“Orendiel is connected to Darkwinter. That alone is worth investigating.”
“Agreed, but where do we even start with that? It’s just a name.”
“Can you spare a couple of men to check out the piers within, say, twenty miles of the Cape?”
“Emilio. You’re talking a forty- or fifty-mile stretch of beach, much of which is inaccessible during high tide, based on a garbled message from a teenager that you may or may not have even heard correctly.”
“It’s more than we’ve gotten from any other source or stakeout. It’s worth checking out. If you can’t spare anyone, I’ll go myself.”
She held my gaze another beat, then finally nodded, reaching for her phone. “Lansky. Yeah, see if you can round up Marshall and Graham. I need the three of you to follow up on a possible lead. I’ll text you the details. Thanks.”
She disconnected the call, sending the text then setting her phone back on the desk.
“Thank you,” I said.
She nodded, not saying anything else. And I nodded, not saying anything else either.
Still, it was the longest we’d spent alone in a room together in twenty years, and I was counting that as progress.
I thanked her once more, then headed back to her place. I had my own phone call to make.
* * *
“Our source confirms that at least two dozen witches are being held, along with countless other supernaturals, all of them in poor condition. They’ve been beaten and tortured, starved, poisoned, and experimented on.” I paced Elena’s living room, the phone hot against my ear as I awaited Talia’s reply to the full download I’d just given her.
My contact on the Fae Council was cold and unpleasant on the best of days, but now, even the soft sound of her breath through the phone made me shiver.
“This is all very riveting, Detective,” she said, her voice toneless. “But unless I’m misunderstanding your job description, surely this falls within your purview and not the Council’s?”
Her response got my hackles up, but it wasn’t unexpected. The Council had been backing away from supernatural crimes for months now. Usually, that worked in our favor. I didn’t need their kind of bureaucracy mucking up my cases and preventing me from doing my job.
But even with help from Elena’s department, the situation here was quickly growing beyond our capabilities.
“Initially, we’d thought hunters were behind this,” I said, “but it turns out they’ve got help.” I rubbed my forehead, dreading what was coming next, still unsure whether it was the right call. Once the words were out, there’d be no taking them back.
But after what Reva had told me, I couldn’t sit on this.
“It’s fae, Talia,” I said. “And all evidence points to Darkwinter.”
She was silent so long, I thought the connection went dead. When she finally spoke, her voice was like a razor blade.
“Listen to me very carefully, Detective,” she said. “Do not speak another word of this to anyone, especially on an unsecured line. To do so could be very dangerous.”
“I understand that, but—”
“These are not fae to be trifled with.”
“I can’t sit on this, Talia. Council blessing or not. Too many people have died or gone missing. And whatever’s going on in that prison? It’s about to blow up in a big way. You know this.”
Another icy pause. And then, “Are you still in Raven’s Cape?”
“Yes.”
“We will meet at nine p.m. tomorrow at the Hannaford Distillery and discuss this in person. Until then, you will not utter a word about it to anyone.”
“And in the mean time?” I asked. “What about the prisoners? You’re asking me to sit on my hands for twenty-four hours while—”
I was met with dead air. Talia had already disconnected the call, knowing damn well I wouldn’t refuse her order.
