Chapter 10

"Was it raining out there?"

I climbed onto the top bunk and collapsed. Rolling onto my back, I adjusted my gray jumpsuit until it was moderately close to comfortable, missing my t-shirt and jeans like crazy. And my king-sized bed. They didn't design either these jumpsuits or jail cells with coziness in mind.

Duncan was leaning against the wall across from the bunk bed, staring at me. My hair was slick from the rain, which had caught his attention.

"A little bit," I answered, trying to sound like this was a totally normal conversation to have in a jail cell.

"Yeah?" Eyes bright, he stepped away from the wall—and closer to the bunk.

Please don't touch me, please don't touch me, please don't touch me. "Yup."

"What was it like?"

What was he looking for here? Some adjective-laden description of the water cascading from the heavens? Should I write a haiku?

I sighed. "I don't know, Duncan. It was raining from the sky. It was kind of wet."

His expression flattened at my dry response, and he leaned against the wall again. "Did you have fun on your field trip? I heard they have you out there hunting your best friend."

Word got around the MagiPol holding cells.

"Quentin's not my best friend," I replied. "Don't tell me you wouldn't jump at the chance to get out of here if they offered it to you."

The hydromage shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. I know I wouldn't find it so easy to cooperate with the MPD. That's for sure."

"You might," I said, "if it gave you the opportunity to escape."

He shook his head skeptically and disappeared onto the lower bunk, the metal frame shuddering. "And look how well that worked out for you."

I inhaled slowly. He had a point. It wasn't as though Lienna had strapped me to a prison gurney like Hannibal Lecter.

Still, my chances for escape hadn't been top-notch. That had never stopped me before—when I was nine years old, I jumped out of a fifth-story window and into a snowbank to avoid getting the belt from my douchebag of a foster father—but though I'd been watching for my chance with Lienna, it hadn't happened.

Part of that was an unwillingness to risk my entire future on anything less than a sure-fire opportunity, which Lienna wasn't likely to give me—not unless I was willing to seriously hurt her. For example, shoving her into a vat of flesh-eating potion.

But a guy had to draw the line somewhere. Besides, if I betrayed her like that, she'd probably return from the dead to smite me with her abjuration voodoo.

We were nowhere near catching Quentin yet. I'd have more opportunities before the looming date of my sentencing—or maybe I wouldn't need to book it. If I earned enough brownie points with Blythe, and if Lienna came through on her promise to help me…

I rubbed a hand over my face. Was I seriously considering putting my future in Lienna's and Blythe's law-abiding and judgmental hands? Was I actually thinking that facing my sentencing might be the better option?

What had gotten into me?

Rolling onto my stomach, I stuck my head over the edge of the bunk to peer at Duncan, who seemed to be swishing saliva around in his mouth.

"Did you get one of those sentencing summons?" I asked him.

"Yeah. June fourteenth."

"Same date as mine."

He gargled his spit, then swallowed it. "They're probably scheduling all the serious stuff on the same day, so the Judiciary Council can get through it all in one go."

All the serious stuff? They were lumping me in with this lunatic? Since when was interning at an unscrupulous law firm equivalent to killing seventeen human beings?

"How many charges do you have?" I asked.

"Seventeen. Obviously. You?"

"Sixty-one."

"That's a lot."

No. Shit. Sherlock.

"Do you have any idea how many years I'm looking at?" Not that I expected a real answer from a guy on the Ed Gein end of the sanity spectrum.

"Hard to say with these people."

"Well, how many do you think you'll get?" There's no way my total sentence would be greater than this water-working psychopath's.

"Oh, I won't be serving any time."

"Bullshit," I snapped, wondering how he could be that delusional. "You're getting life, man. No way you aren't."

"Are you that thick, kid?" he snorted. "I'm getting the death sentence."

His matter-of-fact tone dumbfounded me. "What? Are you sure?"

"Well, you can never be sure when it comes to the MPD, but yeah, I'm pretty sure. And they don't wait around, you know. When you get the death sentence, I think they give you, I dunno… two weeks? Then…" He drew a finger across his neck, adding a lovely sound effect with the gesture.

