‘You seem not to know about the new extension of powers,’ Whitman says silkily. ‘They came in at midnight. Authorised by Congress and approved by the Moot.’
Harper’s giving Theo and his buddy a hard time, but her defiance goes muffled then a car door slams and the vehicle roars away. I haven’t time to listen to Whitman’s gloating bullshit – I need to follow! But the professor grips my arm painfully tight.
‘It’s now a criminal offence for a malef to be unregistered without reasonable cause. Harper Fenn’s breaking the law – again. But don’t worry. We’ll help her see the error of her ways. Maybe administer a little corrective.’
I punch that creep hard as I can and run for my car. Theo doesn’t have blue lights on, and I’ve already lost his vehicle up ahead. But they must be heading back to Connecticut and there’s only one route for that. I stab my phone onto hands-free and call Sarah. Do my best to calm her while attempting a high-speed pursuit of Theo’s car, but I’ll never catch him with my attention divided.
‘Gotta go,’ I tell Fenn. ‘I’ll let you know where we’re heading so you can come join me. If I lose their car, you can use your magic to locate Harper. I know you’ve always resisted, because it’s an invasion of her privacy, but …’
‘I’m long past that,’ Sarah snaps. ‘And I cannot wait to break my code of practice on every one of the bastards that has my daughter.’
The call ends, and my throbbing blood and the thrumming tyres are all I can hear.
36
BEA
‘You’ll want to be there,’ Sandra told me, after she put her head round the door of her campaign office and called me outside. ‘I owe you this. Or he does.’
I know who ‘he’ must be. Luka.
As she drives, I try to figure out what we’re heading toward. Luka must either have been recaptured, or turned himself in. Is he finally going to give arealconfession – no more hiding behind the excuse that someone made him do it? Will he say his interest in me was fake from the start, or will he tell me he really loved me, and beg me to believe and forgive him? My stomach’s churning at either scenario – and others, more nebulous.
Our destination is plainly a police facility, but there’s little bustle here. Just blank doors and blank faces, the walls topped with razor wire that dazzles in the sun. I pull my sweater cuffs down over my hands, a nervous habit I thought I’d broken.
We’re met at the gate by the cop, Theodorou, who leads us through plasticky corridors where all the doors have smeared Perspex windows reinforced with checkerboard wire. Interview rooms? He opens the door to one and sitting at the table in the centre is Charles Okoye. The Moot President gives Sandra a tight smile. At his side is a man I’ve notmet before, dressed in a suit but whose upper arms strain the sleeves of his tailored jacket. His salt-and-pepper hair is drawn back to reveal a silvery undercut, and his pale hazel eyes look like they rarely close, even for sleep. They’re fixed avidly on Sandra.
Opposite is a woman with the kind of startlingly white-blonde hair more usually seen on screen in the vicinity of dragons. And she knows all about monsters, because this is Anna-Marie Obermann, the hotshot defence attorney who has advised Sandra from the start.
‘Should she be here?’ Obermann says immediately, eyeing me. I understand why she’s frosty. The first and only time we met, she tried to persuade me either not to testify at all, or to lean into the narrative of magical control and say Luka appeared ‘possessed’, ‘robotic’ or ‘vacant’. She hinted heavily that either of those options wouldstand me in good steadwhen building my own political career, and radiated chill disappointment when I declined.
‘A witness,’ Sandra says.
To what?I think. I’m beginning to wonder if this has anything to do with the meeting Sandra took me to a few weeks ago. The research that was discussed there …
Theodorou stands by the door and I take up a position opposite while the other four talk. I catch the suited man’s identity soon enough. He’s the Moot’s Head of Security, Simeon Barr, and he’s been speaking with Luka.
‘He’s agreed,’ Barr confirms, in his clipped South African accent. ‘Says he wants it gone. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone with it ever again, even accidentally.’
‘It sends a powerful message,’ says Obermann. ‘It’ll show how abhorrent he finds the idea of magical harm and magic in general. I’d like to see the prosecution sustain their portrait of a power-mad young witch in that light. And in theunlikely event he’s found guilty, the fact he has already voluntarily undergone a significant part of any penalty could mean he’s considered to have paid his dues. He might avoid any custodial sentence at all.’
‘Excellent,’ says Sandra. ‘This is what I’ve hoped for – that Luka would come to his senses both about his conduct in this trial, and the dangers of magic. Magic recklessly used, that is.’ She directs a conciliatory nod toward Okoye and Barr. ‘Beatriz, I hope this will serve also as an apology from Luka to you, and perhaps help you view him with some sympathy. I’ve always believed him to be a victim, like you.’
So not quite an apology, then. An apology with expectations – that Iview Luka with sympathy. No one has exactly said it, but it’s clear I’m here to witness Luka lose his magic, and there’s a satisfaction in that. Our final crazed conversation after he tied me up showed me how much his magic means to him. If he’s sincerely giving it up as an act of penitence, the least I can do is respect his decision – right?
Barr and Theodorou go to fetch Luka. I take a chair from the table and sit in the furthest part of the room. My stomach is churning at the thought Luka is about to have his magic … removed? Destroyed? It’s the ultimate penalty for those who’ve committed the worst witchcrime, but I’ve no idea what it will look like. My brain scrambles for comparisons, from surgery to something like the administration of a lethal injection. Neither of those are something I want to watch. Will he be sedated? A part of Luka will die because of what he did to me. I’m not sure I want that on my conscience.
But then I remember that no, a woman is really, truly dead because of Luka Ortiz. And I feel again the raging fury, the icy terror, that possessed me in Bittershore woods as I laytrussed on the cold earth while Luka twirled a knife and talked madly of sacrifices and harvests. Whatever’s going to happen here, I’m seated for it.
When Luka’s brought in, and his mom thanks him forbeing a brave boyanddoing the right thing, his face twists and he darts back toward the door. It’s locked, and his fingers scrabble on the handle.
‘Luka, you don’t have to do this,’ says Okoye gently.
He doesn’t see what I see – Sandra shooting Barr a glance which sends him to his feet.
‘Luka, bru,’ Barr says, slinging an arm around his back from which Luka flinches away. ‘Didn’t we talk about it? Didn’t you say this was what you wanted?’
Luka’s shoulders briefly jump, like he got a static shock, and his agitation subsides. Barr squeezes his shoulders, and after a moment Luka nods.
