“And learned what?”
“That some of the kidnapped children are still alive,” he said. “Somewhere. And that he doesn’t trust VINE to be the good guys.”
“We did imprison him,” Lawrence pointed out in the background, guilt in her voice. “Brutalize him, just by sending him to The Salt. I can’t blame him for holding a grudge.”
Madoc took a second to make a note to deal with that. It was good for Lawrence to acknowledge her mistakes—God knew, it wasn’t something Madoc could model for her—but not to wallow in regret. If this was enough to wipe the stain from her file and she was turned, she’d live too long and have too many mistakes on her ledger to dwell on every one.
If not, well, Madoc still expected her to be a functional agent and trust her own judgment.
Lawrence’s self-worth could wait, as harsh as that sounded. The case couldn’t. They didn’t have to worry about Waring’s death anymore, but the fate of the dhampir children was a deadline that Madoc actually cared about.
“No,” Madoc told her as he studied Waring’s face. The magic might have bridled Waring’s tongue, but it didn’t seem interested in a block on simple understanding. “Waring sold his tongue for this secret, stayed in The Salt for two years rather than let someone down. This isn’t about him. He doesn’t trust VINE for the same reason I don’t.”
In the background he heard Lawrence splutter, but he ignored her. She hadn’t been there when Took disappeared, she hadn’t been part of the investigation. Madoc leaned over and braced his hands on the armrests as he stared into Waring’s scared eyes. It was a risk, but even witch-hobbled as he was, Madoc thought it was worth it.
“Someone at VINE, or connected to them, hurt someone he loves,” Madoc said. “Didn’t they?”
It was the slightest nod, but it still filled the recycled air of the plane with the smell of charred meat. Waring twitched in the chair and clenched his jaw against the pain, but it wasn’t as violent as before. The attack left him shaken, and smoke exhaled around the nail that muzzled him, but he was still conscious.
Madoc made a disgusted sound and pushed himself back from the seat.
“So now we have a witness who won’t talk,” he groused, “and even if they change their mind, can’t talk. ”
“I don’t think so,” Quick corrected him.
Madoc glanced down at the tablet and into the old vampire’s narrowed eyes. “What?”
“I don’t think it’s silence,” Quick said but then corrected himself. “I don’t think so, anyhow. It’s like computer code. You have to be precise. He can’t excuse himself, he can’t say, gesture, or I don’t know, tap out in code anything that would justify what he did. It probably seemed a good deal when he made it, but now he can’t even ask to go to the toilet. Since the minute he speaks, people start to ask why he won’t talk about something else. Right?”
Madoc turned to look at Waring, who stared back through tangled, singe-ended hair. The only expression on his face was desperation and maybe frustration.
“He couldn’t risk it when the spell, whatever it was, still protected… whoever he’s protected,” Madoc said. He flipped his hand to dismiss the details for later. “Especially not when he didn’t trust anyone.”
That was a familiar feeling.
“Not even the people he should,” Pally muttered. He looked sour when Madoc glanced at him. “I… need to tell you something. When you get back.”
It wasn’t a question that Pally had secrets. He’d been a cardinal too. All of them held close some of their boyar’s secrets, bloody tinged and weighted. Then they had their own, the only things they could really claim as their own possessions during their long service.
That he wanted to spend one on Madoc was the unusual element.
“Now,” Madoc corrected him sharply.
Pally reluctantly tightened his mouth. “Privately,” he bargained down.
“Hold on,” Lawrence said as she grabbed her laptop back again. “If this is about who we should trust, we should all hear it. What happened to Biters don’t have secrets?”
“That’s a lie,” Quick told her. “We all have secrets, like you sending reports to your mother.”
Shock made Lawrence gape, and she tried to stammer out what couldn’t decide whether to be a confession or a denial. As she tried to navigate her way through a bit of both, Quick grabbed her arm and pulled her up and away.
Madoc waited until the door slammed. Then he flicked his attention back to Pally.
“If you have done something dire,” he said. “I’ve done worse.”
Pally rubbed his hand over his face. “I would rather do this face to face,” he told his palm. “When Took… when Luke was kidnapped—”
The low, scraped noise caught in Madoc’s ears a second after he realized it had come out of his throat. He could taste smoke on the back of his tongue, and he nearly choked as he swallowed it back down.
