My stomach roils, and I reach for the bottle on the table, drinking down the last of the Kombucha. It does nothing to erase the taste of bile from my mouth, to ease the endless pounding in my head.
Behind the photos, there’s a stack of articles from the Tres Búhos Daily and other regional newspapers. Through glazed eyes, I scan the headlines:
Local witch torches, kills former flame.
Killer witch spooks small desert town.
FBI’s Magickal Enforcement Unit confirms illegal spellcraft used in wicked attack.
Security heightened across Arizona after local witch’s brutal rampage.
Congress to consider new restrictions on magickal citizens in wake of September’s deadly violence.
So that’s how the Academy tracked me down. Headlines. Sensationalist, bullshit, dangerous headlines.
“Brutal rampage?” I snap. “September’s deadly violence? Does anyone actually believe this crap?”
“I’m not doing this to be cruel,” Devane says. “But I need you to understand what you’re up against. The evidence is compelling. Even if you survive the next several months in here and this case goes to trial, you simplycannotwin. They’ll show the jury these photographs. They’ll put the victim’s mother on the stand and—”
“Rita,” I gasp, my chest tightening. I can’t even imagine what she’s going through right now. Luke was her son. And I was supposed to be one of his oldest friends. “Who did this? Do they have any idea? Any leads at all?”
“Youaretheir lead, Miss Milan—case closed. They found traces of your magickal signature on the victim’s body, along with your blood. GPS data places you at the scene at the time of death. A shirt recovered from the trash at Kettle Black contained large amounts of his blood.”
“And mine.” I drop the folder on the table. “He attacked me first, and I broke his nose in self-defense. Then he stabbed me. He was possessed. Luke—the real Luke—wouldn’t hurt me. He’s my—he was my friend.”
I tell him the rest of the story, the crazy-ass storm, and—because I can’t think of any other way to explain what happened—the magick.
His eyes widen at the part about the owl energy, but he doesn’t question it.
“Before that day,” I continue, “I’ve never done any real magick before. Just witchfire.” I hold out my hand to show him, but in my still-healing state, I don’t have the energy to conjure anything—not even a spark. “I left him alive in that cave. Possessed by a magickal psycho, but alive. This whole thing is a setup.”
“I wouldn’t be here if we thought otherwise.” He glances at his watch, taps something into the screen, then puts the folder with the photos and articles back in the briefcase. “But the fact remains—unless another perpetrator drops out of the sky to confess to these crimes, they’re going to let you rot in here. And at the very end, when your bones are brittle and your mind soft, they’ll execute you. It won’t be a quick death.”
A shiver rattles my spine. Everything he says is true—I can feel it, all the way down to my not-yet-brittle bones.
Still, some part of my mind rebels. Execution?
“When was the last time they actually killed a witch here?”
“Does that matter? Whether you’re the first or the fiftieth, the end result is the same.”
“Dr. Devane, I don’t… I don’t understand why you’re here. If you’re so convinced I can’t win a trial, why do I need a lawyer?”
“I’m not a lawyer.”
“You know what I mean. A fake lawyer. Whatever you told them to let you in here today.”
“I’m here to make you an offer, Miss Milan. On behalf of the Academy,” he continues, glancing again at his watch. It’s the same icy silver as the tie pin, emanating a faint glow that’s definitely not man-made. “I suggest you give it serious consideration, leaving emotion out of it. Your life literally depends on it.”
His words, his tone, everything about the moment feels charged. The hairs on my arms raise, my skin humming with something electric and unsaid.
I right my fallen chair, take up my seat across from him again.
After a weighty pause, he says, “We have reason to believe that the students and faculty—indeed, anyone connected with Arcana Academy—is in grave danger. Your friend’s murder bears a striking resemblance to others we’ve been tracking over the past decade. All of the victims were non-magickal humans connected by one or two degrees of separation to former students or faculty. In the cases where arrests were made, the accused were all witches and mages with no prior criminal records.”
“Were any of them ever acquitted?”
The briefest shake of his dark head confirms what I already know. Witches accused of capital crimes are never acquitted. That’s not how it works.
