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Now she looked as worried as I felt, her usually smooth forehead furrowed and her hands clenched in the folds of her immense skirts. “This is a nasty jar you’ve found yourself in,” she said.
“Yeah, that’s one way of putting it,” I said. Phil knew all the best old-timey slang.
She peered at me, looking sad but fond at the same time. “It’s not really me you need, is it, though?”
“What do you mean?”
“You have them.” She nodded toward the door. “And you’ve got your imagination. You can bring them to you just as easily as you brought me.”
I could. Maybe the images I created wouldn’t really be my guys, but I knew them well enough to know what they’d say, what they’d do, didn’t I? Maybe having them here even that way would help center me so I could figure out what to do next.
Philomena waved goodbye and winked out of sight. I summoned up my guys in the room around me. They appeared as abruptly as Philomena had, exactly where it made the most sense for them to be. Seth sitting beside me, his strong arm hooked around mine. Jin at my other side, tracing patterns as if with paint on the back of my wrist. Damon stalking back and forth in the middle of the room, his dark blue eyes at full glower. Kyler bending over by the door to study the locking mechanism.
And Gabriel in the midst of them all, standing still and calm, his gaze fixed on me.
“What are we going to do about this mess, Sprout?” he said.
The childhood nickname brought a lump to my throat. Snuff my spark, I wished he and the rest of them really were here, not trapped apart from me in this prison.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’m going to figure out something. I got you all into it, so I have to get you out.”
“We’re standing by you because we wanted to,” Seth reminded me, his arm tightening around mine. “And there’s nowhere we’d rather be.”
“Actually, I can think of a whole lot of other places I’d like to be,” Damon muttered. He swiped a hand through his spiky hair and shot a softer glance my way. “But I don’t blame you for a second, angel. It’s these bastards who’ve been trying to control your life this whole time.”
Jin leaned in to kiss my cheek, his familiar tangy smoky scent drifting over me. “We’ve worked our way out of a lot of jams before this. And whatever happens, it’s been a wild ride. You know I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.”
Kyler shook his head, sending his tawny curls into disarray. “I can’t hack my way through this—yet. You’d better believe I’m working on it.”
He probably was, as well as he could, in his own cell. “I’m doing my best not to let them hurt you,” I said. “I’ll send all the magic I can. I—”
The voice in my head fell silent at the very real click of the lock disengaging. If I’d thought for even a second that my vision of Kyler had somehow managed to crack its code after all, that idea vanished along with the imagined guys a split-second later as the door swung open.
Three members of the Justice division walked in. The man who came to a stop directly in front of me I guessed was an investigator. The two women who flanked him wore the loose casual clothing of enforcers, designed to allow full freedom of movement if they needed to cast quickly. In other words, the exact opposite of my current bindings.
The woman at the investigator’s left had a blunt bob of mouse-brown hair. She stared at me with a hard glint in her eyes, and I was abruptly sure she was the lead enforcer who’d taken me in. What did she have to look so pissed off about? I’d never done anything to her.
By all that was lit and warm, I’d never done anything to anyone who hadn’t tried to do a hundred times worse to me first.
The jittering I’d sensed through my consort bonds shifted. I kept half my attention on the figures in front of me while adjusting the streams of my magic with an intake of breath. I couldn’t let myself be distracted from the protection I needed to provide.
“Miss Hallowell,” the investigator said. He didn’t invite me to stand up to face him, just kept standing there looking down at me. I had the feeling he liked that position of superiority. “Do you understand why you’re here?”
“I’ve been accused of unlawful magic,” I said. “I wasn’t given many of the details before your people carted me off here.”
His lips curled into a smirk at my tart tone. “You’d already proven yourself quite resourceful and stealthy, Miss Hallowell. We needed to take appropriate precautions. The list of charges is rather extensive. Not just unlawful magic but also unlawful consorting. I’m sure you were not unaware of the expected proceedings when it comes to taking a consort.”
“Self-defense,” I said. “Does that count for anything? I found out my consort-to-be and my parents were planning to pervert the consort bond so that I’d be in pain if I didn’t follow his commands. But I’m going to guess if you got assigned to my case, you already know about that and don’t care.”
His gaze didn’t even flicker. Oh, he knew, all right. He had to be part of the faction within the Assembly that had supported my father’s actions, had apparently arranged for similar consortings for other young witches. The idea of it turned my stomach. Kyler and I had uncovered conversations between my father and a high-ranking Assembly member named Charles Frankford, but there was no telling how many of the people in the governing body over witching kind were part of that plot.
“So much for ‘justice’ then,” I added. “Their unlawful magic doesn’t count? You’re supporting people who ignore their own sanctions. Who approved of witches beingenslaved. I hope you’re really proud of yourself.”
I didn’t know if going on the attack was the smartest move ever, but I obviously wasn’t going to overcome these people with physical or magical force in my current condition. How much had the faction’s lower members even thought about the schemes they were helping enact?
“We’re going to focus on you for now,” the investigator said smoothly. Okay, he didn’t care what I thought of him. “To begin with, do you admit to using psychoactive magic on Derek Conwyn and your father?”
I couldn’t see how admitting to any details directly was going tohelpme. Did he really think it was going to be that easy? I sat in silence, staring back at him.
