Eventually, the hallway we’re in joins another, and the guard, who is still holding my arm, directs me down a different hallway that branches off this one. Soon, we arrive at a door and he knocks. The door is opened by a pretty young woman in a fitted red dress.
Her eyes widen, and she pauses momentarily when she sees me. Then she steps back into the room and says politely, “Come in, please, sir,” to the guard.
I look behind me and see Bonum standing a short distance back in the hallway. They are leaning against the wall in a way that would be casual for anyone else. Somehow they make it look predatory.
I turn back to the room as the guard pushes me through thedoor and notice that, along with the young woman, there is a man in the room. He’s sitting behind a table, but when he sees us, he stands.
He is focused on me, and his eyes narrow slightly as he takes in my appearance. He doesn’t speak until the guard finishes removing the bindings from my hands and leave. The young woman closes the door after him, but remains in the room with us.
I hear the man say my name and turn back to him. “My name is Alexander Magnus. Please sit,” he says as he gestures at a chair.
I sit down as instructed, careful to school my expression against the increased pain as I do so.
He looks familiar, but in a way I can’t place.
He also sits and begins shuffling some paperwork on the desk, his attention still on me. “Do you know why you’re here?” he asks.
His voice is firm and has a musical quality that doesn’t disguise the sense of power and control that seems to exude from him. I’d put money on him being a very important person. What is immediately clear, though, he is not an angel, and neither is the young woman.
I simply respond, “No,” as I meet his eyes.
“Hmm,” he says, and his attention goes to the paperwork for a moment that feels like it stretches on interminably. Finally, he says, “You are being released today. We have some paperwork for you to complete. Documents saying you won’t sue or press charges against anyone.”
Here he pauses for a moment and looks searchingly at me again. “What happened to your face?” While he asks the question casually, I can see that his expression is calculating.
“I got into a fight with another prisoner,” I say.
“Hmm,” he says, “and your hand?”
“Same.”
“How did they make out?” he asks.
“Look at me, I’m tiny, how do you think they made out?” I grit out, my jaw tight at the discomfort of the lie.
His eyes narrow, but he doesn’t ask any additional questions.
It is not as though I would have told him anything else if he did. I got myself incarcerated here by siding with the demons. Nothing the angels have done to me, despite all the pain, has yet caused me to regret that decision. This is my fight, not this man’s.
Instead, he pushes one neat pile of paperwork towards me across the table. “Will you be able to sign?” he asks, looking at my right hand and the broken fingers.
I nod and hold out my left for the pen, and he hands it to me with a slight narrowing of his eyes.
I concentrate on signing the paperwork. This stack is all about how the city officials bear no responsibility for any physical or psychological harm I’ve suffered, and I will be unable to receive “damages.” The shadow of a sneer crosses my face; it is not “damages” I want from them.
As I sign the paperwork, I ask Alexander, “Why am I being freed?”
“We were able to get you out based on a lack of evidence and holes in the investigative process,” he says firmly. “When I dug into your case and started asking questions, they were not even able to produce a body. Even if they had, if you had ever been called in front of a court, without a massive amount of evidence on their side, I would have been able to get the charges dismissed. You clearly do not look as though you could kill a city enforcer,” he says, and I feel him looking at my pink hair and small stature.
Underestimation makes everything easier, so I let him believe that.
As I work through the piles of paperwork, signing away my right to damages, we sit in relative silence. Eventually, I finish, pushing the last stack of paperwork back across the table toward him.
He looks through the last set of signatures then says in an authoritative voice, “That concludes my role here.” He stacks the paperwork and puts it into a leather bag that is hanging from the back of his chair. Without looking up, he says, “Roxana will help get you on your way.”
Then he says, “It has been nice to meet you, Chaosta, but hopefully we don’t have a need to meet again.”
I look at him and nod. “Thank you for your help,” I say, my voice sharing the sincerity I feel.
