“Yes?”
“You’re one of us.” His mouth crooks. “Which means, I’m afraid, you’re ‘family.’ And paper mages are stubborn about family.”
A startled laugh escapes me.
He smiles properly then, for the first time since we opened his cell. “I need to get back to them. They’re… clinging.” His expression softens, then hardens again when his gaze lands on Meredith. “Meredith and her lot won’t walk away from this. I’ll see to it.”
“I know you will.”
He nods once, brisk and businesslike, and walks away.
Overhead, rotors thunder. We hear the helicopter long before it appears. Knox keeps a helipad, so the great beast sets down in a blast of wind behind the main buildings, theblades slicing the air. Ministry guards pour out and fan across the compound, boots pounding on concrete.
George, Jill, Dayna, and Lander direct them briskly, pointing out the unconscious coven and their hired muscle. Within fifteen minutes they have been rounded up: twenty-four guards, thirteen magic users. A few have begun to stir.
Detective Wallace is already awake: shirt stained, chest damp with what looks suspiciously like spit.
“Do you know who I am? It was a sanctioned job, not my fault if you lot can’t do paperwork.” He keeps grumbling, his voice rising.
A guard gives him a flat stare. “If you don’t shut up, I’ll slap a silencing charm on you.”
Detective Wallace falls silent, though he continues to glare at me as if this is all a personal inconvenience to him.
The coven stirs next—blinking blearily, heads lolling. One wizard focuses on Lander, confusion twisting his features.
Here we go.
“What’s going on? What happened? Why am I here?”
Lander steps forward, slow and deliberate. He squats, hands dangling between his knees.
“Richard, you’ve been a very bad boy. Forbidden spells, treaty violations, listening to Meredith. Not your smartest move.”
“Lander, I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” Richard says, shaking his head. “We haven’t done anything. Why am I here?”
Lander cocks his head, weighing the confusion.
Janice, the witch with a plait down to her waist who ranaway at the chapel, starts to cry. “I don’t know where I am,” she sobs. “I don’t understand…”
And then it begins. One by one: the questions, the panic, the blank faces.
Meanwhile, the guards insist they were acting under contract.
The difference between the two groups is startling.
Lander turns to me. “Harper?” His voice is careful, controlled. “What did you do?”
I step back, boot catching on the scorched earth where the fire mage struck. A mental flick, and I wipe her memory as well.
Lander advances. The calm is gone, replaced by fury; his pale eyes darken, voice low and dangerous. “What did youdo?”
He looks exactly as he did the first time I met him: spiky black tendrils of magic smoke coil around him.
Snack Thief perches on Knox’s roof-ridge, “Bad,” he croaks in alarm, wings half-spread.
I glance at the raven, then at Lander.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
