I release a heavy sigh. Hell if I’m going to allow him to be the bigger person about this. “I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I’d meant to tell you earlier, but we were… distracted.”
“Did Sophia Larkspur just admit she was wrong?” His lip quirks and eyes flash.
“When are you going to learn, I’m a different sort of pixie?”
Our eyes meet. Now there’s something else in his expression, the same wolfish, masculine heat I’d seen last night. The tug of his luck slides over my skin, and I picture that dragon wrapping around me again.
I turn away and walk on. “You may wish to mark this day on your calendar and commemorate it annually in the future, preferably with cake and sparklers. I doubt it will happen often.”
He chuckles and moves closer to my side. “It’s not your job to preserve my reputation. Besides, you were right. I’m embarrassed to admit that the cases of those six pixies were completely mishandled by my team. In every instance, their files were closed as assumed runaways despite evidence to the contrary from their families. We have six missing pixies and one dead human, all with links back tomyclub.”
The stress in his voice is obvious now, and he’s lost some of his charming demeanor. I’m surprised he’s admitting this in public. Until I notice we are very much alone. The nearest guests are across the street. I take in the emptiness of the usually busy street and clear my throat. “Um, are you doing this? Because if so, we should walk faster. My parents really need the midday business.”
He grunts. “Sorry.”
The tingle of his luck shifts like a rush of bubbles against my skin, and then a flock of families seem to see the Silver Ember for the first time and flood into the store.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
I walk faster until we put additional space between us and the crowd again. Lowering my voice, I ask, “Was there anything on the security footage?”
“Yup.” He heaves a sigh. “But you’ll never believe it unless you see it with your own eyes.”
The Wonderland security office is a single-story circular building intentionally designed to blend into the background. Its indistinct white brick walls give no clues to what goes on under the ordinary shingled roof. The only indication of the purpose the building serves is silver lettering on the glass front door that readsSecurity.
Seven keys us in and tells a blue-uniformed satyr behind the reception desk that he’s going to be in the monitoring room for a few minutes and is not to be disturbed. He leads me into an office filled with screens showing every aspect of public life in Wonderland. There’s no one in here, although there’s a steaming cup of coffee on the counter and a Dragonfly security jacket on the back of one of the chairs.
Seven locks the door behind us.
“Someone’s going to miss their coffee,” I say.
Seven types feverishly on the keyboard. “Ye of little faith. Ravi is in the restroom, and we are going to get very lucky and be out of here before he’s finished.”
“Of course we are,” I say flatly.
A few more keystrokes and the location of the murder pops up on-screen. It’s dark, but I can make out the patch of sidewalk at the back of the park in the circle from the streetlight. The time ticks along the bottom of the screen. Seconds roll by. And then the body appears in the arms of a monster.
“Yissevel,” I say. “Oh my gods! He’s out.”
Seven nods. “Keep watching.”
The monster is at least eight feet tall and looks like a skeleton aside from a thin layer of stretched pale skin that seems to barely hold bone, tendon, and muscle together. He drops the mutilated body, then takes off, bounding back over the security fence in the direction of the wall.
“That’s weird,” I say. “It’s almost as if he’s sneaking back into Shadowvale.”
Seven laughs. “What else is weird, Sophia?” He rewinds the recording again. I watch.
I press my fingers against my lips. “The teeth and bones were missing before he ditched the body. She was already dead!”
“Exactly.”
“This just gets weirder and weirder. Did Yissevel kill her in the unseelie realm and then dump the body here? Why? How would she even get to Shadowvale? And if she was killed here, why would he move her body?”
“All great questions. What we know for sure is that Phoebe was already dead. Did Yissevel kill her or just scavenge her bones and dump her? And if he didn’t kill her, who did?”
“Who else would though? Just because he dumped and ran doesn’t mean he didn’t do it. But I understand what you’re saying. It’s so odd. How did he even run into Phoebe? And if she went missing the same day as Michael showed up dead, did he somehow lure her back to Shadowvale, kill her, and then return to dump her? Why?”
