The Sorcerer Heir (Heir Chronicles)

by Cinda Williams Chima

  Jonah’s phone pinged again. He scanned the screen. Text from Gabriel. Jonah. Call me right now. Urgent.

  “Gabriel’s on the case,” Jonah said. “Won’t be long now.”

  Two more texts from Gabriel, and then his phone rang. Jonah allowed voice mail to pick it up.

  Kenzie’s eyes narrowed at some activity on the screen. “Gabriel’s trying to log into the system right now, but he’s off-campus. I’ve put a few roadblocks in his way.”

  Finally, Kenzie sat back. “We’re good. I can pretty it up later, but this should do the job. Gabriel’s in, but he’s seeing what we want him to see.” Using both hands to steady the bottle, he took a long swallow of juice. “So. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know what’s going on. I passed out and woke up covered in blood.” When Kenzie raised his eyebrows, Jonah added, hastily, “It wasn’t mine.”

  “Where did this happen?”

  “Outside McCauley’s house in Trinity. I believe at least three people are dead. There may be more.” Jonah quickly explained what happened.

  “It sounds to me like somebody framed you,” Kenzie murmured.

  Jonah hesitated. “I had a—a confrontation with Rowan DeVries earlier tonight. Out on the grounds. So there’s a chance he’s involved somehow, though it’s hard to imagine he would murder his own kind in order to get back at me.”

  “Don’t wizards do that a lot?” Kenzie said. “Murder each other, I mean?”

  Just then, Kenzie’s cell phone rang. The Kinlock brothers looked at each other. Kenzie said, “Harry, answer the phone. Use speakerphone.”

  Gabriel’s voice came through the speaker, husky and strained. “Kenzie? Is that you?”

  “Hi, Gabriel,” Kenzie said, still watching Jonah. “ ’Sup?”

  “Tell me—have you seen Jonah tonight?”

  “Sure,” Kenzie said. “He’s right here. Want to speak with him?”

  Dead silence. Then Gabriel sucked in a quick breath and said, “Yes. Put him on.”

  “Hey, Gabriel,” Jonah said in a thready, weak voice. “Did Natalie call you?”

  “Natalie? Why would she call me?” Gabriel snapped.

  “I think I caught some kind of virus,” Jonah said. “I couldn’t stay for the second set at McCauley’s. How’d it go?”

  “You left?” Gabriel’s voice cracked.

  “Well,” Jonah said, “I didn’t want to puke all over the equipment. I already slimed my clothes. I had to pitch them.”

  Another long silence from Gabriel.

  “He looks awful,” Kenzie put in. “I can vouch for that.”

  “How long have you been there?” Gabriel said finally. “When did you leave Trinity?”

  “I left right after the first set,” Jonah said, figuring it was best to stick as close to the truth as he could. “Emma and I...we had kind of a fight. And then I was feeling so crappy, I ditched. I’m sorry to let you down. I know the concert was important.” Jonah could hear voices in the background, the crackle of a police radio. “What’s all the noise?” he asked. “Are you in the club?”

  “I’m in Trinity,” Gabriel said. “Three people have been murdered. Guests at the party.”

  “Murdered?” Jonah said, pushing horror and astonishment. The horrified part was totally real. “In Trinity? Who? Not—not anyone I know. Not Nat or—or—”

  “No,” Gabriel said impatiently. “Not Alison or Natalie or Rudy. Three teens, two of them wizards. Rowan DeVries was badly wounded. He may not make it.”

  “Rowan DeVries!” Jonah had no need to act surprised—he was stunned. “DeVries was one of the victims?”

  “Apparently so.”

  “That’s convenient,” Jonah said, mind racing. “That totally takes him off the list of suspects.” And puts me on it.

  “Do you think he stabbed himself?” Gabriel growled. “If so, he did a remarkably good job.”

  “They were stabbed?” Jonah asked.

  “Same as in the other killings. Stabbed and slashed to death, nightshade scattered at the site. I haven’t even told you the worst part. One of the victims was Madison Moss’s younger sister.”

