“The Judiciary Council will make the final decision.”

With his two agents in tow, he walked away. The security doors clattered, then slammed shut. Silence fell over the cell block as I stared dazedly at the spot where Agent Söze had stood.

“That bastard,” Aaron rasped, his voice thick with fury. “He’s going to block anyone from testing Ezra and execute him anyway.”

I didn’t reply. My throat had closed, muscles locked. I could scarcely breathe, let alone make a sound. Stumbling, I retreated to my bunk and sat before my legs gave out.

All those charges against us. They couldn’t possibly have hard evidence for most of them—but that didn’t matter. Just like it didn’t matter that Ezra had peacefully turned himself in to prove he wasn’t a demon mage.

Aaron and Kai had gone quiet again, and the other prisoners stayed silent too. Maybe they felt sympathy for how completely screwed we were—or maybe they felt the same voice-muting powerlessness that this place radiated.

My thoughts twisted and boiled, consuming me entirely. I sat on the bunk, face buried in my hands, doing nothing but breathing and thinking. But no matter how I fit the pieces together or pulled them apart, no matter what wild idea I considered, I saw no way out of this. None.

I didn’t know how much time had passed when, with an electronic click, my cell light dimmed to a faint glow. Blinking, I looked toward the hall, where the lights had dimmed as well. Bedtime for the prisoners?

I stared for a moment—then gasped.

An unfamiliar man stood outside my cell.

As I gawked, he smiled and pressed a finger to his lips, then crooked that finger in a “come here” gesture. Huh?

Cautiously, I pushed off the bunk and crossed to the bars.

“Hey there,” he whispered. “Enjoying your stay at Hotel MagiPol?”

My forehead scrunched. “Who are you?”

“You don’t recognize me? I remember you.”

I squinted, taking in his youthful face. Early twenties, maybe? Short chocolate brown hair and the kind of blue eyes that made girls swoon—deep and penetrating but softened by an amused sparkle—accentuated his boy-next-door good looks.

“No clue,” I muttered.

“Maybe our last encounter was more memorable for me than you. I was a forgettable rookie agent on his first field assignment at the time.”

I recoiled. “Wait, you’re an agen—”

“Shh,” he whispered, then stuck his hand through the bars. “Kit Morris—Agent Kit … uh, Agent Morris.” He grimaced. “Call me Kit.”

Staring in bewilderment, I shook his hand. Weird time for a polite greeting, but why not.

He squeezed my fingers. “Ready to check out?”

“Huh?”

“Unless you want to face a rigged judiciary hearing, but I don’t recommend it. I’ve been there and it sucks.” He raised his other hand, a ring of keys hanging from one finger. “Personally, I’d like you out of the building before Agent Commodus gets really carried away. I think he’s planning to display your head on a pike in the lobby, and that’s just tacky, you know?”

When I merely gawked, he arched his eyebrows above those strangely perceptive blue eyes.

“Get on my page here, Tori. I’m breaking you out, and I don’t have time to explain Joaquin Phoenix’s filmography to you first.”

Chapter Twenty-One

“Why are you, an MPD agent, breaking me out of lockup?”

Kit inserted a key into the door’s bolt. “Why are you, doomed prisoner of the MPD, complaining?”

“I’m not complaining. I just want to know why.”

He opened the cell door, careful to make as little noise as possible, and whispered, “Does a man need a reason to undertake his very own Mission Impossible heist? If there were an overhead vent in your cell, I’d be rappelling down from the ceiling right n—”

“Are we rescuing Aaron and Kai too?” I interrupted in a hiss.

Winking casually, he ambled over to Aaron’s cell. The pyromage, sitting on his bunk with his shoulders hunched, looked up—and his jaw dropped. I shushed him before he could make any noise, and he silently rushed over as Kit unlocked the door.

“Agent Morris,” he introduced himself in a whisper. “Professional film analyst and jailbreak consultant, at your service.”

Stepping into the corridor, Aaron shot me a “who the hell is this guy and what the hell is going on?” look. All I could do was shake my head.

Kai, like Aaron, was sitting miserably on his bunk, and reacted with similar shock when we appeared in front of his cell. We repeated the shushing and door unlocking process, and in moments, Kai was free too.

I grabbed both mages’ hands, squeezing hard and unreasonably moved by the feel of their warm, strong fingers gripping mine. Kai wore a jumpsuit too, and I was sad to see that not even the super-stud electramage could make prison garb look good.

