But she was gone, forever taken away from me.
All the pain suddenly came crashing down on me. I was no longer able to pretend away her loss or focus on anything other than her death, and I lost it.
My wails were a terrible thing to hear, ugly in their truthfulness. An emptiness I’d rarely felt before overtook me. It consumed me, threatening to drown me in waves of tears and regret.
Strong arms held me tightly, and I clung to Crowley’s body with every bit of my flagging strength. He didn’t let me go for what felt like an eternity.
He didn’t offer me pointless platitudes of “it’s going to be okay” or “you’ll be alright. You’ll be okay. You’ll be stronger for this.” He didn’t say anything, and I was so damned grateful. Because it wasn’t okay. It wasn’t alright. And I was pretty sure I would never ever be stronger for her loss.
I might not have seen my sister in decades, but that didn’t make it any better. If anything, my regret only made my grief so much worse.
I cried until there was nothing left. I cried until I’d been washed clean. And when there were no more tears, I simply sat and quietly shuddered, feeling as though the pain might literally kill me.
Still, he said nothing. He only rubbed my back and held me tight.
Night was fully at its zenith when I finally managed to regain some sense of control. My soul still ached, and I felt like I was trapped in a strange world of numbness, but I could think again. I could reason.
With one last squeeze, I gently disengaged from him, smoothing my hands down my hair and using my forearm to scrub the last of the tears away. “I’ve shamed myself,” I whispered a moment later. “I’m sor— ”
“Apologize, and I swear to hells that I’ll put your ass in cuffs and throw you back in that cell,” he said roughly.
I was shocked at first, but then I grinned. It wasn’t a big one, but it was there.
His nostrils flared as his own lips twitched, and he shoved a hand through his hair and glanced off to the left, looking slightly embarrassed. “She opened the door, Detective,” he said, a gentle reminder of why we’d actually gone there in the first place.
I jerked, wondering how it was possible that I could have forgotten that. “Yes. Yes, she did.”
We were sitting right next to it.
Scrambling to my knees, I shifted over toward the spot where she’d been. My sister was dead, but she’d left me a last gift. I wasn’t sure whether she’d understood me at all. The tribunal meant to see me dead for a crime they believed I’d committed, but she’d opened the door.
Holding my breath, I lowered myself onto my hands and knees and peeked inside. Then I gasped.
CHAPTER 46
HATTER
I GRIPPED the Tinkerer’s token in my hand as I slowly made my way up the steps of the precinct.
Bo was going to be furious with me for doing what I’d done. She’d placed me on mandatory leave, but when she discovered what I’d just done, she might take me off the case completely. I would be damned if I allowed that.
Wetting my lips, I spotted the small striped awning of Georgie’s coffee kiosk. It’d been days since I’d seen him last, and I wondered if I should talk with him, see if he had any news for me, like he almost always did for Elle. But I couldn’t bribe him with baubles, and besides, Undine was a closed realm. What news did come out of there wasn’t usually the most reliable.
I was stalling, and I knew it. Fisting the token tightly, I pulled open the door of the precinct.
The familiar hustle and bustle was a welcome sound. Eight hours away, and already I felt like I’d been going crazy.
Róta was the first to spot me—the Valkyrie was always watching. She frowned, her brows forming a tight scowl line. “Detective, what are you doing he— ”
I wasn’t in the mood to be lectured by anyone, so I shook my head to let her know I wasn’t answering any questions. “Where’s the Captain?”
She pursed her full lips. Her hair, which was usually a shade of deep gold, was lighter, almost white, and though she had it tied up in a thick bun, it made her somehow look both prettier and more menacing than usual. Róta would have made a good detective. She had the same killer instinct as Elle. My chest squeezed as I thought about my partner.
She glanced at the large timepiece on her wrist. I knew what she was doing, which let me know that Bo had warned her at least that I was not to return before eight hours had passed. Which I hadn’t. Just barely, anyway.
I huffed. “Tell me, or I swear by the one-eyed all father, I’ll tear through this place like holy hells.” My voice grew into a growl as my impatience grew.
She narrowed her eyes. The Valkyrie was a formidable foe and not afraid of much—not even a thing like me, though she definitely should be. If she had known the truth of me, I doubted she wouldn’t tremble a little.
“She’s out with the Commissioner Marcel. They should be back soon,” she snapped tersely, and I felt regret at my actions, but if pushed, I would do it again, if it meant getting the answers I wanted.
“Then I’m going to her office.”
“She’s not going to like this, Maddox,” Róta spoke to my back.
I shook my head. She didn’t need to like it, she just needed to hear me out.
“Fine, your funeral,” she snapped, her voice fading into the busy chattering background of the precinct.
I frowned as I shoved open the door to Bo’s office and took a seat, tapping a nervous finger against my pant leg, wondering how much longer they would be out in the field.
Thank the gods that I didn’t have much longer to wait. Bo flung her door open just a few minutes later. “Get me some coffee and head medicinals. Now!” she yelled behind her before slamming the door and groaning.
I stood.
She startled and planted a hand against her heaving chest. “Godsdammit, Maddox, what in the hells are you doing here?”