"Oh… I see."

I rolled back onto my mattress and stared unblinkingly at the ceiling. Sixty-one charges. Was that enough to earn me a death sentence? It seemed unlikely, especially with Lienna's tip about an unknown number of those charges being flimsier than cardboard in the rain.

But like Duncan had said, you could never be sure with the MPD.

All things considered, proceeding with my hearing and getting a short sentence was better than a fugitive's life—as much as a Harrison Ford/Tommy Lee Jones style game of cat and mouse sounded awesome—but if the worst-case scenario was execution, then no thanks. Option B was officially off the table.

Lienna's quietly pleased smile appeared in my mind's eye, but I shoved it away and tried to calculate how many hours I had until my sentencing. I gave up when I realized I didn't know what time it was. The number was less than three hundred, though. Less than three hundred hours to escape.

And if I failed to make a proper getaway, I might find myself following Duncan the Douser into the field out back, where the MPD would put us down like Old Yeller.

* * *

Controlling my breathing, I tightened my core. Forearms braced on the floor, my cot's thin blanket acting as a yoga mat, I held my body nearly vertical, legs in the air and knees bent, my feet curling down toward my head. Sweat ran down my spine to the nape of my neck as I drew in a slow breath, muscles burning.

"What's this one called?" Duncan asked in a bored tone, reclining on the bunk with his ankles crossed.

"Scorpion pose," I puffed as I let my spine bend more, coiling my torso in a tight backward arch. All sorts of muscles and joints pulled taut.

"Doesn't look that hard."

Yeah, sure. Duncan wouldn't even be able to hold himself up.

Despite my existential anxiety, I'd slept most of the night—battling telekinetics and escaping alchemical booby traps was exhausting. But I'd woken stiff and achy, and a long, boring morning spent lounging on my hard cot hadn't helped. My solution? A limb-stretching, muscle-busting yoga routine.

By the way, if anyone ever tells you yoga is just a bunch of sissy stretches for girls, go ahead and call them an idiot.

With a final breath, I uncurled my body back to vertical, then lowered my feet to the floor. Sitting back on my heels, I wiped my hand across my forehead. A trickle of sweat ran down to my jaw.

Duncan's beady little eyes tracked its journey and I shuddered.

Turning so he wasn't in my direct line of sight, I adjusted the knot of my jumpsuit's sleeves, ensuring it wouldn't impede my next pose. Since the MPD couldn't be bothered to supply either workout clothes or a spare jumpsuit, I'd pulled the top half down and tied it around my waist so it wouldn't soak up too much sweat, leaving my torso naked.

As I prepared to assume the eight-angle pose, someone rapped on our cell door. Well, if it wasn't Superbeard the Woodchopping Agent with the greatest name on the planet.

He jangled a pair of those goddamn magic handcuffs. "The captain wants to see you."

"Now?"

"Obviously now."

Torn between annoyance and the near-frantic hope that I was about to experience my next—and if all went well, my last—out-of-prison excursion, I got to my feet.

Duncan tossed a smirk my way. "Gonna go play with the pretty rookie again?"

"Or maybe Blythe has decided to chop me up into tiny pieces to use as vampire bait."

"I guess you'll find out."

Cool. Thanks.

Superbeard unlocked the cell and gestured me out into the hallway. I reached for the knot of fabric around my waist—but my skin was slick with perspiration and I didn't want to gross up my only garment. With no better option, I walked out as I was.

The agent glowered. "Dress properly."

"Dude, I was mid-workout. Give me a minute to cool off."

"Once I cuff you, you won't be able to put it on."

I shrugged.

Losing patience, he snapped the cuffs on and led me to the same old interrogation room. A moment later, I was uncomfortably seated on the same old chair, with the same old cuffs chained to the same old table. The door slammed behind my escort.

I leaned against the chair, the metal pressing against my bare back. Yikes, cold.

