“Do we have a problem?” I ask. He doesn’t answer. I lean forward, the ancient wood of my desk creaking under the weight of my elbows.
Soter may not like it, but Pallas’s unique perspective will be invaluable in our fight against organized crime. The supernatural underbelly of Borealis is a tangled web, and we need all the help we can get to unravel it.
“Fine,” Soter grumbles.
I fight back a smile. “What was that?”
“I said, fine, I’ll do it,” Soter repeats, but commotion outside draws my attention. I rise from my seat to investigate. Soter follows close behind as I peek between the blinds.
Dressed in civilian clothes, Marlowe dismounts her motorcycle, which she parked in the red zone. I raise my brows. Someone tries to stop her, but she dismisses them with a wave of her gloved hand as she strolls into our building.
We went through hell together that night at the wolves’ encampment, but since returning to Borealis, she’s kept her distance. She hasn’t stepped inside the precinct since wereturned from Aurora. There are too many eyes to judge her for her past actions.
She’s been hanging out around the city, making amends with the people she hurt, starting with Mom. Mom’s been so busy with the cure that she still doesn’t give Marlowe the time of day. She’s still angry at her former friend for lying about Dad and Nyx. She’s rightfully upset about not only losing her husband but also her best friend, leaving her broken in the process.
A part of me feels sorry for Mom’s dismissal of Marlowe—a small, minuscule part. If she is here now, she must want something. But what?
“I thought this was the Blade Precinct,” Soter remarks, glaring at Pallas. “Not a halfway house for the criminally inclined.”
“Where’s a criminal?”
Soter stiffens as I whirl to face Isolde. She’s dressed in cut-off shorts and a cropped top, revealing a sliver of her toned midriff. Her cobalt ponytail sits high on her head, swaying with every shift of her weight. Shopping bags hang from her arms.
“What’s in the bags?” I ask. Isolde’s cheeks flush a delicate pink.
She sets her purchases down atop the empty chair beside Pallas, and the bags crinkle as she rummages through them. With a flourish, she pulls out a strappy orange dress. A dramatic slit runs up the side. Soter inhales a sharp breath.
“It’s for the party,” Isolde explains, her brown eyes sparkling. The party, thrown by the royals and the Council, will honor Mom’s completion of the cure inside the first-ever Lunar Witch reentry facility before the first witches move in next week. Isolde groans, then stuffs the dress back into her bag. “You’re right. I will look ridicu?—”
“You will look beautiful,” Soter says. Isolde gapes at him.
As I watch Isolde struggle not to smile at his compliment, a twinge of sympathy for Soter stirs within me, even as I consider the deep waters he’s found himself in with her. But then I remember what an incredible douche he is and move on.
Pallas breaks the awkward silence. “What else is in the bag?”
Isolde’s grin returns, genuine this time, as she pulls out a beautiful journal. The fresh leather scent fills the air as she unbuckles it and flips through the pages, the paper whispering beneath her callused fingertips as Marlowe enters my office.
Isolde frowns, still mad about Marlowe giving her the scar above her right brow when she knocked Sol out that day in Aurora to get to Leigh. “Marlowe,” she says.
“Faez,” Marlowe responds, but her gaze is on me.
“Give us the room,” I tell my team. Isolde leaves, but Soter and Pallas glance at each other, and I remember their assignment. “Soter, show Pallas to his desk.”
Soter’s upper lip curls, but he doesn’t fight me. He walks past Marlowe, ignoring her presence, while Pallas squeezes her shoulder in a gesture of support.
The room empties, leaving me alone with my former boss and friend. I’m eager to find out what she wants, considering she will break five months of silence to tell me.
“Looks good on you,” Marlowe says once we are alone.
I fold my arms. Marlowe helped us in Aurora by telling Leigh about Stellan working with the wolves. She even stayed behind when I turned myself over to Alden and Zeus’s captivity to save Queen Jorina, taking the beating of a lifetime to be with me after I thought she would run the second shit hit the fan. Our relationship may never return to what it was, but I hate her less than I did.
“What does?” I ask, my tone guarded yet curious.
She grins a flash of white teeth in the dimly lit office. “Authority.”
I shake my head. “What do you want? I know you didn’t come all this way to compliment me for taking your job. Or did you come here to tell me I didn’t earn it, so I should give it back?”
Her brow furrows in mock concentration. “Would you?”