I wet my lips, the token in my hand feeling as though it might burn a hole through my flesh. “What I’m about to tell you, you’re really not going to like.”
She rolled her eyes, frowning hard and glaring at me even harder. “Damn you. You did something, and I should threw your ass in irons for disobeying a direct order.”
I held up a finger, shaking my head. “Listen to my story before you reach a verdict, Captain.”
Her laughter dripped with irony. “And here, I always thought it was Elle that was the giant pain my arse. I see she’s rubbed off on you.” Her voice was tight and she winced—it was barely there.
But I caught it. She’d been doing that a lot lately, and I had to wonder what in the devil was going on with the captain to make her as stressed as she was.
She plopped into her seat and groaned softly beneath her breath as she reached for her bottomless drawer of tricks and pulled out a flagon of clear fluid and two tumblers. “Sit. Share a drink with me. It’s been a long godsdamned day.”
She didn’t wait for me to agree but uncorked the bottle, and even from where I stood I could smell the alcohol content, which was strong enough that it felt like a kick in the arse, and I’d only sucked in fumes. “What is that?” I covered my nose with my wrist.
“My backup plan, and don’t say shit about it. Now drink.” She finished pouring before nudging the cup my way.
In Wonderland, most deals were finalized with drink. The harder the drink, the better. I’d never much been a drinker, but I accepted the gift with a grateful nod. Then, tipping my head back, I chugged it down.
The stuff burned the hide off the back of my throat and made my fires pulse in heated waves. “Holy hells.” I huffed, blinking back the heat in my eyes.
She grinned around her own mugful. “Meant to be sipped, not slurped down like a drunken troll would do it. And I’d have expected you of all creatures to be able to handle its potency. All things considered,” she said with lifted brow and a knowing smirk.
Much as it tasted like a demon’s wet backside going down, there was a
pleasant aftertaste of black cherry and oak.
She shook the flask, silently asking me if I wanted another.
“No. One will do me fine.”
“Good. Now that you’ve relaxed a little, mind explaining to me why it is that you’re already back in my office and being a pushy dick?”
I snorted, feeling less tense than I had seconds before. I knew it had something to do with her homemade shine.
She leaned back in her seat. The door opened just a second later, and a new temp with short brown hair and dark-green skin, clearly troll in origin, scurried in. He dropped the water and head medicinals down on the desk without looking at either one of us before scurrying out like a frightened mouse.
She glared at the closed door and softly shook her head. “That has to be the world’s most terrified troll. I swear to the gods, Marcel is gonna owe me big for this one.” She said the words beneath her breath, not trying to hide them from me but also not bothering to explain what she meant.
I shifted in my seat, and her hard, implacable gaze found mine as she popped the willow tree bark and tossed them back with shine instead of water. “Go on, Maddox. I’m listening,” she said a beat later.
A part of me thought that maybe whatever Marcel and Bo were doing had everything to do with Elle’s imprisonment in the below, but I couldn’t be sure.
Still, I trusted Bo, and so had Elle. It wasn’t in my nature to trust, yet I’d done it with Elle, and my efforts had been rewarded. Elle trusted Bo, and I saw no reason not to trust my partner’s judgment.
Opening my sweat-slicked hand, I gently set the timepiece down upon Bo’s desk then leaned back.
She frowned, glaring at the little golden timepiece with curiosity and questions in her eyes. “What is that?”
I shook my head. “Not sure. It was given to me by someone named the Tinkerer.”
“Who?” She reached forward, snatching up the golden piece and bringing it close to her eyes. The staff-shaped pendant around her neck began to burn as bright-blue as the hottest part of a flame when the timepiece passed over it. She sniffed. “Now that is interesting.”
It was my turn to frown. I’d seen Bo do some strange things with her staff, but hearing her sound so surprised by what it was doing had me asking, “What’s interesting?”
Pursing her lips, she crushed her staff in her hand and looked at me. “I have my secrets, Maddox, just as you have yours.”
Her eyes were knowing. Of everyone, only Bo knew my true origins. I’d been forced to reveal my heritage in my now-sealed records. She never acted any differently with me than she did with others, but every so often, I could sense her nerves.
It had been over two hundred years since I’d last snapped and done something so monumentally catastrophic that all of Grimm had felt the repercussions. But I’d changed since then, for various reasons, and I would be damned if I ever became that thing again. “I’m on your side, Bo.”
She laughed. “You work here, and that’s good enough. But don’t expect me to just forget what it was you did, Detective, because that can never be.”
I inhaled deeply, curling my hands into fists. She and I rarely spoke of my past. It was always business as usual between us, but something seemed to have rattled her enough tonight to help loosen her tongue.
“Then at least trust that I am on her side. I have always been on her side.”
“So the commissioner says. Don’t worry, Hatter. So long as Marcel vouches for you, you’re not going anywhere.” She snorted indelicately, and I knew the drink was loosening her tongue. But liquor didn’t make people lie—in fact, it usually caused the opposite to happen. She was unburdening a truth to me that I’d never even been aware of.
I’d always liked Bo. She didn’t attempt to deceive people, but instead said what she meant and meant what she said. But it was the first time I was aware of just how much she didn’t actually seem to want me here.