The door flew open again almost immediately. Lienna breezed in with purpose, spotted me, and lurched to a halt with her jaw hanging open. Marching in the rookie's wake, Blythe bumped into her back.

"Agent Shen! Would you—" Blythe spotted me. "Morris!"

"Yes?" I inquired innocently.

"Why aren't you dressed?"

"I was busy when Agent Wood Chipper came calling."

Lienna's cheeks flushed. Catching her eye, I arched my eyebrows—and her blush deepened.

"Exercising," I added as I pulled my hands up, chains clanking, and awkwardly pushed a few strands of damp hair off my forehead. "But if I had any clue when to expect our special dates, I could primp up nice and proper for you ladies."

Blythe stomped to the table, carrying an armload of files with a side of extra-spicy mean sauce. She dropped the stack on the table with a loud thump, and several folders slid off the pile and onto the floor.

"You dropped a couple of the—" I began helpfully.

"Put your shirt on."

"It's not a shirt. It's a jumpsuit. And sure." I jangled my cuffs pointedly.

She glanced from my wrists to my torso, then sank into the seat across from me, kicking a folder in the process.

I tried again. "You dropped—"

"I don't want to be here," she snapped. "I want you to be very aware of that. Do you understand me, Mr. Morris?"

"I think so," I replied, even though I didn't. I mean, I know I'm not The Rock, but my pecs couldn't be that offensive. "Where would you rather be?"

"Interviewing your cohorts has proven exceedingly frustrating. So, despite wanting to be anywhere else, I am here so you can answer my questions."

"Ah. You went through Rigel's address book."

She shoved her hand into the stack of files on the table, pulled out the book, and tossed it at me. Thanks to my cuffed wrists, I missed the catch and it smacked against my bare chest.

Lienna made a muffled, rather strange sound in the back of her throat. I glanced at her—standing beside the closed door with her mouth pressed into an intense scowl, as though scowling would cancel out her blush—then fished the book off my lap.

"Look at the entry for Hilda Mills," Blythe ordered.

I flipped through the alphabetically organized names until I got to the ‘M' section: Hilda Mills, mentalist. There was a phone number and email address, and in the margin beside her name, Rigel had scrawled the letters "BS."

I smirked. Mills was a new, freshly minted lawyer known for her skillful bullshitting.

"BS," Blythe said. "Blue Smoke."

Oh. Right. I nodded as though that was absolutely what I'd been thinking. "I see that."

"We found nine names with the same annotation. One is Quentin, and we have five others in custody—the two telekinetics who attacked you and Agent Shen yesterday, and three who were arrested with the fall of the guild."

"Which three?" I asked. Who had Rigel brought into his top-secret clubhouse meetings? Geoff and Jeff didn't set the bar high for inclusion and I wanted to know who else had gotten an invitation instead of me.

"It doesn't matter. They aren't talking."

"I thought you had ways to make captives talk."

The captain's eyes flared, but before she could threaten me with a classic abuse of power, Lienna cleared her throat.

"We need to locate the remaining three." She dared to step closer to my unclothed man muscles. "If Quentin's trying to do something related to Blue Smoke, we have to assume he'll contact them."

"And you want me to give them to you."

Blythe pulled three folders out of the stack and laid them in front of me one by one. "Collin Sharpe. Nazario Valdez. Maggie Cook."

I knew all three but didn't let on. The ball was in my court and I needed to decide what shot to play.

Quentin had told me Rigel kept members of Blue Smoke in the dark about who their coconspirators were, but if my empathic friend had made it to the underground lair before us and gone through Rigel's stuff, he probably knew about Collin, Nazario, and Maggie.

So, which one would he track down first? Impossible to guess without knowing what he was trying to accomplish. He might even have doubts about his plans, based on his desire to visit the Kitsilano Klairvoyant. Or he'd had doubts. Jenkins had suggested Quentin's reading was a positive one.

What was the line Jenkins had revealed? Something disparaging about women and… cigar smoke, wasn't it?

I looked up at Lienna. "Do you have your phone on you?"

