From the main portion of the house below I heard the front doorbel ring. I had to go, but . . . I looked up at him, waiting for an answer.
“I wanted to contact you,” he said, stepping forward, and I wasn’t sure if his words meant he had wanted to contact me during the month he was missing, or if he was here because he wanted to contact me. He reached out like he was going to place his hands on my hips.
I skittered sideways, out of his path.
“Oh, no.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “You do not get to disappear for a month, say you meant to contact me, and then try to pick up right back where we were. It doesn’t and then try to pick up right back where we were. It doesn’t work that way.”
His shoulders sagged as he stepped back. Then a half smile made the edge of his lips crook. “You’re mad at me.”
“And that’s amusing because?”
The half smile spread into a lopsided grin, and he stood up straighter. “You wouldn’t be mad if you didn’t care. I’m on to you, Alexis.”
Oh, that insufferable, arrogant—
Voices drifted up from the floor below. “I have to go,” I said, turning my back on him as I pul ed the door open.
I hesitated once I stepped into the stairwel and glanced back at him. I wanted to ask if he’d be there when I returned, but I didn’t. Without saying good-bye, I pul ed the door closed behind me and escaped the rest of our awkward conversation to have a much easier one. It was probably a bad sign that I considered it easier to be questioned by the police.
The responding officers weren’t happy that we’d waited nearly an hour to cal the authorities or that we’d al dressed and started cleaning up the crime scene. Oh, wel .
The anti–black magic unit took the lead in processing the scene. The room was photographed, the charmed disks were gathered and each sealed individual y in a magicaldampening bag, and even the raven was caged and taken away. After we’d given the lead detective, a weary-looking witch by the name of Tepps, our statements
—al of which were edited slightly to leave out Falin and the soul col ectors—Tamara drove Hol y to the hospital. Caleb refused to go, and nothing in the ABMU’s arsenal detected dark magic on Caleb, so he couldn’t be committed against his wil .
“We’ve bagged thirty-three disks. If there was one per construct, you two were lucky to get out with just a couple of construct, you two were lucky to get out with just a couple of scratches,” Detective Tepps said as he watched his people work.
I nodded. “Yes, sir.” We were. Though there’d been six of us, not two. “Have you deciphered any of the spel s on the disk from the attack in the Quarter?”
Detective Tepps looked me up and down, as if assessing why I wanted to know—and if wanting to know made me a suspect. He had a day’s worth of stubble on his chin and a line around his head that made me suspect he’d worn a hat earlier in the night.
“We’ve made some progress,” he said, but didn’t offer to elaborate. One of the techs cal ed his name and he excused himself.
I hovered on the outskirts of the investigation, hoping to pick up something useful for my own case. I didn’t. This wasn’t a major crime—there was no body, little damage, and nothing had been stolen. The cops tagged and bagged and then moved on. They were wrapping up when the FIB, and Agent Nori in particular, appeared on the scene.
“So, another construct attack?” she asked as she gave the bagged evidence a cursory glance.
“We have a live specimen this time,” Tepps told her, and she sniffed as if that fact wasn’t terribly interesting.
“Ms. Craft,” she said to me as she invited herself into Caleb’s house. She looked around and when her eyes landed on Caleb himself, a sharp, and not the least bit kind, smile cut across her face. If the FIB has been gathering independents to be questioned, have I endangered Caleb? We weren’t anywhere near the floodplain, but I wasn’t sure how wide a net had been cast.
“You probably need my statement,” I said, stepping into Nori’s personal bubble.
She glanced at me, managing to look down her nose despite my superior height. “I imagine you’ve already given your statement. But I have some questions. For both of you.” She put emphasis on the last statement.
you.” She put emphasis on the last statement.
“Agent Nori,” a male, and very familiar voice said behind us.The self-satisfied smile fled from Nori’s face, and she turned, her head snapping up and her shoulders back as she stood straighter. “Sir, I hadn’t heard you were back in the city.”
“Should I state the obvious, Agent?” Falin asked as he stepped through the door. The front door, not the inner door from my room, as if he were just now arriving on the scene.
“I’l question them,” he said, nodding toward Caleb and me.