“I won’t do that again, Captain. You have my word.”
“And what does that mean coming from something like you?”
Ouch . I flinched. Still, she wasn’t running away in terror or fright. She’d known for close to a year who I really was. I couldn’t say what she’d first thought of me when she was told I would be coming, but she’d always treated me with respect.
“Ah,” she said, sighing. “Godsdamned shine.” She held up her almost empty second cup. “Melanie would shit a brick if she knew how I was acting right now.” Reaching for her tie, she loosened it and downed the last bit of her glass before scooping up both our cups and the bottle of shine then locking it away once more. “Tell me what you’ve learned, Maddox.” She pushed the token back toward me.
I shrugged. “Little about that, other than it’s a timepiece.”
“That much is obvious,” she muttered. “And who’s the Tinkerer? Moreover, how did you find this woman?”
“Crowley.”
“Excuse me?” She leaned forward, looking as mentally acute as ever even after two glassfuls of shine. “As in Agent Crowley?”
“Aye.” I nodded, rubbing my hands together. “He contacted me early this morning.”
“How? He’s still in Undine, isn’t he? Scout told me the city is in mourning for their lost princess. Tonight is her last song. I doubt they’d go through the bother of releasing a lone agent, considering how ceremonial a royal song is.”
My heart ached at the thought of what Elle must be enduring. I knew she wasn’t close to her family, but I knew she loved her sisters. I hoped she wasn’t alone. I flexed a fist on my thigh, feeling the ineptitude of my being where I was while she was elsewhere on an almost visceral level. I could taste the stench of my failure like acrid smoke on the back of my tongue.
“As far as I know”—I nodded—“he is still in Undine, yes. That’s where he reached out to me.”
“Agent Crowley?”
I blinked. “Why do you sound so disbelieving?”
She spread her hands and made a sound in the back of her throat. “Well, I don’t claim to have any true knowledge of the agent, but he has no magick. And considering he and Elle are both captive prisoners of the realm, I doubt they’d give him access to a mage to pass along such a message.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Are you questioning my veracity?”
She cocked her head, her gaze raking and assessing me. Then, after a minute, she said, “No. No, I’m not. I trust you. But that doesn’t change the fact that it doesn’t make sense.”
“It was him.” I paused, frowning, thinking back on my talk with him.
“What? What is it?” she asked.
I shook my head, scattering the thoughts like marbles. “I was just thinking about our conversation, it was… strange.”
“Strange? How so?”
“He sounded weird. Different.”
“How well do you know the agent?”
“Not at all.”
She shrugged. “So it’s possible, I guess, that he acts strangely under stress. Marcel and I have been meeting for some days now, as you know, trying to figure out how we can safely get to our guys. We have to negotiate terms with the Queen of Undine.”
“Elle’s father is still in a coma?”
She nodded. “So far as we know, yes. And rumor has it that tomorrow or the next day the tribunal will convene to decide their fate.”
I swallowed hard, feeling my stomach twist up in knots. “Surely, they wouldn’t try to hang her for this. Elle could no more control what the Sea Witch chose to do than I could the weather.”
“They can, and they will try. Mark my words, Maddox. You might not know all of Elle’s past, but I do. She is not wholly innocent, and they have wanted nothing more than to find that golden opportunity to make her pay for all that she’s done. What is this thing, and can it help us?”
I shrugged. “I told you, I don’t know what it is, other than a timepiece of great value. Crowley sent me to the Persiannous district to find the Tinkerer. She gave me this. When he found
me earlier in the day, he told me the Tinkerer would ensure Elle’s freedom. That’s all I know.”
A strange look crossed her face. “He said that it would ensure Elle’s freedom? That doesn’t sound like Crowley at all. That man wants nothing more than to see Elle burn. He’s never been her friend. I don’t trust this.” She glanced down at her staff, which still glowed an ethereal blue.
“Neither do I.” I shook my head. “But it’s all I have to go on. She has to come back, Captain. She has to.”
Bo swallowed hard, and she stared at me harder. “Tell me the truth, Maddox. You and Elle?”
I knew the policy in Grimm. So did Elle. Many had been terminated already for breaking the rules. Bo could report me if I told the truth, but there was something about her that made it impossible for me not to be honest. Though it went against my very nature to expose myself this way, I sighed and nodded. “You already know it, Captain.”
“And Elle?”
I flinched and shook my head.
She released a pent-up breath and nodded. “Good. That’s good. She should know everything, Maddox. You hear me? You tell her everything first, or you leave her the hells alone. No funny business, or I swear to the all-gods that I’ll make it my mission in life to break you.”
From anyone else, the threat would be a laughable one. But Bo had a way about her that made me believe in every word she said. She knew I was more powerful. In fact, I was more powerful than anything that existed in this realm. There was little I feared, but Bo knew my one weakness, and I knew that if it came down to it, she would ruthlessly expose it and me before turning me out to face the wrath of those around me I’d once counted as friends.
When Alice had learned my true nature, she’d left me. And regardless of how powerful I was, I’d not been there to save Mariposa. I might have been powerful, but those I cared for, those few that I loved, were not. And that made me weak.
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