas involved? Since he brought up the murder himself, it was time to be bold before the potion wore off. “I know you were with Easton when he died.”
His eyes flew wide. “How did you know that?”
Since I didn’t owe him any answers, I stared out the window at the people who were the size of Legos now.
The wolf whined and looked between us as if sensing the tension.
“You think I killed Easton?” Darcy asked.
“I don’t think. I know.” I started to pet the pup again, not looking away from its adorable face.
“You don’t know anything about me,” Darcy said as we came to a stop at the top. “I didn’t kill Easton. I was trying to save him.”
My mouth fell open, and I whipped my head up to study his expression—the hard line of his jaw and the dark slash of his brows.
He hadn’t killed Easton? That meant I’d been on the wrong track all along, and Jane had been right. My stomach dropped.
I’d misunderstood the Portent.
Darcy was innocent.
Chapter 8
Mythoughtswhirledwiththis new revelation about Easton’s murder. “Then who killed him?”
“I don’t know.” Darcy’s voice was rough again, and he turned his head to the side. The setting sun highlighted his profile and pointed ears with sharp lines. “But I will find out.”
It was hard to tell if that was a threat or a promise.
I scrambled to tug the clues around me like a shield to make up for how my entire lead for the story had crumbled.
The wolf pup whined in my lap, and I let my fingers travel down the smooth, silvery fur on its back.
“What are you guys really doing here?” I asked.
Darcy didn’t respond, and I held back a sigh and studied the festival beneath us. The sunset cast a crimson glow, making it appear like everything was on fire. It looked like someone had dropped an autumn blanket across the town. When the trees stayed green too long, a few fae had a habit of speeding along the changing of their colors because no one wanted to have the festival when it still looked like summer outside.
“I have a feeling that there’s more you aren’t telling me,” I said as we finally started moving again. Maybe I had been too willing to believe the worst about Darcy because he was a fae, but that didn’t mean that I was wrong about everything.
“What makes you think I’m keeping secrets, Elizabeth?”
A charge went through me at my name, or at the heated look he gave me. Somehow, finding out that the secret he was hiding wasn’t Easton’s death made me more curious, not less. “Everyone has secrets, but you could make this easier on both of us by telling me yours.”
“Tempting”—the hint of a smirk teased up one corner of his mouth—“but I don’t think so.”
“Afraid I’ll find something you’d rather keep hidden?” Because there was no doubt in my mind that he was hiding something, and whether or not he believed me, Iwouldget to the bottom of the mystery that was Darcy.
“You can look at me with those bewitching eyes all you’d like, but that doesn’t mean you’ll find the truth—you’ll only find what I want you to find.”