“Okay,” I whispered. “Now we need to find Ezra and Darius.”

“My partner is taking care of them.” Kit scowled like he’d been cheated out of his life savings. “My first chance to actually see the containment floor, but noooo, Lienna has to do it.”

“The containment floor?” I repeated. “What’s that?”

“No idea, but it’s where they locked up your demon mage friend. Which, by the way, is both cool and terrifying. You’re really friends with a demon mage?”

“He isn’t a demon mage.”

Eyebrows quirking skeptically, he faced the security doors. We’d have to pass three occupied cells to get to the exit, and if another prisoner saw us, they could ruin our escape.

“Let’s see …” Kit murmured. He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Ah, I know.”

I blinked at his back. A moment later, a frightened gasp echoed from one of the cells. Someone else squealed like a kid.

Waving at us to follow, Kit strolled down the corridor toward the doors. I followed him, glancing nervously at the nearest cell. Inside, a dimly lit man with thick arms and a greasy beard was halfway through scrambling up the side of his bunk bed like a scared monkey. He didn’t notice us pass.

The next cell’s inmate was staring at the floor with wide eyes, utterly fixated on the plain concrete. The third prisoner was hiding under his blanket, quivering.

What. The. Hell.

Kit tapped his security pass against the panel, then led us through the doors and up the stairs to the main level. He stopped on the landing and turned, surveying us critically.

“We’re heading for the back door,” he revealed. “All you have to do is follow me and I’ll handle the rest.”

Instant suspicion stiffened my back. “You want us to just walk out there?”

“Is this a stupid scheme to pin extra charges on us?” Aaron growled.

“Damn, you guessed it. The entire precinct got together and decided you three needed even more charges, even though you already have enough for several life sentences each.” He sighed at our blank expressions. “That was a joke. Follow me.”

Without waiting for us to argue, he opened the stairwell door and entered a hallway. Casual as could be, he ambled to the end, where he had two options: continue into the bullpen—visible through the door’s small window—or turn left, which would lead us back to the comparatively safe lobby.

Kit put his hand on the bullpen door. “Oh, and if you see anything strange, just ignore it and stick with me.”

“What do you mean by—”

He swung the door open and walked into the bullpen full of agents.

Gulping, I pushed my shoulders back and strode out after him. There was a slight chance I could slip through unnoticed since I was dressed more or less normally, but Aaron and Kai were wearing jumpsuits. No way the agents would ignore them.

We were three steps into the bullpen, its two dozen occupants beginning to glance our way, when a loud popping sound erupted.

A computer burst into flame.

Agents shouted and leaped to their feet as the guy sitting at the desk shoved back so hard his chair toppled over. Flames writhed, crackling merrily, and smoke billowed toward the ceiling.

Kit kept walking, circling wide around the desks. Every agent was focused on the fire—except for a nearby woman whose head spun toward us.

The burning computer exploded, grabbing her attention. Bits of flaming debris flew into the air, and people screamed. A man ran up with a fire extinguisher.

“Wait, no—” the owner of the desk exclaimed.

Wannabe Fireman blasted the extinguisher’s white spray all over the desk. The monitor flipped over backward, papers flying everywhere. The flames rippled wildly but didn’t go out.

“No!” the desk’s owner bellowed. “Stop! Stop, damn it!”

Kit cackled under his breath as he opened the bullpen’s back door. “After you.”

I rushed through, Aaron and Kai right behind me, and as Kit stepped through last, the desk’s owner shouted furiously, “It isn’t real fire, you idiots! Where’s Kit? Kiiiit!”

Snorting back laughter, Kit gestured at us to keep going. I shot him a wide-eyed look, then hastened down the hall. An emergency exit waited at the end, and I shoved through it.

We exited onto a quiet street illuminated by the orange glow of streetlamps, a few cars parked along the curb. I immediately understood why Kit had taken us out this way. If we’d fled through the lobby, we would’ve come out in the enclosed parking lot, which had no escape except the covered tunnel thing. Here, we could run in any direction.

“Thatta way,” Kit instructed, pointing at an alley across the street.

Painfully aware of Aaron and Kai’s prison garb, I trotted out into the road. The guys followed me, Kit bringing up the rear.

Just inside the alley, a black sedan idled with its taillights glowing. For a second, I thought it was a Miura vehicle and Makiko was here to provide another getaway car. But the person leaning against the driver’s door was not the petite aeromage.