  “Grace?” Jonah said, his heart sinking. “That young girl? Somebody murdered her?”

  Gabriel sighed heavily. “I cannot tell you what a disaster this is. Whatever happens, it’s going to cause a world of trouble for us.”

  And for me in particular, Jonah thought. It was as if he could feel the jaws of a trap closing around him. “Is there anything I can do? Should I come?” Jonah asked.

  “I thought you were sick,” Gabriel said.

  “I am. But, if you need me, I’ll be there.”

  “No,” Gabriel said. “Stay right where you are—at Kenzie’s. We’ll come to you.” He paused, lowered his voice. “Is there anything you want to tell me in confidence? Anything I should know before we get there?”

  “No,” Jonah said, faking confusion. “I mean, if you have any specific questions, I’ll be glad to answer them. Anyway, who’s ‘we’? Who’s coming?”

  “Me and the police and my lawyer. I get the impression that you are a prime suspect.”

  The detective from Trinity, Ross Childers, was like one of those small-town cops out of a novel, the kind that seemed homespun until they outsmarted the big-city criminal.

  It was good that he and Kenzie had worked out a story ahead of time, because Jonah was marched down the hall to the family conference room and questioned separately. Matt Green stayed with Kenzie. Gabriel came along with Jonah.

  Jonah’s physical state was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it probably helped that he was pale and sweating, still half-sick from whatever had knocked him out. It supported the story he had to tell. On the other, it was harder to think, to strategize, and to make the best use of his enchanter’s charm.

  Jonah had to assume that Emma had told the police at least some of what happened in the gazebo. What he didn’t know was how much she had left out. For instance, had she offered any explanation for DeVries’s attack on her? Had she told police that Jonah was a mass murderer?

  He guessed not, or he’d be in custody already. Was he really going to benefit from Emma’s distrust of the police? Or was she just biding her time? Jonah preferred to be master of his own fate. He did not like waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  All he could do was stick as close to his own truth as possible, trying to anticipate the traps that Childers might set for him. The detective typed notes into a tiny computer that seemed to disappear into his lap. Once he’d collected basic information from Jonah, he got down to business.

  “I understand you were out on the grounds during the party,” Childers said. “Did you see or hear anything unusual?”

  “I was passing the gazebo, and I heard raised voices, like people fighting,” Jonah said. “I went to see what was up.”

  “And what was up?” Childers asked.

  “Rowan DeVries had my friend Emma up against the wall, and seemed to be threatening her. So I pulled him off her and asked him what the hell he was doing.” Anger boiled up in Jonah once again at the memory, but he fought it down. You killed his sister, he reminded himself. You have no standing.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Jonah saw Gabriel react to that revelation. He looked like he’d been punched in the gut.

  “So you knew both of them?” Childers continued.

  “Emma and I are in a band together. DeVries—I don’t...we haven’t really met officially, but I’ve seen him at least once before. In Trinity.”

  “You come to Trinity often?”

  “No,” Jonah said, massaging his forehead. “I think tonight was my...third visit.”

  “You must have a good memory, then,” Childers said. “Since you recognized DeVries.”

  “He made an impression.”

&n
bsp; “What kind of impression?”

  “He seemed like a very angry person,” Jonah said truthfully. “Both times I met him.”

  “What were they fighting about?”

  “We didn’t really get into that. I figured if they wanted me to know, they would tell me. And they didn’t.”

  “What happened after you separated them?”

  “DeVries left.”

  Childers raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

  “I told him to leave, and he did,” Jonah said evenly.

  “Where did all the blood come from, then?”

  “Blood? Was there blood?” Jonah racked his brain. He hadn’t left any blood in the gazebo. Had he? “Oh. I think maybe Emma punched him in the nose or something before I got there. His nose was bleeding, anyway.”

  “So it was Emma?”

  “So it was Emma what?” Jonah growled. “If she punched him in the nose, he deserved it. She was defending herself.”

  “She didn’t have a knife or other weapon?”

  “Why would she have a knife? She was there to play a gig, not to slaughter the audience during the break.” He snorted. “Way not to be asked back.”

