“Come on, Xandra. You don’t want to do this the hard way, do you?” Larry gestures to the sofa. “Have a seat.”
“It feels like we’re already doing this the hard way.”
John grins and it’s a terrifying sight. “Only because you haven’t seen how much harder it can get.”
I sit.
“Good girl. Your mother would be proud. Now, tell me what you know about what happened to Viktor Alride.”
I think about lying, about trying to bluff my way out of this. But the fact of the matter is, we didn’t leave any evidence of our presence behind. So if they know I was in Alride’s office last night, they know it. Denying it won’t do anyone any good.
“I don’t know much. Only that he died badly.”
“Badly? That’s one way of saying he was drawn and quartered, isn’t it?” John leans forward, and suddenly there’s a knife in his hand. He doesn’t bring it anywhere near me, but its presence is threatening enough.
I meet his eyes. “Yes.”
“Now, Councilor Alride wasn’t the nicest guy I’ve ever worked for,” he continues, “but he wasn’t a bad sort, either. And the number of people he might have pissed off enough to do something like what was done to him? It’s small. Very small.”
“Good for him.” I can’t take my eyes off the knife. He’s tossing it into the air a little, turning it end over end so that his fingers grab onto the handle, then the tip of the blade, then the handle again.
“Maybe. But not so good for you, as you and your boyfriend definitely make the short list.”
“Then it must be a pretty long short list.”
“That’s the thing. It really isn’t.” He grabs the knife by the handle, flicks a finger over the tip of the blade. I watch, horrified, as a drop of blood drips from his fingertip onto my hand. I’m dying to wipe it off, but I don’t want to take the chance of setting him off so that he uses that knife on me.
“I didn’t kill him.”
“No. Now why should I believe that, considering your history with Councilor Alride?”
“We don’t have a history. He knows my parents, obviously, and I’ve met him a few times, but that’s it.”
The knife is against my throat in the space of one breath to the next. “Don’t play stupid, Xandra. We both know what the Council did to you. The only question is what do you plan on doing to the Council?”
I lean backward, straining away from the knife, but John follows me with it. He even lets me feel the bite of it against my skin, followed by the warm dribble of something down my throat.
“Nothing. I swear.” He presses harder. I feel a sharp pain followed by the sensation of more blood leaking down my neck.
“Why were you here last night?”
I don’t know what or how much to say. But I don’t have anything to hide. Not about this. “I felt him die,” I finally say after a long silence.
“Because of your connection to the warlock?” Larry demands, getting in on the inquisition for the first time.
“Because of my connection to Alride. It’s what I do, how my magic works.”
“And how about Chumomisto’s magic? How does that work?”
“I don’t know.”
The knife digs deeper and I cry out, despite my resolution to be stoic. “You can cut me all you want, but it’s not going to make me change my answer. I don’t know how Declan does what he does. And I don’t know who killed Viktor Alride.”
“So it looks like we’re back to the beginning then. What do you know?”
My throat stings from the little—and not so little—cuts he’s inflicted on me while my body aches from how rigidly I’m holding it. Even worse is the sudden knowledge that no matter what I say, this isn’t going to end well for me.
When I agreed to come with them, I figured Declan would find me pretty easily. And even if he didn’t, I didn’t actually think they would harm me. Not when my parents sit on the most powerful Hekan throne in the world.
But somewhere along the line I miscalculated—either about how afraid the ACW members are of this unknown killer and how desperate they are to apprehend him or about their feelings for my parents. For all I know, it could be both.
I’ve spent the last week and a half scrambling, trying to keep my parents from figuring out exactly what went down here with Kyle and the Council. I wanted to protect them, to keep my coven and my family out of war. But maybe all I did was make them appear weak, like they couldn’t mount a challenge against the ACW even after their youngest daughter was tortured and nearly killed.