I glanced at her, uncertain. “If you don’t think she did it, then how come she’s being charged? You’re advisor to the Consul. Can’t you just tell the Magi Senate she’s innocent and get her off?”
“It’s not that easy, I’m afraid.”
“Why not?”
Lady Elaine exhaled, her thin nostrils moving in and out. “Because I have no proof.”
I scowled, digging the pads of my fingertips into the tabletop. “Since when does that matter among magickind?”
“Since—” She broke off as the door swung open.
Detective Valentine stepped inside. “Hello again, Dusty.” Once more, he was carrying a dark green folder tucked beneath his arm.
I sat up from my slouched position, glaring. “I can’t believe you’re investigating my mother.”
“Neither can I.” He shut the door behind him, and then sat down directly across from me, placing the folder on the table between us. He acknowledged Lady Elaine with a slight bow of his head, but otherwise his attention remained focused on me. “And before you ask,” he continued. “I did not know last night that we would be arresting her today. That would’ve been bad form not to give you warning.”
“No kidding,” I said, but I wasn’t sure I believed him. That was an awfully quick turnaround. “So what happened in the last fifteen hours to make you think my mom could do something so terrible as commit murder?”
Valentine cocked an eyebrow, the gesture borderline mocking. “You mean so terrible as executing the man who kidnapped her only daughter, tortured her, and then left her to die?”
My stomach gave a hard dip, the sensation like going over a hill too quickly in a car. Not only did they have some kind of “evidence” as Lady Elaine indicated, but they also had motive. A pretty good one, I realized, my mind spinning. Titus had indeed done those awful things to me. When he was being murdered, I was in a coma, the doctors, healers, and everyone else uncertain if I would ever recover from the injuries I’d sustained preventing the island from sinking.
All at once, I was there again, racing across Lyonshold, fire and debris raining down around me from the burning fissure ahead, a deep hole rent through the island by a spell designed to sink it. With Bellanax in my hand, with Bellanax in control, I’d jumped headfirst into the last of those fissures, my body falling into the flames. Bellanax had kept me from being burned alive, but it couldn’t protect me from all the magic around us that the sword was absorbing into itself to keep the spell from reaching completion. It was so much magic it should’ve killed me. It almost did.
Mom must’ve thought it had, I realized, picturing it easily. My mother, so strong, and fierce, and stubborn. I knew she would do anything to keep me safe, but would she also go to any length to avenge my death?
I pushed the thought away, afraid the answer would bite me like a poisonous snake.
Staring over at Valentine, I hardened my resolve. “My mother is innocent.”
Valentine pursed his lips. “You are entitled to your opinion. But it has no bearing on why you are here. I simply want to review the events leading up to the attack on Lyonshold.” He idly drummed his fingers against the table. “Given the trauma you sustained, you were never asked to provide an official statement. It was an understandable oversight, but it now must be corrected.”
“What about Eli and Selene? They were there, too. So was Paul Kirkwood.”
“Yes, I know.” Valentine opened the folder, revealing a stack of papers inside. The top one bore the title The Lyonshold Incident. A picture of the island, post attack, filled most of it. “We will be speaking to all of them, in time. But your statement is the most relevant. Now, if you’d like to start at the beginning, when you first realized that Titus Kirkwood was planning the attack.”
I shook my head. “No deal. First I want to know why you think my mom killed him. Then I’ll talk.”
Beside me, Lady Elaine made a noise. It might’ve been shock, but it sounded more like amusement. Or perhaps encouragement. Either way, I kept my gaze focused on Valentine. Around my wrist Bellanax heated into life.
“Excuse me?” Valentine sat up straighter. “Are you saying I have to bargain for your statement?”
“Yep. Either tell me what I want to know or I plead the fifth.”
Valentine cleared his throat. “We are magickind. There is no fifth.”
I tapped my foot on the floor. The sharp rap of my boot against the tile would’ve been a lot more effective if not for the rhythmic creak, creak, creak of the camera still swaying along to the song.
