“I don’t think so.” Zane slumped back in his seat. “But I don’t know for sure.” He gave a pointed look at the magical dampening cuffs around his wrists. “Obviously.”
“You’ve not spoken to her since you’ve been in here?” I asked.
Zane shot me a withering look. “Of course I have. I needed to make sure she was okay.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “But it’s not like I couldaskher who was there with her with you listening.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“I need that information, Zane.” Max sat forward, arms on the table. “When Gren Melhak fails to check in with Yates and the witches he’s working with, they’ll realise that we have him in custody. The hunter who worked with Tombs is already dead. They got to him in prison.”
Zane went white as a sheet.
“You won’t be here forever, Zane. If we can’t get Yates put away in a fae prison, how long do you think it’ll be before he decides you and your sister are too much of a liability?”
Closing his eyes, Zane took a deep breath in, then his shoulders slumped, resigned. But when he opened them again, I saw the steely resolve that’d been missing ever since Tombs came on the scene. “Get Larissa and her family to Ella, and I’ll tell you everything I know about Yates’s involvement in this.”
“Will it get me the proof I need?” Max asked, already reaching for his phone.
“Yes.”
DATHAL
Axel metme as I came through the gateway, his smile dropping almost instantly.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, putting his hand on my shoulder and searching my face, and I prayed to the Goddess that his magic wouldn’t choose now to kick in.
I didn’t want him to see the thoughts in my head right now, but I wouldn’t lie to him either.
“Damien Croft, one of the three we suspect of smuggling and refining the Blue Alhuirn, wasn’t with the other two when they were in the prison at Anyath.”
“Okay.” Axel’s brow furrowed, and I wished with everything I had that I didn’t have to tell him this next bit.
“He was in theHeltathwing, the maximum-security part of the prison, for the majority of his sentence.”
Axel stiffened. “Go on.”
I put my hand on top of his and squeezed his fingers tight. “Before they moved him out of there six months before his release, his cellmate was Vai Zh’alek.”
Axel closed his eyes, fingers linking with mine and holding on in a death grip. “That’s not all, is it?”
“Zh’alek escaped two days ago.”
“Chlah Ferath.”He spun away from me, hands fisting in his hair. “How did he escape from a fae maximum-security wing? I thought they were locked down tight with the strongest magic we have?”
“They are,” I said, trying not to show how furious I was that this had happened. Axel was barely hanging on to his temper as it was. I didn’t want to add fuel to that. “They think Melhak stole an access cuff before he transferred to the high court, then used witch magic to hide the fact one was missing. Magic he probably got from Croft. Zh’alek poisoned his new cellmate with Blue Alhuirn that he must’ve got from Melhak somehow, gave him enough that he fell unconscious. He dosed himself with enough to appear to be suffering the same fate, and when they were both transferred to the medical wing, he escaped.”
“Isn’t their magic inhibited when they’re in prison?” Axel asked, getting paler by the second.
“Yes, but they release it enough in the medical wing so they can use it to help heal them. Normally a magical shield is used around the bed, but they thought Zh’alek was near death like his cellmate, so they treated him first before erecting the shield. He killed two medical staff and three guards.”
Axel stared at me, his hand trembling as he rubbed his jaw. “Where is he now?”
“They don’t know. But they’ve got guards monitoring all the gateways, and so far he hasn’t attempted to get through.”
Axel scoffed. “Are you sure about that? Because that hunter was killed in the prison here by someone wearing Gabriel’s fucking face. Who’s to say those three witches haven’t already helped him to pass through a gateway unnoticed?”
He was right. That was a possibility. Unlikely, but we couldn’t rule it out completely. I ran a hand through my hair. “Everyone who has left our realm to come here has been accounted for and verified. It’s extremely unlikely he’d managed to slip through without us noticing. He might be a ruthless killer—”
“And a fucking psychopath!” Axel hissed.
