A brief flicker of compassion softens his gaze, there and gone in a blink. “The tenure of Connor and Melissa at the Academy predates my arrival, though I’m aware of their reputation. I am here on behalf of Headmistress Anna Trello, who did, in fact, know your parents.”
My heart hammers, hundreds of new questions tumbling through my mind. Anna Trello? I’ve never heard the name. How well did she know them? Were they close? Was the headmistress a friend to my parents or…
No.
Snippets of conversation filter through my memory—pieces of the past Mom and Dad used to argue about. They never mentioned names, but from what little I could put together back then, it wasn’t fellow students that destroyed my mother’s reputation, banished them from their coven, and stripped them of all the protections normally afforded coven members.
It was Academy officials.
And Anna Trello, headmistress? That’s the most official witch on staff.
I glance around the room, looking for something—anything—else that might help me get out of here. But it’s locked down tight; even if I could get out the door, they’d probably shoot me before I made it two steps down the hallway.
He truly is my only way out.
I meet his eyes again. A silent understanding passes between us.
I need him. And though he hasn’t said it yet, I suspect he needs me too—or Anna does. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be here.
“Why didn’t the headmistress come herself?” I ask.
“Please sit, Miss Milan.”
That voice again. The firm command of it. Every muscle in my body is screaming at me to obey, but I force myself to stand my ground, folding my arms across my chest and leaning against the back wall.
He sighs, then continues. “Headmistress Trello is quite busy, so she sent me on her authority, with sincere apologies for our delay. Given the evidence against you, we had to get a bit more… creative.”
“So you’re, like, some kind of magickal superhero?” I ask, pressing a hand against my chest and making my voice a little breathy. “Dr. Cassius Divine, swooping in to save all the little witches from wrongful damnation?”
He regards me with those piercing eyes, but if I’m getting under his skin, he doesn’t show it. “Some witches deserve to be here, Miss Milan. Many people would say you’re one of them. And it’s Devane. Dr. Cassius Devane.”
“Right.”
“You said Divine.”
Shit.“No, that’s just what you heard.”
“Miss Milan, this—”
“Anyway,” I continue, “I don’t care what anyone says or what your so-called evidence shows, Dr.Devane. I’mnota killer. I’m barely even a witch.”
His eyes dart to the pentacle tattoo on my wrist, then back to his papers. “In the eyes of the law, you areverymuch a witch, just as dangerous as any other. More so, perhaps.”
He holds out a folder.
Like a magnet, curiosity draws me close. I cross the room, snatch the folder from his hand, ignore the little zing I feel when our fingers brush.
Wordlessly, I flip open the folder.
And immediately wish I hadn’t.
Since my arrest, I’ve been so focused on surviving this hell, on trying to figure out a way out, on worrying about Jessa. But now, looking at the gruesome photos before me, the full impact of what happened that day on the Grande punches me in the gut.
Luke was my friend. And though I didn’t kill him, he died in my presence. He diedbecauseof me—because some sadistic mage decided to set me in his sights and use Luke as the bait.
And he died horrifically.
I force myself to look at every picture, the gore a stark contrast to the gleaming metal exam table. His eyes are gone, no more than smoldering black holes. Beneath the swollen nose I’d already broken, his mouth is stretched in a perpetually silent scream. They cut out his tongue. They carved a pentacle into his forehead. They cut off his hands and feet. His torso is covered in blackened, burned flesh.
