“Probably fair,” Gwen agreed, as her arms tightened around Jade.
Arthur looked at Ellis, blood smeared on his face from Arthur’s blows. “You’re still bleeding,” he started.
But Ellis waved him quiet. “It’ll heal. I’ve done you dirtier than this, and I wasn’t under blood magic,” he said. “Maybe we call it square?”
Arthur swallowed. “Give me time,” he said, tightly but not meanly.
Rory had a lump in his throat. The tenseness in Arthur, the visible pain, hurt Rory worse than any of his own scrapes or bruises. He moved behind Jade and Zhang to Arthur’s side and put a hand lightly on his arm.
Arthur flinched.
Rory drew his hand away as fast as he could. “Sorry, so sorry, I didn’t—”
“You didn’t,” Arthur said quickly, with so much emotion in his voice that Rory’s throat tightened. “Youdidn’t do a single thing wrong. You are so innocent in all of this, and I can’t—I didn’t—you’re fine.”
Rory bit his lip. “I was gonna ask if your aura’s all right.”
Arthur shrugged helplessly. “Everything about me is so very far from all right.” He ran a hand through his own hair, the normally perfect strands a disaster. His tuxedo was a disaster too, mud stained, dusty, and worst of all, the white shirt covered in blood.
Rory had so much he wanted to say. But they were surrounded by friends and enemies and whatever Gwen and Ellis were, so instead of words, he reached for Arthur’s hand. Arthur’s fingers were cold, his palm clammy, and Rory held on with his warmer one.
He looked back at the others, and found Gwen’s eyes on them.
“So what happens to Zeppler now?” Jade said.
Gwen shook her head as if clearing it, then turned to Jade. “I was thinking we’d give him to the French police.”
Jade raised an eyebrow.
“He has no magic left in him, and as long as you keep that ring away from him, he won’t be a paranormal anymore,” said Gwen. “He’s wanted for several murders in France alone. He murdered Mr. Zhang’s friend ten years ago, and we have Becker and Chance’s bodies that we can blame on him tonight. Let the mundane police have him.”
“You don’t want to torture him to death?” Arthur said tightly. “Because I spent mere hours in his company, and I do.”
“I admit, it is tempting to take him out into the Channel and see just what I can make the ocean do.” Gwen was staring down at Zeppler. “But no. Let him spend his life in prison without his magic.”
“And the guards?”
“They were under Becker’s blood magic. They’ll be free now.” Gwen looked at Ellis. “Maybe we’ll all be free.”
Rory felt Arthur’s hand in his, cold and clammy, stiff as a corpse.
It wasn’t gonna be that easy.
Arthur’s body was on a new kind of automatic, not the Puppeteer’s magic but an automation of his own. He jerkily went through with the motions to help the others clean up while his brain tried to bury every feeling, because if he thought too hard about what had happened, he might start screaming and not stop.
Doing even more damage was an unbearable thought.
Zhang found the manor’s telephone and Jade called the police, alerting them to Zeppler as a wanted murderer, with no mention of magic.
As they stood on the drive, hearing the approaching cars, Zhang was frowning.
“You’ve noticed too, then,” Gwen said to him.
Arthur glanced between them. “Noticed what?”
“Zeppler had a relic of his own, didn’t he?” said Zhang. “The brooch he stole from me before the war. But it isn’t on his body, and it’s nowhere to be found in the manor.”
“He isn’t bound to it anymore,” Gwen said quietly. “Two years ago, I could see it in his magic. Tonight, it was gone—or at least, it was gone by the time I got here. Maybe the connection was severed when he put on Ellis’s ring with the magic of the Venom Dagger. Or maybe something else.”
