I let a tiny fragment of my power float toward her. She turned gray, her terror clear, and a strangled sound escaped her throat.
“And now?” I asked.
Mavis opened her mouth and choked, and I sighed as I poked at her mind. She’d been bound. While Gloria could likely remove it, it would require Mavis’s cooperation. Otherwise, removing it would break her mind.
“She’s been spelled,” Danica said, and I nodded. Useless. My hand shook with the effort not to burn the witch. But perhaps Gloria could get some small sliver of information out of her before her mind broke.
The witch sneered at Danica. “You, betraying your kind and working for a demon. Do you have no dignity?”
Danica simply stared at her. The witch didn’t like that. “Ask him,” she rasped, with a glance in my direction. Her eyes darted, as if she could no longer focus. “Ask him why he was seen near your mother’s body.”
Danica went very still. “What are you talking about?”
“That wasn’t in your report, was it? That the imprint of power near your mother’s body perfectly matches Samael?”
“How would you know that?”
“Word gets around.”
Danica reached for the Mistilteinn Dagger and held it between us, her face bloodless. “Did you kill my mother?”
“No.”
The dagger didn’t glow, but doubt still flashed through her eyes. “What were you doing near her body? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“These are not questions you would like me to answer right now.”
The witch cackled. “If you believe a demon, you deserve everything you get. Your mother was tortured, girl. This demon did it, and he didn’t even think twice. Your poor mom must be turning in her grave to have her daughter bound to her murderer.”
I snapped my fingers. The witch opened her mouth to scream, but her neck broke with a dull crack.
My fire licked at my fingers, and I tamped down the urge to turn her body to ash. I’d have it autopsied just in case it could tell us anything. Next to me, Danica barely breathed.
* * *
Danica
The world around us was silent. I could feel Samael’s demons watching from a distance, but I was too busy staring at the body on the ground.
The witch was dead. All Samael had done was snap his fingers.
“Sorry to interrupt.”
Samael turned his head, and I knew without looking that the demon who’d dared to approach had turned pale. I glanced at him. Romyel. The demon who’d sat next to me at dinner.
“What is it?” Samael’s voice was so cold I shivered and his eyes darkened further.
“Sitri was going through the witch’s phone, and he recognized a number. One of ours.”
Samael went eerily still. “Who.”
“A demon named Malgron. He works in the tower.”
Samael glanced at Bael, who nodded and stepped away. I wouldn’t want to be that demon right about now.
Samael took a step closer to me, and I was suddenly pressed against the wall of the alley, one of my knives in my hand as I stared at him.
He froze. For the first time, something that looked a lot like uncertainty crossed his face. It immediately disappeared, replaced by cool arrogance.
