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“About what? I’ve talked to plenty of people since I’ve been brought in here. I’m not sure there’s any thought in my head that hasn’t been overturned and examined.”
He sounded almost sulky about it. I caught myself on the verge of gritting my teeth. As if it wasn’t justice for him to be here after everything he’d done. But I couldn’t let my temper get the better of me.
“You know the demon is making its way toward the city,” I said. “It looks as though it’ll reach the outskirts overnight.”
“Not my doing,” he replied flatly. “I was perfectly content to have them stay on the other side of that portal.”
“It’s your family who opened that portal in the first place,” I couldn’t help retorting. “You maintained it all this time. The fiends wouldn’t have had the chance if it wasn’t for you.”
He shrugged. “Did you come to tell me things I already know, girl?”
The dismissive label annoyed me almost as much as his careless attitude did. I dragged in a breath. “I’m here because youhavebeen involved for so long. You’ve seen more of the demons than anyone else. I’m sure you’ve been forced to share every fact about them you’ve discovered. But there’s got to be more than that—things you couldn’t prove, ideas, suspicions. Anything your instincts told you that you never completely confirmed. We need everything we can get, even if it’s a longshot. Would you please help us stop it before it shatters this city and possibly all of us in it?”
Any emotion that had been in his eyes before had drained away. “My life is already over. Because of you. I’ve told the Assembly everything I know that could help. I’m not going to speculate wildly so that I can be blamed for further catastrophes.”
“That’s not—”
He turned his face away, his body rigid, and I knew I wasn’t getting anything else from him. Maybe there really wasn’t anything else. Ideas so shaky they led us in the wrong direction weren’t going to fix this mess.
“Mr. Frankford,” Ruiz said. “I’ll just remind you that Lady Hallowell is here by the authority of the Northcotts, and a rejection of her request is a rejection of them.”
“I’m not rejecting,” he said, sounding only tired now. “I have nothing to offer.”
The enforcer glanced at me. I shook my head, my mouth tight. We couldn’t have dragged vague suppositions out of him with any magic, even if I’d been sure he had something more than might be useful.
My legs balked for a second when Ruiz had shut the door behind us. My gaze found the other room on my agenda without any guidance.
If Frankford had given us something useful, I could have skipped the second visit. But he hadn’t. I didn’t know whether my chances were better with my second option or worse. Maybe a little of both in different ways.
“Ready?” Ruiz asked, a hint of sympathy in her tone.
“As much as I’m going to be.”
She opened the door to my father’s room. He sat up at the swing of its opening, his expression almost hopeful until he caught sight of me. His face—his whole body, really—went still.
We didn’t have to exchange a single word for me to be able to tell that he knew I was now aware of the full extent of his crimes against me. He had to have realized I’d find out after the interrogators had forced the information out of him.
For almost twenty-five years of my life, I’d known that face better than any other. Now I could hardly stand to look at it. The idea of calling him “Dad” out loud, as if nothing had changed, made my throat constrict.
“Mr. Hallowell, Lady Hallowell has requested an interview with you,” Ruiz said, breaking the silence. “She comes with full authority from the Assembly.”
Dad eyed me warily. “What do you want to ask me about now?” he said, his voice almost creaky. There was a hesitation in it, as if he wasn’t totally sure he wanted me to answer.
Did he think I’d come in here to hash out my personal complaints? Every time I spoke with him, I was reminded more and more of how little he must really have thought of me.
“The demon has almost reached the city,” I said. “We need to understand everything about it that we can. You’ve been involved with this faction… for a long time.” At least the entirety of my life, and presumably a fair number of years before. “You’ve had their power in you. You’ve been there for the rituals to use and bind them. If there are any impressions, even vague ones, that you didn’t share with the previous interrogators because you weren’t sure they were important, I want to hear them now.”
“Impressions,” he repeated dully.
“About the demons. How they behave. What affects them. What they’re drawn to or repelled by. Even if it was nothing but a hint and you’re only speculating.” I paused and forced out the last word. “Please.”
His gaze had dropped as I’d spoken, but it jerked back to my face at the plea. For a few seconds I thought he was going to refuse like Frankford had. Then he let out a ragged breath, his eyes going distant.
“I’m not sure there’s anything I haven’t already talked about,” he said. “I never delved too deeply into the logistics—I never wanted to. And we couldn’t see much of their behavior through the portal. We only knew as much as we did by how they responded to what we offered them. And we never offered more than the usual, while I was there.”
“The usual,” I prompted, even though I knew what he meant. The more he talked, the more likely something useful would come out.
He grimaced. “The creatures seemed to crave something about our essence. We’ve been over that. Taking magic from a witch appeared to sate them for a while, enough that Frankford could control them somewhat…” His forehead furrowed. “I remember thinking it was almost as if they got drunk on it, unable to reason clearly, and that was why he could manipulate them then.”
