“How are you holding up?” he asked her.
Delilah blew out a breath. “I’m… okay. I just wish I could remember more. I was with her this whole time, and I’ve got nothing to show for it.”
“Be gentle with yourself,” he said, squeezing her knee, and Haley grabbed her hand, holding it tight. “You’ve been under her spell for months—no one blames you for anything that happened.”
“I know. I just wish…”
Emilio nodded. “We all wish we had more to go on here. But we’ll get there. Together, we’ll figure it out, piece by piece, just like we’ve been doing. Okay?”
She smiled, faint but true, and Emilio rose, heading out with Hobb to get hot chocolate and coffee refills.
When they returned, I downed the coffee Emilio offered me, then said, “I need to see her. Face-to-face.”
“Gray, that’s not the best idea,” Elena said. “She’s unstable, and as we already know, a master manipulator. We’ve got her cuffed and warded, but that doesn’t mean she couldn’t call up some spell, something we haven’t thought to protect against.”
“She won’t,” I said.
“How can you be sure?”
I glanced through the glass again, taking in her dead eyes, the dejected bend of her head. She looked nothing like the Norah I remembered, but there in her eyes, I saw a piece of her broken soul, and I knew. Her guilt ran bone-deep, and it was eating away at her like a poison.
“Because she’s already given up,” I said. “She didn’t lose control and slip up at Sea-Tac today. She wanted to get caught. She’s ready to end this.”
“Then why didn’t she turn herself in to the authorities?” Emilio asked.
“And tell them what? That she’s a rogue witch who betrayed her coven by aligning with witch hunters and dark fae in a magical plot to destroy supernatural and humankind?” I shook my head, biting back a sarcastic laugh. It all sounded so ridiculous, I couldn’t believe this was my life. “She knew if she got booked, Seattle PD would get in touch with you and Elena right away. She’s been a fugitive for months, and she’s known since Sophie’s death that you’ve been investigating her. Then she risks Delilah using her credit card at The Phoenix’s Flame? I’m not buying it. She’s not dumb, Emilio. She’s just… She’d just done.”
Emilio closed his eyes and sighed, and I knew I’d finally gotten through to him.
“Let me talk to her,” I said, reaching for his hand. “The minute anything starts to feel wonky, I’ll back off. You can be in there with me the whole time.”
“You bet your witchy little ass I can be.” He wrapped his hand around my fingers, his touch warm and protective, like always. Then, pressing a kiss to my palm, he said, “Alright,mi brujita.Let’s see what kind of interrogation skills you’ve got.”
Thirty-Eight
GRAY
“Why?” I asked, knowing I didn’t need to elaborate.
It was the same question I’d asked Fiona the night Darius had brought her back from New York. The same I’d asked Jonathan. The same I’d asked anyone who’d ever gotten to such a dark place in their lives that they truly believed bringing harm and death to witches—to anyone who was different than them, for that matter—was the only way out.
But unlike Jonathan, who’d always treated his mission as if it were God’s work entrusted to him by an army of holy messengers, or Fiona, who’d been temporarily blinded by love and devotion to a despot, Norah had no such convictions. And when she finally glanced up and met my gaze, I saw the echo of a thousand regrets in her eyes.
Her shoulders trembled again, her face crumpling like wet paper.
Like Emilio, I crossed my arms over my chest, prepared to wait her out. It didn’t take long; it seemed she was almost out of tears.
“I had two… two… d-daughters once,” she said, suddenly and softly, the words barely finding their way out of her mouth. I got the sense she hadn’t said them in a long time.
“Did you know that?” she asked.
I shook my head, shocked. I’d always assumed Norah was a self-contained, self-sufficient, superwitch. The idea of her raising children was almost impossible to reconcile, even knowing she’d taken Reva in. Of all the words I’d thought to describe Norah over the last few months, motherly hadn’t even been a contender.
“No, I suppose you wouldn’t,” she said, a small, faraway smile touching her lips. “It was a long time ago. They were around Reva’s age back then—fourteen and seventeen. Their father lost his battle with cancer when they were just out of diapers. I’d raised them up by myself.”
“I… I’m sorry,” I said, hating the flicker of sympathy in my chest. Hating that Norah was getting under my skin, but letting her do it anyway. “That must’ve been difficult.”
Norah nodded. “Oh, but it was worth it. They were beautiful. My greatest challenge, yes, but also my greatest joys. There’s nothing I wouldn’t have done for them, nothing I wouldn’t have given them.” She took a deep, shuddering breath, and my skin erupted in goosebumps. Whether it was more manipulative bullshit or the purest truth Norah had ever spoken, there was no way this story had a happy ending.
