“I’m hiding it, along with the Greek coin and his dagger.”
“You better give them backafterthe feds leave.”
“And if I don’t? They don’t belong to you.”
Jono wasn’t aware of moving, but he suddenly found himself standing in front of Hermes, his hand wrapped around the god’s throat, Fenrir’s teeth in his voice.
“If you take what does not belong to you, I will be displeased, cousin,” Fenrir hissed.
“You kept a piece of the Morrígan’s staff and never told us. What else are you hiding from your allies, Fenrir?” Hermes got out, seemingly unperturbed in the face of Fenrir’s wrath.
“Nothing.”
Fenrir bled out of Jono, giving him back control. Hermes smirked, his gold-brown eyes bright with amusement as Jono released him. “Go hand Pattycakes off to the authorities while I play with his phone.”
Jono wanted to punch the god. Fenrir rumbled his agreement in the back of Jono’s mind, but they didn’t have time to wipe the smirk off Hermes’ face. He turned on his heels and returned to the living room.
Patrick hadn’t moved from his spot in front of the door. The FBI agent who had cuffed him stood on the landing now, glaring at him, unable to enter. Patrick ignored the demands to leave the flat, clearly waiting for Jono to return. The SOA mage standing beside the FBI agent had a mageglobe burning in one hand, but the threshold was holding against whatever she was trying to do. Jono didn’t know if it was due to Patrick’s magic or Hermes’ presence that was keeping everyone out, but he was grateful for the reprieve.
Jono knelt and helped Patrick into his combat boots, lacing them up with deft fingers. He curled his fingers around Patrick’s calf and tipped his head back to look up at Patrick. There was so much he wanted to say, but none of it could be spoken in front of the authorities except for one single truth.
“I love you,” Jono said as he stood.
Patrick’s gaze never wavered. “I’ll come back.”
Jono wanted to believe that, despite everything tearing them apart. He kissed Patrick firmly on the mouth before letting him go. Patrick licked his lips, squared his shoulders, and turned to walk out of the flat, into the hands of the authorities. The threshold let him pass over it with a flicker of magic, but when the SOA mage tried to step inside the flat, she was pushed back.
The FBI agent who’d handcuffed Patrick scowled at Jono, one hand gripping Patrick by the arm. “The search warrant still stands. We still require admittance to the apartment.”
Jono scowled at him. “You can send a new group of arseholes up and see if they have any luck coming inside.”
He wasn’t going to make it easy on the police or the FBI, but neither was he going to obstruct anyone else. Jono knew there was nothing incriminating in the flat, and anything that could be perceived as a threat was being kept safe by Hermes.
“Stay where you are. I’ll be sending up more agents.”
The FBI agent yanked on Patrick’s arm, hauling him down the stairs and out of sight. The SOA mage followed. Jono had to stop himself from going after them, absolutely gutted that Patrick was leaving in handcuffs, charged with a murder he didn’t commit.
“He’ll be all right,” Hermes said from behind him.
Jono didn’t turn around. “You don’t know that.”
“No, but he can’t pay his soul debt if he’s locked up, and we gods aren’t happy with the interference of demons.”
Jono shoved past Hermes to go retrieve his mobile so the feds didn’t take it. He wondered if he could keep Patrick’s. “We aren’t happy with the interference of gods.”
“The two of you never would have met if it weren’t for us.”
Fate was a road leading to a future with endless possibilities, but maybe Hermes was wrong. Whatever choices Jono made in some other life, he wanted to believe they would always lead him to Patrick.
10
The Metropolitan Correctional Centerwas covered in protective wards and containment spells in equal amounts. Patrick knew that much, even if he could no longer sense the magic embedded in the foundation of the jail, not with the spelled bracelets he wore that restricted his magic. All jails were built the same, and he’d passed through enough in his career to know their safety requirements.
He was usually on the other side of the bars though, not sitting in an interrogation room on a shitty Sunday with his wrists cuffed to the table, waiting for Danai to arrive. Patrick shifted in the hard plastic seat, trying to get comfortable, knowing it was a lost cause. The guard standing in the corner tightened his grip on his pistol but didn’t tell him to stop moving.
The cuffs rattled against the spelled bracelets. He’d been stripped of his clothing and put in a white prison uniform during processing before being placed in a segregated cell away from the general population. The cell was warded, the magic in the walls giving him a headache. With his magic muffled, Patrick couldn’t adjust his personal shields to account for the magical oversight. The only reason his shields were even still up was because of Persephone’s anchors burned into his bones.
The door opened, and Patrick watched two men in dark suits enter, each of them carrying a briefcase. No one else followed them inside, and Patrick sighed, resolving to stay silent until Danai arrived. He’d been arrested that morning, but it was difficult to judge what time it was now when he was exhausted from lack of sleep, getting arrested, and unable to relax his guard. He hadn’t seen a clock since his processing.