“All right,” I said, unable to take the silence any longer. “If you don’t tell me what I want to know, then you’re going to have to force me to talk.” With magic at their beck and call, they could do it easily, but I had a feeling that Valentine would want to keep things smooth, especially since I was a minor. At least, I was hoping he did.
With perfect seriousness, Lady Elaine said, “I would be careful here, Detective. She is Moira’s daughter, after all.”
“So I’m gathering.” Valentine rubbed his thumb over his bottom lip. “Very well. I don’t see how a little information will cause any harm.”
You don’t know the Dream Team, buddy. Sometimes being underestimated was the most powerful weapon of all.
“There are three reasons why I am certain your mother is guilty,” Valentine continued. “Number one, she had means and motive to commit the crime. The motive, as I already made clear, was you. For means, we need to look no further than the fact that she is a Nightmare.”
I bit my lower lip, my heartbeat quickening. For a second, I thought he was referring to the one way of killing only a Nightmare could do—draining a person of all the fictus they possessed. Only, from what I understood, this didn’t kill the person in a traditional sense, but left them soulless, neither living nor dead, just … done. But that couldn’t be what had happened to Titus. I would’ve heard about it before now.
Carefully, I said, “How do you mean?”
“The prison cell Titus Kirkwood was being held in was a magically restricted ward. All magic is blocked using a spell very similar to The Will.” Valentine paused for effect. “And as I know you are aware, The Will spell was completely foolproof against all magical beings except for—”
“Nightmares,” I finished for him. It was true, and my mother had loads of experience working magic inside such barriers. Our magic was fueled by fictus, the very stuff of imagination, and imagination could not be controlled or predicted by any force, even a magical one. Acid began to burn its way up my throat, and I swallowed it down. “My mother isn’t the only Nightmare in existence.”
“True, but of all the known Nightmares in the area, she is the only one with no alibi.”
I frowned at the way he said “all of the known,” as if there were lots of Nightmares running around our little town of Chickery, Ohio. But that just wasn’t true. There were only three—me, my mother, and Bethany Grey. I had been in a coma, and Bethany was locked up in a prison cell right here at the Rush. She’d been here for months prior to the attack on Lyonshold. She was a known Marrow supporter, serving out her time for crimes committed aiding Marrow in his quest to break The Will spell. In both our cases, there was no need for Valentine to confirm an alibi. So who was he talking about? I started to ask him, but he didn’t give me a chance.
“However,” Valentine said, the condescension in his voice whisper-light, but unmistakably present, “I suppose it’s possible that some unknown Nightmare came in from out of town just for the sole purpose of breaking into the magically secured facility and murdering Titus Kirkwood.”
I bit down hard on my tongue, fighting back an angry reply. My insides began to seethe, and Bellanax was so hot around my wrist I thought my skin might scald. But I’d caught the warning in Lady Elaine’s quick glance. I needed to do what I could to help my mother, and right now, that meant information and not losing my temper. I had to learn everything I could. The Dream Team would need it fo
r our own investigation. Finding the man who freed Marrow was important, no doubt, but freeing my mother was even more so.
With applause-worthy civility, I said, “What are the other two reasons you think my mother is guilty?”
If Valentine was surprised by my self-control, his expression didn’t show it. He continued on, not missing a beat. “We found DNA evidence linking your mother to the crime scene.”
I blinked, a weird sense of déjà vu coming over me. Or more like temporal displacement. I felt as if I’d been transported from the magickind police station into a TV police procedural. Words like “DNA evidence” didn’t belong here where the emphasis was always on the magical.
Valentine tilted his head. “You do know what I mean by DNA evidence, yes?”
My shock snapped back to anger, and I placed my hand over the silver band on my wrist and began to twist it. “Of course I do. But since when does magickind do things the ordinary way when it comes to police work?”
“Actually, magickind has been mimicking ordinary procedures for years,” said Valentine with a flash of teeth. “It’s just we very rarely find any at our crime scenes. Most of our bad guys kill people in ways that do not leave physical evidence behind.”
