And now here she is, sitting across from me in handcuffs.
Jonah and I had a brief discussion with the Guard before going to the Council this week. We told them everything that Sophie Greenfield did in the Battle of Karnach. We offered up both our memories; once viewed, the consensus was unanimous. Conspiring with the Elders and committing murder against a Magical has the Council deeming Sophie a traitor.
I’m here to let her know what her punishment is.
She scoffs at me, her lips twisting in displeasure as she defiantly looks me up and down, and I can’t help but be awed over how, even now, even here, her scorn for me is thick and tangible as always.
“Why did you do it?”
She simply stares at me in return.
I try another question. “How did your relationship with Enlilkian happen?”
I already know, though. The Guard forcibly surged with her and took her memories. From what they could deduce, Enlilkian, via Jens, had conducted intensive searches for me after I’d run to Alaska. Somehow, he’d traced my, for lack of a better word, scent early on back to Jonah and subsequently Kellan. When he discovered Sophie’s obsession with Kellan, he viewed her as the perfect spy that could blend easily into Annar’s life without causing suspicion. He’d promised her the man she thought she loved if she could report my comings and goings to the Elders, even though chances are, he never would have come through. So all those times she stood outside my building and gazed up were her desperate, brainwashed attempts to hold onto someone who never loved her.
When Zthane told me this story, I didn’t even know what to do with it. It felt like one of those absurd stories about scorned women, only ... Sophie was, I suppose, scorned. According to one of the Council’s Emotionals who evaluated her (not Jonah, because they said it was a conflict of interest), even prior to Enlilkian, Sophie had a healthy dose of narcissism and has been prone to unhealthy attachments to people from early childhood. After, though, she suffered a break with reality. Mentally, she was a sick girl whose mind and emotions were so heavily warped and hidden over months of abuse that it took days to break through what Enlilkian had done. The first Creator had mentally tortured her with Emotionals his people found and used, often forcing his victims to build her back up and believe she needed the Elders to get what she wanted. They lived in her apartment, using it as a base in Annar. All that love she thought she felt for Kellan was really nothing more than a manifestation of Enlilkian’s wishes, masked behind shields and emotional distortions so thick that Jonah and Kellan never saw her exactly for what she was for nearly a year.
And it’s hard to hate somebody who is sick, even one who has done such awful, terrible things, and even as I have a hard time forgiving her for what she did to Mac Lightningriver. She’d dated him once, they were friends, and yet thanks to Enlilkian, she’d murdered him all too easily because she believed a madman’s absurd promises of forever with somebody who could and never would love her.
“Did you know Mac’s wife is pregnant?” I ask when she stonewalls at all my questions. “Did you know that they’d gotten married just recently?”
She looks down at her chipped nails. “He didn’t love her.”
No, I think, that much is true. Mac told me more than once that his was an arranged marriage, and it ate at his soul. But he’d gone ahead and married Isadorna anyway, because it’d been expected of him. And now he’s dead and his wife that he barely ever talked to, let alone liked, is carrying his baby.
“Raul Mesaverde died, too.” Oh, it hurts so much to say this, especially as it comes on the heels of his funeral. “As did several other people. Actually, a lot of people died, Sophie. Too many people.”
She flinches, just a little. Just enough to give me hope that Enlilkian hasn’t corrupted her fully.
“I’m here to tell you what the Council has decided.” I take a breath. Lay my hands flat on the table in front of her. “I will strip you of your craft, Sophie. You will no longer be a Muse after I leave you today. And then your memory will be blocked and you’ll be banished to the Human plane within the next few weeks.”
She still doesn’t say anything. Just continues to inspect her nails like she’s debating whether or not to get a manicure.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her.
She blinks in surprise before narrowing her eyes.
“I truly hope that you use this as what it is.”
“And what’s that?” she scoffs.
“A second chance.”
It amazes me that, even now, she still regards me as a bug worth squishing.