“You’re seventeen and that hasn’t stopped the Table from putting you at the top of their suspect list despite the fact that the motive they’ve cooked up for you is basically mean-girl shit gone wrong.” Anger seared the edges of Rye’s argument, yet when he turned to her, softness flooded his expression. “I mean, I know you like him, Embry, or did, but still.”
A glob of something sour plunked in her stomach. Was her heart the problem here? Or her head? Balthazar as a mastermind? That didn’t feel right, even if Rye had a point about the rest. But he’d never liked Balthazar—that had to count for something, too.
“What about our list?” Embry asked, feeling a tad desperate. “The original one? With the clique leaders? Maybe we should be looking at who wanted Oakley’s company and were spurned. Maybe the drained magic is the work of another, unrelated party—like how vultures prey on something that’s already dead. Maybe ithappenedaftershe was killed but before it was discovered, which means magical people unable to steal the magic could still be viable suspects.”
Skye the Bitch and Cass the Stitch were both prefects, with access to the dorm wards and reasons to want Oakley for their cliques. Skye had the relationship to get close enough to Oakley to poison her without suspicion. But perhaps Cass did, too—they were undead as well, after all, and probably knew a thing or two about the special anatomy of vampires. And then there was Ariel the Glitch, who could siren Oakley into submission before poisoning her. All three had the means and connections to gain magical poison—but so did most of the students at Raven’s Head. Few students were on scholarship, which meant the student body was disproportionately well-to-do. Money meant means in the magical world, just as in every other community on earth.
“Em,” Rye started, and she knew simply because he was using that nickname instead ofWoodcrossthat he wasnotin agreement. “Unless any of those people are actual psychopaths who’ve been obsessed with you in an unhealthy way for a very long time, I doubt it.”
“Thenwhodo we list?” Embry stabbed Rye in the chest. Unfortunately, she missed his sternum and wound up poking the brick wall of a pectoral muscle. “And don’t say Balthazar.”
Rye paused. “I suppose it’s possible the sorcerer is as much a pawn here as you.”
Embry threw up her hands. “Thank you! Finally.”
“Don’t thank me much. Because if it’s not Balthazar, and it’s not Alistair—”
“It’s not Alistair,” Embry cut in.
“And it’s not any of the other clique leaders,” Rye continued, not missing a beat, “then it’s a very dangerous and unknown assailant.”
Embry gulped. “Could it be someone trying to get at Daddy? He’s much more powerful than me, and everyone knows one way to take down a man is to take down his child.”
Rye considered this. “He was the first one attacked by the vampire coven.”
“Exactly.”
“But…” Rye continued, the wheels of his mind spinning as he raked a hand again through his hair. “Actually, returning to you for a moment—considering what would hurt Lazarus… for all the trouble this person is going through to ruin your life, I’m shocked that someone this twisted didn’t just try to, well…” Rye’s words trailed off, all his usual bluntness dulled as he watched her with eyes shaded by furrowed brows and a dark moment on the TV screen.
“Are you trying to suggest this person wanted tooff me?” Embry asked, her voice more of a shriek than she would’ve preferred. “And then decided to take the hard and painful way around for funsies, and, what, like, kill two birds with one stone by taking out a vampire and making me look like a murderer so my life would be so ruinedI’d want to be dead.”
“Yes.”
Anger flared within Embry. Woodcrosses from Hiram on down the line had planted a flag on Ravenwood Island and built their lives. And even if Embry’s life wasn’t great right now, she would never consider abandoning it.
No, she’d fight harder.
Suddenly, even though she was currently suspended and not able to rule the Raven’s Head quad with her usual aplomb—or with her usual cast of characters—Embry lifted her chin as if she were going to stomp across the brick in her highest of Louboutins.
“Well, I guess we can crossyouoff the suspect list because anyone who knows me well would know that will absolutely neverwork with me—or Daddy. This person is definitely an unknown assailantandthey’re an idiot.” Embry pawed at Rye’s phone. “Where are the autopsy photos? Let’s nab this magical dud.”
The tiniest of smiles twisted Rye’s mouth as he unlocked the phone yet again. “There you are, Embry Woodcross.”
CHAPTER 30
RIGHT THERE IN WHITE
IT WAS OBVIOUS THATRYE HAD TAKEN PRELIMINARY STOCK OFwhat they’d captured in the morgue. Embry was beginning to suspect that if he’d actually slept at all during their “rest time,” it was with his eyes wide open and the case on his mind.
“There are about thirty pictures here.” Because he was Rye, he didn’t pull punches; he just said it in the same matter-of-fact tone he’d use to confirm that they’d lost a tree limb in an ice storm, and he’d be taking care of it so Lazarus wouldn’t have to. “Do you want me to page through or do you want to do it?”
Embry swallowed, straightened her spine enough to sit on her own, and unfolded her legs from her chest. Feet on the floor. “I can do it.” She gestured to the coffee table. “Put it there?”
Rye did. And they both leaned forward on the couch cushions, not even pretending to watch the movie anymore. The change in position meant her knee knocked with Rye’s. She didn’t move it away. One contact point would be okay—the utterly ridiculous racing of her heart had slowed with the seriousness of what she was about to see. And if she was being honest with herself, that little wedge of contact might be something she’d need to get through this. Grounding, not distracting.
The first picture showed Oakley’s snow-white face. Her makeup was smeared and blotchy, still clinging to her skin in patches so warm they almost looked like mottled bruising. Gone was the cherry-red lipstick she’d shared with Embry and Ames,though her lips were still stained by the vibrant color, which only served to make the bluish tint around her mouth and nose worse in the unforgiving brightness of the morgue light.
The next handful of pictures were various angles of Oakley’s face, head, and neck. No contusions, no scratches, not a single mark on her. But there was definitely a blue tinge to her mouth. Embry had taken enough advanced science courses in the STEM building to have an easy guess as to why. “Did the medical examiner say if the poison cut off her oxygen supply?”