“They kill with magic,” I murmured, thinking aloud. As horrible as it sounded, I knew that was how my mother would kill, too. Of course, she would. She was a long way from stupid. A little reckless from time to time, but not stupid. And sneaking into the magickind police station to kill a prisoner? That would’ve taken planning and caution, not some rash in and out where she left behind a bunch of hair and fingerprints, or whatever it was they’d supposedly collected.
I tapped my thumb against the table. “Are you sure you even did it right? I mean, no offense, but magickind aren’t exactly awesome at ordinary science.”
Valentine snorted. “No argument about that. Oh, don’t look so surprised. Regardless of what you might think, I’m not out to get your mother.”
You sure about that? He could be a Marrow supporter. There was no way to tell.
“I just want to see the guilty brought to justice.” Valentine shrugged. “That said, the evidence was tested and verified by the FBI lab in Cleveland. I have a friend in the agency I often call upon for help in these matters.”
He sounded so convincing, so very much like the stoic lead actor of a police procedural that at first I believed him completely—the news crashing down on me like a landslide. But something didn’t fit.
I sat up straighter. “Why would an FBI lab have my mom’s DNA on file for you to get a match to what you found in Titus’s cell? She’s never once been in trouble with the ordinary law.” I started to smile, certain I had him there.
Valentine sighed, his look one of pity, like I was some dumb kid, a child playing at a grown-up. “Because I sent them a sample of her DNA to compare it to.”
“Why would—” I broke off, the truth smacking me in the face. A haze seemed to smear the edges of my vision. “Oh, I see. You already thought she was guilty and so you preemptively had them do an analysis on hers.”
Valentine nodded, his lips pressed together in a gesture of regret.
I wasn’t buying it. This guy had suspected my mother all along, including last night when he stopped by to enlist my help in finding the Death’s Heart. And why did he suspect her? Because she was a Nightmare. I sat back in my chair, folding my arms over my chest. I felt Bellanax’s heat through my shirt where the silver band pressed against my side.
Taking a deep breath, I said, “There’s no way that’s admissible. It’s got to be racial profiling or entrapment or something. I don’t know for sure, but I’m going to find out.”
This time it was Lady Elaine who sighed, feeling sorry for me—although at least hers was genuine. “That’s not how the magickind justice system works, Dusty. We have always relied on ‘racial profiling’ as you call it. With the kinds as different as they are, it’s an effective tool.”
I gritted my teeth—I had to remember she was on my side in this. “Okay, I get that it can be a good tool for finding the guilty, but it shouldn’t be the only tool. Maybe there’s some other reason why my mom’s DNA was there. And maybe because you’ve already decided she’s guilty, you’re overlooking the other possibilities.”
“Like what?” Valentine said, and I could tell by the glint in his eye that he was just humoring me.
“I don’t know, but I can’t believe that only a Nightmare could’ve pulled it off. I know we’re awesome and all, but there has to be other magickind out there capable of getting into that ward to kill him.” Not that I knew of any. But the Dream Team would figure it out. I just needed to get my hands on the case file. I glanced down at the folder still lying open on the desk.
Valentine tented his fingers below his chin. “Perhaps you might be right about other ways, but there is the third reason left to consider.”
I exhaled, steeling myself for the next blow. “What is it?”
“I have witnessed your mother’s guilt on that matter.”
“She confessed?” I couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t possible. Even if my mother was guilty, she would never just admit to it. Not unless she knew she could get away with it.
“Not exactly,” Valentine said. “When I say I’ve witnessed her guilt, I mean that I have felt it, fed on it, if you like that word better. And by fed, I mean in the same way that you feed on Eli Booker.”
The room spun around me again. “What are you talking about?”
“Detective Valentine,” Lady Elaine said, her voice working like a lighthouse beacon, giving my capsized brain a target to focus on, “is a Crimen demon. A guilt demon.”
