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“Yes. The rituals she gave the cult opened the Between, and now more rituals are summoning banshees. The moment when we can ignore what she’s done has passed.”
Adam shrugged. “Then arrest her.”
“That is easier said than done. My brother appointed her to appease certain factions among our people. Removing her will create trouble for him. We cannot do that without evidence.”
“So how do we get it?”
“She gave the rituals to the Red Wolf, but he has vanished.”
“And he gave them to the cult. Wilcox is in the wind. The mortal authorities can’t find him, but you could.”
“I like that suggestion, but when you severed his magic, you made him fully mortal. It’s outside my purview, my jurisdiction, if you will. Though perhaps we do not need him.” Argent smiled. “Come with me. We have another avenue to explore.”
“Where now?” he asked. “I’ve been everywhere today.”
“I promise it’s not far. You may recall that we took the surviving members of Wilcox’s coven into custody.”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s go question them.”
He followed her out of her office.
She kept her word, quickly opening a door that let them back to the vaults beneath RCC.
“Will you ever let them go?” Adam asked.
“If we can. We prefer to attempt rehabilitation over punishment or permanent incarceration.”
“How’s that going?”
“The results are mixed, varying by the individual. We have brought them food from your plane in order to avoid making Lost Ones of them, but with the exception of one, they do not seem interested in making amends for their crimes.”
She led him into the dark at the end of the hall. The only light was the glowing green of the mortar. Faint echoes, that might have been voices from his past, whispered around him.
Killer, they called. Oathbreaker. Warlock.
In his chest, the warlock wound opened its eyes and licked its lips, sensing a meal it had tasted before. At its snarl, Shepherd’s kin, the demons guarding the cells, silenced their taunts and backed away.
“Yeah,” he whispered back. “Wise choice.”
Argent raised an eyebrow at him over her shoulder.
Adam shrugged.
“I bet it’s Lauren,” he said. “The herbalist. She’s the exception, right?”
“An astute guess.”
“She seemed like the nicest of the bunch, you know, for someone who helped Wilcox torture me.”
“We’ll start with her, but if the meeting is fruitless, how would you feel about trying to play bad cop, bad cop again?”
“Oh, I won’t be playing this time.”
He meant it, especially if he was reunited with the witch who’d handed him over to the cult after he’d escaped. He wasn’t worried about what she might do to him, but the inverse.
Argent opened a door and they stepped into a little valley, its surface a field of verdant green.
