This was not at all the way I thought this was going to go. Ember Verona hated me, and for good reason, but she was being almost nice. It was odd, but not uncomfortable. As I held out my hand for some caramel corn, it occurred to me that perhaps Ember’s usual bad attitude had more to do with being forced to mediate between the Trinity and the Consulate, not with hating me.
“Why’d you burn my house down?” The question felt like it came out of nowhere, but was twenty years in the making. Her tone wasn’t exactly calm. It was more like she was tired. Exhausted, really.
I could relate. Deeply. That too was dangerous. Relating to Ember Verona, when I needed to be so careful around her, was going to fuck one or both of us over. But I needed to own up to my mistakes, and with Lara back, she certainly needed to know what she was dealing with. I owed Ember that much—for what I did to Sera, and the effect it had on her life.
Honesty it was, then. “Twenty years ago, there was someone killing parapsychs.”
Ember nodded, a deep line forming on her eternally lineless forehead. It was like her skin knew it should be wrinkled after so many years of life, but couldn’t quite get there unless given a chance. “I remember.”
“We investigated, after three of our own were taken,” I continued. “Av got hold of the Consulate’s findings.”
“The special investigators’ stuff?” Ember asked. She looked impressed when I nodded.
“Av’s got a talent with information. I try to use it sparingly. Not many people know.”
Ember’s face smoothed out, immortal youth and ancient crone all at the same time. I wondered if she saw a similar dichotomy in me. “No one will ever hear about it from me.”
The thought that she might be the closest thing I’d ever see to a goddess crossed my mind in a flash, disappearing before I could shove it down somewhere. Dangerous. This was a dangerous line. Lying to myself, but being honest with her. Part of me wanted to run, to just leave my clothes and walk out of here. What I’d been keeping from her all these years was going to ruin this shred of goodwill between us.
“Thank you,” I replied, before continuing. “We knew from the files we’d gotten a hold of that trying to investigate the killer would be a dead end. The SIs hadn’t had a lick of luck. So we investigated the victims instead.”
Ember drew a breath in, nodding, but didn’t say a word. I liked the way she leaned toward me, her slender shoulder bumping against mine. I liked it too much. The temptation to jerk away from her was strong, but my affection starved body won out. I let her touch me, talking to keep from thinking about what it might feel like to let her touch me more, in other places… what her fingers might feel like moving over my bare skin.
No. This was not acceptable. I barreled through to my next revelation. “The victims were, to make a very long story short, terrible people. Parapsychs using their abilities to hurt people and keep it under wraps.”
“Shit,” Ember muttered.
I waited to see if she’d say more, but she didn’t. She didn’t have to. Parapsychs had to be perfect. If one of us did something wrong, it painted the rest of our community in a bad light. The Authority constantly looked for ways to tear us down. This was the kind of thing the Consulate had worked hard to conceal, their shady dealings for once benefiting the greater good for all of us. I still wasn’t sure how they’d done it, but I was grateful all the same.
“The only trace of evidence we found led back to Lara Achilles. She’d been seen in each of the victims’ neighborhoods in the month before they died.”
Ember went completely still, then pulled away from me. It was a small movement, but my entire body ached for her warmth. “Who else knew what you found out?”
I shook my head, as much to banish the feeling of missing her, when she sat right next to me. I knew this would happen. That there was no chance for so much as an alliance between us. “Nobody. Or at least I thought so at first. I wasn’t as careful with my inner circle as I am now. We had a break-in, and though nothing was taken…”
“They took Lara anyway,” Ember finished. Her voice snapped with fury, every syllable sharp and halting. “So, why’d you set fire to my house?”
I sighed, shame filling me for how the whole thing had gone down. “To protect her. Av got word that the SIs had gotten permission to raid you. They weren’t getting anywhere questioning Lara. So we burned the house down to eliminate whatever evidence might have been there.”
Ember rolled her eyes. “You could have justtalkedto me.”
I knew that now, but at the time, relations had been bad between the Necrolines and the Orphium Maere. Magnus had been a shitbag, nothing like my adoptive father. At the time of the fire, I had only been a decade into turning the Necroline Dynasty around, and I hadn’t known who to trust.
Ember seemed to recall all this and shrugged before I could think up some bullshit answer. It was one of the few things I liked about her. She was quick to put things together, smarter than just about anyone I knew. “All right. You probably couldn’t have. But I still don’t know why you did it.”
I stared up at the styrofoam-tiled ceiling, glowing green in the neons. For all her intelligence, she couldn’t fathom why I’d done it? “Because if itwasLara, she did us a favor. The vics in those cases were monsters, Ember. If anyone had ever found outwho they were and what they were doing, the Authority would have come down on parapsychs so hard it might have destroyed us all.”
The awful noise of Ember’s molars grinding together setmyteeth on edge, but I made every effort to keep my face neutral. “So that’s why you decided to tell me about the swords. You feel guilty about Sera and grateful for what you think Laramighthave done.”
Her tone was sharp, the cadence of her voice pregnant with accusation. She didn’t like my answer. I didn’t much like my answer. I nodded. “Yeah.” My phone buzzed in the pocket of my sweatpants. I pulled it out and answered. “Hey.”
Eryx’s voice was grim on the other line. “The girl’s stepmom got let out, nearly as soon as Fairchild took her in. The dick didn’t even book her.” I was about to order one of our people to go pick her up to ensure she stayed away from the girl, but my brother kept talking. “The stepmother is already dead, Ares. Somebody murdered her.”
I shook my head. The pieces lined up all too conveniently, but we were going to have to look into it, either way. “Send me what you’ve got.”
“Sure thing,” Eryx replied before hanging up.
My phone vibrated as Eryx’s photos came through. I grimaced. They were terrible, and familiar. The stepmother had been decapitated from a kneeling position. I turned my phone to Ember. “Do you know where Lara is right now? This is exactly what the bodies looked like twenty years ago.”