Her stare jerked up to my face, and my eyebrows rose by the same margin. Just where had she been looking?

"Why?" she asked with another throat clearing.

"Look up that poem from Quentin's diviner reading. It was by the guy who wrote The Jungle Book."

As she pulled out her cell phone, Blythe scowled. "What's the point of this? I'm not centering my investigation around a diviner's reading."

"Even if you don't believe in his reading, Quentin does."

"Listen to this," Lienna said, eyes glued to her phone. "‘A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke; and a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.'"

Holy shit, that was even better than I'd thought. I tapped the folder with Maggie Cook's name on it. "I think we know who Quentin is looking for."

Blythe swept the other two folders back into the pile and opened the remaining one. "Maggie Cook. Arcana. Thirty-five years old. Smoke and Mirrors guild."

Lienna frowned. "She's not a KCQ member?"

"No, which is why she escaped our original roundup."

Escaped?Was she a criminal by default, just because her name was in a dead man's address book?

"She isn't a rogue," I muttered. "She's a good person."

"And you're a preeminent judge of what makes a person good?" Blythe scoffed. "The sixty-one charges against you suggest otherwise."

Lienna shifted her feet. "Captain Blythe, I told you he saved my life yesterday."

She'd actually told the steely precinct captain how her prisoner-assistant had saved her? I'd figured that'd be an embarrassing mishap she'd rather leave out of her report. And also, I hadn't saved her. She'd already nullified the potion's deadly properties by the time I made my shameful act of heroism.

Blythe's lips thinned. "I'll be reviewing that incident in further detail. And you'd do well to remember that manipulation is second nature to his kind."

Stiffening, Lienna crossed her arms. "I don't think Kit is cut from the same cloth as the other KCQ rogues. In light of their corrupting influence over his entry into the mythic community, his charges should be reviewed and—"

"Enough." Blythe slapped Maggie Cook's folder down on the table. "I'll decide if Mr. Morris earns leniency. Your job is to apprehend Quentin Bianchi."

Lienna's jaw tightened. Her shoulders shifted as she inhaled deeply, then she turned to me. "What can you tell us about Maggie? We sent agents to her home, workplace, and guild, but no one can find her."

I swallowed back a flippant retort and answered seriously—or as serious as I ever got, "She probably caught a whiff of those agents and decided to lie low."

"Clearly the behavior of an innocent woman," Blythe observed. "If she didn't do anything wrong, she has no reason to hide."

"Oh yeah, no reason at all, even though you'd arrest her based on basically nothing." I stuffed down my rising temper. "But Maggie's also on the paranoid side, so she wouldn't sit around after what happened to Rigel."

"What's her relationship with Rigel?" Blythe asked.

"Freelancer. Rigel hired a lot of freelancers."

"Can you put us in touch with her?"

"It won't be that easy."

"Why not?"

"Like I said, she's paranoid. She won't willingly talk to scary MPD agents."

"I suppose you have a better idea." Lienna hadn't rolled her eyes during this interrogation yet, but I could tell she was prepared to. The eye roll was loaded, like a bullet in the chamber of a gun, ready to be fired.

"Sure do, but it'll only work if you pocket your abjuration magic for a few minutes and let me use my magic."

She pulled the trigger on that eye roll. It was a doozy. Her pupils completely disappeared behind her eyelids.

I kept my expression vaguely amused, revealing none of my tension. I'd spent the night and most of my day ruminating on the revelation that execution could become an unavoidable stop on my sentencing journey. My conclusion? I could no longer wait for an opportunity to escape.

It was time to make that opportunity happen.

Blythe snorted with derision almost on par with Lienna's. "What makes you think I'd ever allow that?"

Bracing my elbows on the table, I propped my chin on my hands and grinned. Oh, she would. Once I explained my "plan," she wouldn't be able to resist giving her permission.

What I wasn't going to tell the captain, however, was that I didn't intend to allow the MPD to arrest Maggie Cook any more than I intended to ever set foot in this precinct again.