“Bring her back to my office,” he said to his talented assassins, killing her faint hope that Hartgrave, Willi and Bernie would appear and—
And what? Hartgrave was the ablest of the three, and even he couldn’t take on Kincaid for long. Bernie probably didn’t know any offensive magic at all.
“Why disguise your evil with such convincing goodness when you could justbegood?” she howled at Kincaid’s retreating back, a sob catching in her throat.
He looked over his shoulder. “Dr. Daggett, we clearly have very different ideas about good and evil.”
The short return trip offered sufficient time to sum up her situation. Nobody could save her but herself. She, however, was powerless against a gun and unlikely to get it out of Kincaid’s hands, especially while so outnumbered.And, even if she managed that, she couldn’t actually shoot these wizards because they had strong shielding around them—she’d only ensure her parents’ deaths.
This, apparently, was why all the fantasy heroes were orphans.
Why,whyhadn’t she thought about the risk to her parents? What kind of daughterwasshe?
Shaw pushed her into the office chair, wrenched her arms behind it and bound them with rope. Her options were clear: Tell them what they wanted to know, or not.
“Talk,” Kincaid said.
Could such a consummate liar be fooled into thinking Option Two was Option One?
She took a long, shuddering breath to buy herself an extra moment. She couldn’t put Hartgrave’s life or her own ahead of her parents’ lives—her poor parents, who had no idea of the grave danger she’d put them in. But Kincaid murdered people for knowing just a bit too much. He had every reason to think her parents knew a great deal more than a bit, simply because she did.
All she had to her credit was an idea—“plan” was too strong a word—and a lot of recent experience with disingenuous answers.
“Well?” he snapped.
Oh God and her parents forgive her, she was about to take an unbearable risk.
“I do know where Hartgrave is,” she said, manufacturing a snivel but not the misery in her voice. “I’ll show you, just—promiseyou won’t hurt my mom and dad.”
She said it because he would expect her to. He said “certainly” because—no doubt—he knew that was expected of him. She didn’t believe it.
“What will you do with him?” she whispered.
“You are no longer in a position to ask questions. Where is he? Somewhere near Ashburn College?”
“In the”—she bit her lip, closed her eyes—“in the Ashburn humanities building.”
“And what is his trick for remaining off the tracking system?”
Surprising that Kincaid hadn’t figured it out by now. Perhaps it had never occurred to him that expelling magic was possible—perhaps he thought Hartgrave had done something to the programming all those years ago. Either way, the next part of her performance was critical.
“I don’t know,” she said, reaching for despair. Which wasn’t far from her actual emotional condition. “He hardly ever told me how anything worked. He always said it was complicated and left it at that.”
“Do you know where in the building he would be?”
“Y-yes.” She was crying now. It wasn’t hard to start. “He has a h-hidden room.”
Kincaid rubbed his beard. “I suppose he has barriers in place to prevent anyone from teleporting in?”
She nodded. She had no idea if this was true—the room itself let magic in—but it suited her purposes.
Crawford snorted. “Not as if we’d take the chance. I ricocheted right into the forest the last time—thanks ever so,” she said, throwing a dark look at Shaw, whose smirk suggested she’d played a barrier prank on her partner. “And I don’t understand why you didn’t just recast the wards around the house to keep Alex from leaving in the first place. Sir,” she added, apparently realizing how petulant she’d sounded.
“Because he’d boxed me in,” Kincaid said. “By the time I’d broken through, it was too late. However—if he tried to jump back to our cellar after he realized he was missing something, he’ll still be feeling less than optimal right now. All the more reason to go soon.”
Emily hoped her alarm looked like general unhappiness and fear. She hadn’t counted on that problem.
“Sub-optimal or not, we can’t catch him if he’ll have advance warning that we’re nearly on top of him,” Crawford said. “We’ll have to—”