  “It’s just that some things aren’t adding up,” Childers said. “Her clothes were covered in blood. Yours look absolutely clean.”

  “I puked on myself,” Jonah said. “So I changed clothes. Trust me, you should be glad I did that.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Gabriel was glaring at him.

  Charm, Kinlock, not sarcasm, Jonah thought. It was hard to keep that front of mind.

  “Where are they now?” Childers asked. When Jonah frowned, puzzled, he added, “Your clothes, I mean.”

  “I tossed them,” Jonah said. “Some cleanup jobs just aren’t worth doing.”

  “Where did you toss them?” Childers persisted.

  “I threw them in the incinerator,” Jonah said. “Trash pickup isn’t until Thursday, and I didn’t want to live with them until then.” He paused, then asked, “Are you collecting clothes from everyone at the party, or am I getting special attention?”

  “I had the same question,” Gabriel interjected. He’d remained silent up till then. “If Jonah is a suspect, then we need to proceed differently. I’ll fetch Matt, and we can begin again.”

  Childers shook his head. “I’m just, you know, being thorough in collecting evidence. Why did you leave the party? Didn’t you have another set to play?”

  “I was sick, like I said.”

  “Did you tell anyone you were sick? Or that you were leaving?”

  “I texted the other band members to tell them I was ditching,” Jonah said. “They’re the only ones who would care.”

  “Did anyone see you leave? Or notice that you were sick?”

  “I figured nobody wanted to see that,” Jonah said. “It wasn’t something I wanted to share with anyone.”

  “Had you been drinking?”

  Jonah shook his head. “I’m underage,” he said, as if he were puzzled by the suggestion. “I was drinking pop. I did eat some quesadillas.”

  Childers gestured toward Jonah’s hands. “What’s with the gloves?”

  “Jonah has an extremely painful nerve problem in his hands, caused by exposure to a deadly toxin when he was a child,” Gabriel said. “He wears the gloves all the time. Has since he was little.”

  “You have a nerve problem in your hands?” Childers looked down at his screen. “But it says here that you’re a guitar player. How does that work?”

  “I have a high tolerance for pain,” Jonah said, thinking, It’s a skill you develop when you kill everything you touch.

  Childers’s eyes flicked to Gabriel, then back to Jonah. “How did you get back here from Trinity?”

  “We took two vans,” Jonah said. “I drove one of them back.”

  “Where is it now?”

  “It’s a couple blocks away,” Jonah said. He felt the pressure of Gabriel’s eyes, and guessed his mentor was wondering why Jonah hadn’t parked in his usual spot.

  “I’ll need the make, model, license, and all that,” Childers said. “We’ll want to take a look at it.”

  “Don’t you need a warrant for that?” Jonah asked.

  “Not if you give us permission,” Childers said.

  “He’s not giving permission,” Gabriel put in. “You’ll have to show probable cause.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem,” Childers said genially.

  The door slammed open, and Matt Green entered, followed by the uniformed officers who’d been interviewing Kenzie.

  “All done?” Childers asked, surprised.

  “Yeah, pretty much,” one of the officers said. “Anyway, all our equipment went down. Some kind of electrical thing. We weren’t getting much anyway; it was obvious the kid was in pain, so we decided to pack it in and let him go to bed.”

  Maybe Kenzie’s right, Jonah thought. Maybe I should start setting fire to things.

  At the end of it, Jonah thought he’d done reasonably well, given what he had to work with. He was still on the list of suspects, but he hadn’t incriminated himself, at least, and he’d bought a little time.

  After the others finally left, Gabriel rose and paced back and forth. “I hope you realize that you’ve put us into an impossible situation,” he said. “I cannot believe that you would get into a fight with a mainliner while you were there as a guest. Especially someone on the Interguild Council. Especially someone who ended up nearly stabbed to death.”

  “If you’re talking about DeVries, that was a rescue,” Jonah retorted. “It seemed like the right thing to do. Would you have preferred that I let him carry Emma off to his lair?”