“Correct.” A prim little smile came and went on Valentine’s face. “My kind feeds on guilt. When I brought your mother in to get her alibi for the night Titus died, her guilt was undeniable.”
According to you and you only. My hands clenched into fists. I wanted to hit something. It was so unfair, so much room for deception. “How do you know her guilt is related to the murder? She could be feeling guilty for all sorts of reasons. It doesn’t mean crap without a confession.”
“That might be true if it weren’t for everything else against her.” Valentine waved a hand through the air. “But it doesn’t matter. It’s in the court’s hands now.”
I sucked in a breath, a helpless feeling coming over me. But no, it wasn’t hopeless—I just had to find out who really killed Titus. Clinging to this goal, I said, “I want to talk to my mom.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible at the moment.” Valentine said. “But I’m sure we can arrange it in a few days.”
“How badly hurt is she?” The image of how I’d seen her last flashed through my mind.
“She’s fine,” Lady Elaine said. “She’s just under a sleeping spell for now.”
I gaped. “Why?”
Valentine offered me a diplomatic smile. “It’s just a precaution until we can get a cell constructed to hold her. It’s not easy to contain a Nightmare, since the normal anti-magic spells are so ineffective.”
I would’ve been reassured by the difficulty if the thought of my mother lying unconscious somewhere nearby wasn’t so upsetting. “What do you mean construct? You’ve got Bethany Grey here somewhere, don’t you? Why can’t she just go in the same kind of cell?”
The two adults in a room exchanged a look, and I could almost hear the silent question pass between them—should you tell her or should I?
In the end, Lady Elaine lost the coin toss. “The cell we were using to hold Bethany Grey has been … dismantled. Recently.”
“Dismantled? Then where are you keeping Bethany now?”
Valentine let out an exaggerated sigh. “This isn’t common knowledge yet, and as such it falls under the nondisclosure agreement you signed. But Bethany Grey has been abducted.”
“She’s gone?” Nobody important, I thought, recalling Sheriff Brackenberry’s words. I could see his reasoning for saying it now
, given Bethany Grey was a criminal. Only … “How do you know she didn’t just escape? There are still Marrow supporters out there.”
“I had a vision of her kidnapping,” Lady Elaine said, her expression somber. “But not in time to stop it.”
As horrible as this was to hear, a new idea occurred to me, one that sent hope ballooning up inside my chest. “Wait a second. Was Bethany Grey being held in the same magically restricted ward as Titus Kirkwood?”
Valentine nodded.
I nearly jumped to my feet in excitement. “Then that proves someone else besides my mother has the ability to break into that ward!”
Blank stares greeted my declaration, from both Valentine and Lady Elaine.
“What?” I said, exasperated. “It’s so obvious.”
“No, Dusty,” Valentine said, offering me a sad shake of his head. “It’s not. Bethany’s disappearance, the Death’s Heart. It’s all happened since you returned from your trip. Your mother could’ve easily done it. Right now she’s our biggest suspect.”
I laughed, feeling on the verge of hysteria. “Wow, my mom’s a criminal mastermind, isn’t she? I mean, why not blame everything on her. Maybe she even stole a time machine and went back to the sixties just to kill Kennedy.”
“Is it really so hard to believe?” Valentine said, his tone annoyingly reasonable. “Bethany and Moira share a long and well-documented history of mutual animosity.”
I pressed my lips together, wishing I could deny it. But Bethany and Moira did hate each other. Bethany had even tried to kill her.
Still, I refused to accept anything until I had more proof. “I know she didn’t do any of this.”
“The judge and jury will determine that,” said Valentine.
Swallowing, I asked, “When is the trial?”
“It’s set to start at the end of October,” Lady Elaine said.
Blood rushed in my ears. “What if she’s found guilty?”
“We really shouldn’t speculate—” Lady Elaine began.
Valentine cut her off. “If found guilty, she will most certainly be executed.”
The Nightmare Charade Page 8