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But before I could speak, Yuen said Dearborn’s name. “We have enough threats from the outside. We are allies, and should act like it.”
“Yes,” Dearborn said, eyes glinting as he stared at me. “We should.”
With that, he turned on his heel and strode down the hall again.
“You know,” I said, when the echoes of his footsteps faded away, “for a thin man and a runner, he’s quite a stomper.”
“Ego,” Theo said. “Makes the soul heavy.” He looked at Yuen. “Methinks he’s losing it.”
“His cool,” Yuen said. “Not his authority. That remains, regardless of how much we respect him.”
“Or how little,” Petra said, her tone utterly bland. “I will say again that you should have his job.”
“He might have it in the near future,” Theo said. “Dearborn bet his job on Riley, on this being a minor issue that he fixed by arresting a shifter. If it turns out all these pretty fairies are involved, he’s going to lose a lot of face.”
“That is for the mayor to deal with,” Yuen said. “We deal with the details. Tell me what happened, from the beginning.”
• • •
We walked him through the events at Grant Park, giving him every detail we could remember, while Petra made notes on a smaller screen paired to the larger one, so her words appeared in tidy rows behind us.
“I don’t understand how they could simply appear and reappear,” Yuen said.
“They must have learned a new skill,” Theo said. “That wouldn’t surprise me, given Ruadan seems to be pushing them in a new direction.”
“But what direction?” I asked. “Shifters are blamed for Tomas’s death. The peace talks fall apart, and fairies are trying to make big magic in Grant Park. How do those things connect?”
“Fairies,” Petra said. “They’re the common thread.”
“And Ruadan specifically,” I said. “He was at the sessions, the party, the castle, Grant Park.”
“And without Claudia for the latter events,” Yuen said. “You said her room was disheveled, and she’s apparently missing. Why?”
“Ruadan likes violence,” I said, thinking of his expressions atthe castle and Grant Park. “He wants trouble. Maybe he wanted a real fight at the peace talks, and was angry when Claudia agreed to a seat at the table.”
“What about the pin?” Theo asked.
“Forensic tests haven’t been completed yet,” Yuen said. “Surveillance video of the party is still being reviewed at Cadogan.”
“How’s Riley doing?” I asked, feeling a stab of guilt since I hadn’t visited him again.
Yuen’s eyes went dark, concern etched in his face. “For now, he’s handling it. For now.”
“Has his memory improved?”
Yuen shook his head. “We’ve tried meds, meditation, and magic. Nothing has helped. He still has pain when he tries to remember.”
“What about the knife?” I asked. “I know his fingerprints were on it, but do we know where it came from?”
“We don’t,” Theo said. “At least, not specifically. It was a mass-produced hunting-style knife.”
“Hard to trace,” I said.
“Exactly. The blood on Riley’s shirt was Tomas’s. But the quantity wasn’t nearly as much as should have been there given the nature of the wound.”
I had to kick away the memory of Tomas’s disconnected head.
“So the actual perp was probably covered in blood,” Theo said. “There’d have been soiled clothes.”