  “What possible reason would Rowan DeVries have for kidnapping Emma?” Gabriel asked wearily.

  “Why don’t you ask him?” Jonah said, knowing that Gabriel never would, even if Rowan survived. Counting on it, in fact. “Probably, he was just doing the usual wizard thing—taking what he can’t get any other way. If I’d known he was going to get stabbed, I would’ve been more circumspect. Anyway, whose idea was it for us to sign on to play at this party, Gabriel? It wasn’t mine, I’ll tell you that. I fought it tooth and nail.”

  “Still, you agreed to go. I used to be able to rely on your good judgment when it came to interacting with mainliners. Now—I don’t know what to think.”

  “Well, I don’t know what to think either,” Jonah shot back. “Sometimes I get a vibe from you, like you hate mainliners. Absolutely despise them. Other times, it’s like you’re more worried about them than you are about us.”

  “I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” Gabriel said, radiating white-hot fury. “After I’ve spent a lifetime trying to undo what happened at Thorn Hill, you think I favor mainliners?”

  Jonah had no answer for that. “I’m sorry, Gabriel,” he said. “That was out of line. If not for you, Kenzie and I would be dead.”

  Gabriel searched Jonah’s face, then nodded. “Apology accepted.” He hesitated, as if trying to choose the right words. “You know I have to ask this, Jonah—were you involved in any way in the killings at McCauley’s?”

  “No,” Jonah said without flinching.

  Gabriel finally sat down across from Jonah and leaned forward. “All I’m saying is, if you were, we would put all of our resources behind you—the best legal representation, the best expert witnesses—whatever it takes. It certainly complicates things that one of the victims was Moss’s younger sister, but—”

  “I said no, Gabriel. Who do you think I am? Do you really think I would murder a little girl?”

  Gabriel rubbed his chin. “Well. We can hope that DeVries survives. Maybe he’ll be able to shed some light on this.”

  Jonah was reading something odd in Gabriel. Was it doubt? Suspicion? Disappointment? That was it. Disappoint
ment. Did it mean that Gabriel didn’t believe him? That he didn’t trust him? That he thought that Jonah had actually done the murders?

  Change the subject. “Where are Natalie and the others?”

  “I told them to go home and go to bed,” Gabriel said. “I’m concerned about PTSD, what with the bombing at Safe Harbor, and now this.” He raked his hand over his close-cropped hair.

  “The bombing’s still unsolved, right?” Jonah said. “I wonder if the police ever questioned anyone in Trinity about that.” He paused, but Gabriel didn’t take the bait. Jonah had pushed Gabriel to act on those suspicions, but Gabriel never seemed to want to engage.

  “Is Emma all right?” Jonah tried not to sound too interested. “I mean, Childers seemed to suspect her of something.”

  “He’s just a small-town cop,” Gabriel said dismissively. “He’s probably bigoted against outsiders. And people of color.”

  “That’s not the way I read him,” Jonah said. “I think he just wants to solve this. To find out what really happened.”

  Gabriel snorted skeptically, then swung round to face Jonah. “I need to know the truth, Jonah: this thing with DeVries and Emma. Is this some kind of love triangle? Is something going on among the three of you?”

  “Remember who you’re talking to,” Jonah said, raising his gloved hands, wiggling his fingers. “No love. Not for me. Not ever. It didn’t look like there was any love lost between Emma and DeVries either.”

  “What about Emma?” Gabriel said. “Has she fallen for you, Jonah?” It was a familiar question. They’d had to navigate a number of infatuations over the years. He and Gabriel had worked out strategies for defusing them, for redirecting crushes. They’d become damned efficient at keeping love away from Jonah’s door.

  Jonah shook his head, the memory of the confrontation in the gazebo knifing through him. “Right now, if I had to guess, I’d say she hates me.”

  “Natalie said you were dancing with her.”

  “This is exactly why I usually refuse to dance with anyone. I say yes to any girl in a moment of weakness, and Natalie has me fathering her children. Though how I’d manage that, I have no clue. It was just a dance.” The words burned in his memory.