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The guy shook his head and cut a glance toward me that looked eerily amused. “Give them time to think about their situation. And time for her to wear out her magic. Then it’ll be easy.”
If Rose ran out of magic—yeah, it probably would be easy. It had to be hard enough for her trying to shield all of us as well as she could even now. I swallowed a trickle of nausea.
The interrogator clearly wasn’t convinced. She set her hands on her hips with a swish of her ponytail and glared at me.
“Is that what you really want? For us to exhaust her? You could end all this right now. You have no idea what else the next enforcer who comes for you might do. At least I was willing to stick to talking.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m very worried. Shaking in my shoes here.” I stretched out my legs as far as the chains attached to them allowed and arched an eyebrow at her.
The guy at the door chuckled. “You wouldn’t be saying that if you had any idea what you haven’t seen yet. Maybe we’ll take you right out to the Cliff. I bet that’d terrify the answers out of you.”
The interrogator turned her glare on him with a hiss of annoyance. He flushed and ducked back out.
“The Cliff, huh?” I said to her. “That sounds intriguing. Sure, let’s take a trip out there.”
“Don’t you worry about the Cliff,” she snapped, with more force than really made sense to me. What the hell was this Cliff that Rose’s witching people were talking about like it had a capital C? She’d never mentioned anything about a cliff that I’d heard.
The interrogator strode to the door, but she made one last jerk of her hand before she headed out. Not even asking a question to go with it. Just reminding me how much she could hurt me. A burning sensation sliced through the top of my head. I bit my tongue trying not to make a sound, but she smiled. She could tell she’d hit the mark.
The second the door shut behind her, I sagged back against the wall. My head continued to ache dully. I wet my lips.
I didn’t know what the Cliff was or what else the witches might have in store, but I definitely wasn’t going to last all that long without Rose’s help. How longcouldshe hold out?
She needed me. I hadn’t betrayed her, but how was I actually going to help her and the rest of us?
Chapter Three
Rose
The magical pressure attacking Jin’s mind eased off, and I tipped my head back against the wall of my cell. The hard surface behind me felt almost as distant as my impressions of my consorts.
It’d been hours of this—an attack on one guy and then another, sometimes two or three at once. Our bond made shielding all of them except Gabriel easy to an extent. But even doing something fairly easy wore a person out after a while. An ache ran from the top of my neck down my spine to my tailbone.
“They really could have stood to make this place more comfortable,” Philomena remarked.
I didn’t open my eyes. They felt too heavy. “It’s a prison. They don’t want me to be comfortable.”
“I’m just making the observation. I truly feel they’re doing a disservice to your high standing.”
“I warped my dad’s mind. I don’t have any standing in witching society now. I’m lucky I’m even alive.”
She sniffed, and her skirts rustled. “Not for very much longer, if this Assembly of yours has their way.”
I shook my head. “They don’t want to kill me. They’d have gotten it over with already if they did. There’s something else they want from me.” Maybe just a confession so they could lock me up without any repercussions from whichever Assembly members weren’t aware of their conspiracy? Maybe more than that.
“Who gives a shit what they want?” Damon said.
My eyes popped open. Phil was still perched next to me on the bench, but my mind had brought my guys into being in imaginary form around me again too. Seeing them, knowing that their real selves were probably a lot more battered than they looked to me here, wasn’t comforting anymore. The sight sent a sharper ache through my heart.
“When you know what people want, it’s a lot easier to get people to do whatyouwant,” Gabriel said to Damon. He raked his fingers through his dark red hair, his gaze distant with thought.
“I don’t think we’re going to persuade these people of anything,” Seth said from where he was standing by the door. “We’ve just got to get Rose out.”
Jin traced a finger along the wall. “I wish it were as easy as drawing an exit on the wall and stepping through it.” He cocked his head at me with his playful smile. “Or maybe it is, with your magic?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t know any spell like that—not that I’m in much of a position to cast anyway.” I lifted my bound hands.
“Your magicisprobably our best chance of getting out,” Kyler said, coming to stand by me. “How restricted are you with those restraints? You’ve been able to help us a little already.”
