The band of magic tightened. Her anti-magic couldn’t possibly prevail in time. Pain, ohGod—ribs—lungs—
Dying—
And then Kincaid dropped his hand and she slumped in the seat, sucking in great gasps of air, vision tunneled by pulsating black dots.
Shaw laughed.
“I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to that,” Kincaid said, as if he found torture an unpleasant chore. “Do all of us a favor and tell me the truth.”
It hurt to breathe. Everything, in fact, either ached or shook. She was dangerously close to doing what he’d demanded.
“Now,” he barked.
She thought of her parents and pressed her fingernails into her palms.
“I f-found his hideout on my own, he would never have let me in if I hadn’t, that’s the only reason I know where it is—those other two men, the ones you were following”—she paused for a deep breath, praying it wouldn’t be her last—“they have no idea where he lives.”
Kincaid said nothing.
In desperation, she added, “He’s the most secretive person I’ve ever met.”
Shaw snorted. “Just so, innit, Gwennie? Even you’d no idea he was about to do a runner, and you were sleeping with him.”
No wonder he knew the way through Crawford’s bedroom in the dark. Emily’s chest constricted, and this time magic had nothing to do with it.
Crawford seemed just as unhappy to have the subject introduced. “Shut it,” she snapped at her partner. To Kincaid, she said, “Sir—if he’s by himself, we don’t all need to go. Leave Verity here with the girl, and we’ll take care of him.”
Emily’s “no!” burst out the same instant Shaw’s did.
Kincaid looked at Emily, one silver eyebrow raised. “No?”
“You need me,” she stuttered, making a point to flinch away from Shaw, to look as if she simply didn’t want to be left alone with the most volatile wizard of the group. “You need me or you’ll never find his room.”
Shaw crossed her arms. “Let’s just go. He could be anywhere, and it’ll be effing hard to get him if he’s not where this one says he is.”
“For your sake,” Kincaid said to Emily, “let us hope he is.”
Her whispered “yes” was heartfelt. Everything depended on Hartgrave being there—and coming to the same conclusion she had about how to handle the situation.
20
Return to Ashburn
They teleported to the loading dock behind the humanities building, deserted and icy. The first thing Emily did after the landscape resolved itself was put her nausea to good use.
After she finished retching, she led them on an unnecessarily circuitous route to the Inferno. She headed down several wrong corridors once there. And, threatened by Shaw to “get on with it or I’ll make you,” she wasted a few more moments sniveling.
All of it buying Hartgrave time. Heroics disguised as cowardice.
When she finally reached the correct wall, she tried for more time by feeling around in an area a dozen feet shy of the door. But Kincaid must have had a sixth sense for spellwork. He unerringly brushed his fingers on the right spot.
“Here,” he murmured, so quiet she could barely hear him. “I think this is what you’re—ah—looking for.”
“I’m s-sorry,” she said in a strained whisper, following his commandment to speak softly else the quarry hear them. She undid the spells on the door with both hands. “It all looks the same to me.”
“Remember what will happen if this does not go well. Is that understood?”
Then he pushed the gun against the small of her back.
