“Psh. That’s easy. Let’s get some food and then go to Lachlan’s study. You can write your letters there.”
Being on the other side of the mirror was surreal. Scarlett had seen the brown tweed couch and the mahogany desk through the glass so often that the details were familiar, yet it was her first time being immersed in the room. Like the hug with Brayden, it was more vivid being here in real life.
She went to the mirror. An opaque black covering hid it from view.
“We’ll keep it covered as long as you’re here, and there’s a silencing spell on it,” said Brayden.
“Can I peek through it quickly? Just to see what it’s like from this end.”
“Sure.”
He peeled back the cover. Her dressing room was there on the other side, still in disarray from their hasty departure that morning. Seeing it made her heart race as if she were still there. She backed away, not wanting to relive their escape, and Brayden replaced the cover.
“It must be a trip seeing it from this side.” He strode over to Lachlan’s desk, Scarlett trailing behind him, and pulled some paper out of a drawer. “I wonder if I’ll ever see this room through your mirror.”
She liked the hopeful way he said that. “I hope so. I want you to visit when all this settles down. I’ll get Laylani thrown in jail and get the border legislation passed so you can come anytime. With her gone, I’ll have my house all to myself. Plenty of space for you.” She said it with a touch of humor knowing she was making it sound easy, when, in fact, she’d listed enough tasks to potentially fill a lifetime.
He chuckled. “I love the confidence. You reckon it’ll be hard to prove what she did?”
“I’ll find a way.” Scarlett sat at Lachlan’s desk and picked up a pen.
Brayden stretched out on the tweed couch and started tossing a ball he’d taken from the desk into the air above him. “Who are you writing to first?”
“Elestine Spencer.” She pondered what to say for a moment. Then she wrote a letter conveying the essentials of the abduction and what Beni had overheard Laylani saying to the doctor. Sheclosed it by asking Elestine to keep everything to herself for the time being. Scarlett signed the letter and walked to the couch to hand it to Brayden. “How’s that?”
He skimmed the page. “This isn’t the whole truth, right?”
She shook her head. “Dad always said, ‘Never write anything down that you don’t want on the front page of the paper.’”
Brayden nodded in approval. “Good advice. Tell me the whole story front to back.”
Scarlett paced the office as she talked him through the chain of events, beginning with her dad’s death, continuing with the ominous threat from Moira Ashworth and her abduction, and ending with Laylani putting her into a medically induced coma in her own home.
She came to a halt in front of him. “Do I sound paranoid?”
He shook his head, eyes full of worry. “No. The chain of events is suspicious.”
“What if I’m wrong? What other explanation is there?” she asked. “If it’s not Moira, how did I end up unconscious for almost a month?”
Brayden’s brow furrowed as he considered this. “It’s possible Laylani acted on her own. Maybe Moira wasn’t involved and your dad’s death was someone else. Who were his enemies?”
“Plenty of people don’t like his politics, but most of them aren’t public figures.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if you believe—like many do—that opening the border to tourism and trade is the first step toward legalizing magic, there are people who’d be impacted negatively by that. Namely, those who profit from Soleil’s black market.”
“Are any of those people well-known?” asked Brayden.
“No. Although I did meet someone before my dad died. Alastair dragged me to an illegal boxing match between a hydra and a dire wolf.” She told him all she could remember about thenight, including Cass saving them from being arrested. “As we were walking through the tunnels, Cass mentioned she bribes the police for immunity from raids.” Scarlett ran the tip of her finger over her bottom lip as she pondered it all.
“That’sinteresting. So the police stand to lose bribes if the black market is legalized. How high up does that money go? Beyond the head of police, up into the Soleil Bureau and the government? That could be a motive for Moira or one of her sidekicks. If Cass is any indication, perhaps the black market itself wouldn’t have gone after your father.”
Scarlett stared sightlessly, considering all the possibilities. “I need to look into it more, but I agree. Cass said they’d make more money if the matches were legal, and the police’s cut from the fights is bigger than what the house keeps. Their audience could be much larger if the fights were legal. The black market is way more than boxing matches, so I don’t have any idea if that motivation would extend to people selling other magical things, but it’s possible.”
“So now we have two suspects. The police and Loira.”
“Loira?”
