He puts careful emphasis on his own last name and mine, even haltingly delivers the correction of me from acquaintance to match at exactly the right cadence for someone who’s only just found out. All those years of putting the “right” face forward with his classmates, his teachers,even his family have left him quite the actor when he needs to be.
Tentative feet pad toward us from the spot where Byron’s lightning toppled two trees. The girl we most recently rescued hugs herself, her eyes wide. “I saw it. He’s telling the truth. That woman grabbed Elodie and was trying to hurt her.”
Four officers have appeared now, all of them sporting the pin with the swirling logo that marks them as part of the lucent division. All four pairs of eyes veer to me.
I let myself sway on my feet the way I already want to. My body may have healed itself, but it’s still been sliced and battered more than once tonight. Blood has seeped through my hoodie all the way to my undershirt, sticking the fabric to my skin. A twinge runs through the ankle my attacker fractured just minutes ago.
I probably don’t need the display of vulnerability. Recognition has flickered across the officers’ faces. I think I recognize one of them too, from the interviews after my poisoning.
“Elodie Devine,” the female officer repeats. “You’ve had a hard time of it the past couple of months.” As her weapon drops to aim at the woman on the ground instead, she glances at one of her colleagues. “Maybe we’ve found our poisoner too.”
My voice comes out with a bit of a rasp. “I wouldn’t be surprised. Or at least she knows who did it. It wasn’t just her. The instructors who organized the training exercise here… Both of them attacked me too.”
Salvatore draws his massive frame even taller. “Worth fried one of the fuckers before he could do Elodie in, but you can chat up the other once he wakes up. He’s stuck in a clay cage back that way.” He waves his weapon vaguely in the direction we came from.
One of the officers blinks at that remark, mayberecognizing the mafia heir as well, but his gaze drops to the woman on the ground. “Got anything to say for yourself?”
Gwyn unclamps her lips just long enough to say, “Not without a lawyer.”
She can see she’s beat. I don’t know what the investigation will reveal next, but it’s no longer in my hands. The police can take it from here.
As the officers order her to roll onto her stomach, relief washes through me.
When I start to sag, Asher catches me with an arm around my back, his other hand still gripping the sword Salvatore made him.
“Hey,” he murmurs. “You all right?”
A sound that’s part giggle, part sob catches in my throat and dissipates. “Now I am.”
The police click handcuffs around Gwyn’s wrists with a thrum of an enchantment that’ll contain any magic she might try to use. She threw a lot of power at me, but she looks small now as the officers haul her to her feet. Her body must be aching from the injuries that rebounded off me back to her.
She wobbles, one ankle twisted at an unnatural angle. “I can’t walk.”
Two officers flank her, each gripping one arm. “We’ll get you there.”
A thrum of ephemera wraps around her.
The female officer turns to me. “We’ll need to ask all of you a lot of questions about exactly what went down tonight.”
Byron takes charge again with a regal nod. “Of course. We want to see these criminals brought to justice and make sure Elodie is finally safe.”
As we tramp back to the path, more officers lope past us along with several plain-clothed but alert figures I suspect are part of the local void patrols. Hopefully they can clean up therest of the mess quickly—and without anyone getting more hurt.
The whole way to the north end of the park, Byron lays out his account of the attacks in his assured tone. Even when the officers interject questions, Salvatore manages to keep his mouth shut, though I notice his jaw clenching a couple of times.
We all know it’ll come across better for the guy from the respectable family to do the talking.
One cop asks me a few things directly, and I answer as best as I can without sounding suspicious. No, I don’t know who that woman is. No, I don’t know why our instructors would have wanted to hurt me.
The streetlamps along the road that borders the park come into view beyond the last of the trees. The officers escorting my attacker hustle onward to one of the parked cruisers, but the woman who’s done most of the questioning slows beside us.
“I think it’s best if you come back to the station. I’m sure the captain will want to go over everything in more detail?—”
The mention of “captain” brings a flash of memory: Captain Ross lunging at me with a swing of his knife meant to gouge my throat right out.
I flinch involuntarily, and Byron’s expression tightens.
He interrupts smoothly, as if he’s being perfectly courteous even when cutting her off. “Can’t that wait until the morning? Elodie’s had an awful night—and we’ve just sparked our match. I think we could all use some time to gather ourselves and process everything that’s happened.”
