I’m sure Cooper will love that,Keith thought.
He resisted the urge to break the fragile truce Iris had just set up. Maybe he’d never gotten to be a kid, but that didn’t mean he got to make up for it by being immature now. Especially not when the stakes were so high.
“I’ll tell him,” Keith said. “He’ll liaise with you as the community representative.”
Sinclair gave them a curt nod and strode down the steps, stalking over to the gathering crowd. Keith couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he could see the looks of shock and dismay on people’s faces.
“That worked,” Iris murmured.
Keith nodded. “Thanks to you. You’re my real community liaison. I’m out-of-practice dealing with people here, let alone ... with something like this going on.”
“I’m in way over my head with this too, but I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
She looked over her shoulder at the immense, imposing door and shuddered. The bleakness seemed to be closing in around her again, making the light in her eyes die out.
“I know I complain a lot,” she said softly, “and that I don’t want to stay here. I know Lady Marianne embodied a whole system that I didn’t want any part of. But I loved her.”
Keith understood that. It was how he used to feel about the Council, and it was how hestillfelt about his family.
“I only saw you two together the one time,” Keith said, “but I could tell how much she liked you.”
“She liked the person I was trying to be. And now I’ve stopped.”
He shook his head. “She was on your team. You’re switching sports, but maybe she would have still rooted for you once she learned the rules of the new game.”
Iris’s eyes crinkled up at the corners, but the sadness in them didn’t go away. She looked more wistful than consoled.
“It’s nice to think that, but I don’t know if it’s true.” She took a deep breath and let it slowly. “But ... I think I’ll just have to live with that. If I were on my own, I’d be flipping out right now, trying to put my life in reverse and go back to faking it, because it feels like everything’s falling apart again. And it’s always my fault when things around here fall apart—that’s what it feels like, I mean. But you’re here, and you make me stronger. You make me want to stay myself, even when it hurts.”
“I don’t want it to hurt, but I don’t want to lose you.”
He wanted to touch her cheek, but he knew most of the village was watching them. He didn’t want to share that intimacy with just anyone.
Instead, he said, “You can’t leave me to be the only bad unicorn on my own.”
This time there was a real spark of light in her eyes.
“We won’t desert each other,” Iris said.
It sounded as solemn as a wedding vow, and it made Keith ache from all this waiting to tie their lives together once and for all.
But if he hadn’t insisted on a week’s delay, he wouldn’t be here right now. His team wouldn’t be either. There wouldn’t have been anyone around to investigate Lady Marianne’s murder, not unless Lord Sinclair and his fellow Councilors had called them in.
Keith doubted that they would have. In the wake of Marianne’s death, Purity would feel shattered and vulnerable. It wasn’t a time they would think of inviting outsiders in, especially given how people like Lady Alicia felt about
The door behind him creaked open, and Iz slid out.
“Could we swap places? Cooper needs some background info, so he’d like you both in there. I can guard the door.”
In any other context, a slender, fine-boned woman in her twenties wouldn’t make the most intimidating bouncer, but Keith knew that Cooper had made a smart choice sending Iz out. Once you got close to them, dragons could radiate an intense, blistering “don’t fuck with me” vibe that would scare off almost anyone. And Iz could use courtesy like it was jujitsu, handling situations so deftly that she would never raise her voice or say a single rude word, but she would also never yield an inch. Somehow, she almost always got what she wanted.
That left Keith with only one concern:
“Iris won’t have to see the crime scene again, will she?”
“No, absolutely not.” Iz added to Iris, “I’m sorry you ever had to see it in the first place. That must have been a horrible thing to walk in on unprepared.”
“I had a bad feeling as soon as I went inside,” Iris said in a small voice. “But I kept hoping it was all in my head.”
