Chapter One

I’m not gonna lie. Being restrained by handcuffs in a room with two powerful, beautiful women has a certain appeal. However, when those two women are cops and the room is a cold, barren box used for interrogations, the allure diminishes dramatically.

Captain Blythe dropped a stack of folders on the metal table with a loud smack, rattling the chains that ran from the tabletop to my wrists. She settled into the seat across from me and pushed up the sleeves of her simple white blouse. With wavy blond hair to her shoulders and cheekbones to spare, she had a kind of Cate Blanchett thing going on. Minus the charm. Or the accent.

“Kit Morris.” Her blue-eyed stare scraped like icicles. “Tell me everything you know.”

“Everything?” Did she mean that literally? I glanced at the second woman in the room for a clue.

Agent Lienna Shen. While Blythe had the Men in Black look down, Lienna might’ve wandered into the precinct by accident. Just shy of five and a half feet tall, she’d covered her simple blue-jeans-and-black-jacket outfit in knickknacks—leather bracelets, beads hanging from her ponytail of thick raven hair, silver rings on her slender fingers, chains and necklaces layered over her white t-shirt, and a hemp satchel slung over one shoulder.

When she caught me looking her way, she added a well-honed scowl to her accessories list.

Since neither woman was offering an explanation, I shrugged. “That could take a while. I know a lot of things. For example, the brachiosaur sounds in Jurassic Park were made by mixing whale and donkey noises together.”

Blythe’s eyes squinched. “What?”

“You said you wanted everything. I’m a bit of a movie buff, so I know lots of film trivia.”

“Do not screw with me,” she growled—and for a split second, both the table and my chair lifted off the floor.

The table and I hovered for a second, then dropped. My chair hit the linoleum, then my tailbone hit the chair. The impact jarred my teeth, the bang of the table landing ringing in my ears.

Oh, fun. Blythe was a telekinetic. And angry.

The captain leaned across the table. “Don’t forget where you are. This isn’t a TV show. We aren’t the police. You don’t get a phone call or a lawyer. This is the MPD, and in this precinct, you are completely, unalterably at my mercy. Do you understand?”

I nodded, playing it cool despite the dour voice in my head tallying all the ways in which I was completely screwed. My gaze darted away from her menacing glare and landed on my warped reflection in the one-way mirror behind her. It made me look like a deranged GI Joe doll.

To be fair, I hadn’t showered or shaved since my arrest two days prior, and this dull gray jumpsuit wasn’t doing my summer tan any favors—though it sure made my baby blues pop. But considering a very generous barista had once compared me to a young Chris Pine, the hobo-soldier look was depressing.

Blythe flipped a folder open. “We’re on our third interview, Mr. Morris, and I have no patience left. It’d be in your best interest to change your attitude before this session is over.”

Was that a threat? I’d liked her initial strategy better: the classic interrogation method where she’d started out considerate and conversational, offered me a hot drink and a snack, then subtly manipulated me into revealing self-incriminating tidbits about my past—or she’d tried. Maybe I should’ve been less obvious about deflecting her questions.

Not to say she was bad at her job, but this wasn’t my first interrogation.

I slouched back in my chair. “What do you want to know?”

“I want answers about your guild, Kirk, Conner & Qasid. Real answers.” She picked up a pen. “How long were you a member of KCQ?”

“About a year before shit hit the fan.”

“And the same night your guild fell, you attempted to flee the country?” Her tone suggested she didn’t think much of my bid to secure basic, prison-free survival.

“I did flee the country,” I corrected. “And I would’ve fled the continent too, but I didn’t expect MagiPol to send a superstar sorcerer after me.”

I gestured to Lienna, chains jangling unpleasantly. She maintained her scowl. Damn, her poker face was good. My previous interrogations had featured Blythe alone, so when Lienna had shown up for this one, I’d hoped for the timeless good cop/bad cop routine, but that didn’t seem to be happening.

“What was your role in KCQ?” Blythe asked.

“Support for the lawyers at the firm,” I answered promptly.

Blythe jotted that down. “What kind of support?”

“Emotional.”

The captain raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Emotional.”

“Well, yeah. Literally.” When she continued to stare expectantly, I added, “Me and another guy handled it. The lawyers would tell us what state of mind they needed their client in, and we’d come up with a way to get them there.”

“So, by support, you mean manipulation.”

I shrugged. “I like to think of it as emotional guidance.”

“And how did you ‘emotionally guide’ clients?”

“I’m not sure how to describe it.”

A phone beeped imperiously, but she ignored it. “Did you use magic?”

“Who said I have magic?”

The phone beeped again. Blythe sighed, reached under the table, and lifted a cell phone into view. The screen lit up as she checked her messages. Her mouth tightened, which I took to mean doom and disaster were impending and we should take shelter immediately.

Standing, she clipped the phone back to her belt and turned to Lienna. “I need to take care of something. Keep him talking.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

With a sharp nod, Blythe strode out of the room and graciously slammed the door behind her.

“A little intense, isn’t she?” I observed.

Lienna took the vacated seat. “She’s a precinct captain in one of the biggest cities in the country.”

Hmm. Despite her neutral tone, her voice had a soft, caressing quality that I found surprisingly pleasant. It was a shame she wasn’t playing good cop.

“Every day,” she continued, “Captain Blythe deals with rampant magic, illicit guilds, arrogant guild masters who think they’re above the law, and violent criminals who use their abilities to hurt, cheat, or kill people.”

She didn’t add, “Violent criminals just like you.” Her restraint impressed me.

“And,” she continued, “all while keeping the existence of magic, guilds, and the MPD hidden from the public. A crucial mandate your guild flouted.” She cleared her throat. “But you were just an intern, weren’t you, Kit? You were doing what you were told. You don’t need to protect them.”

I grinned. “That works better without the throat-clear first. Really obvious tell that you’re about to bullshit me, I’ve gotta say.”

She stiffened in her seat.

“Oh, and try to relax more. The fake sympathy will be more convincing.”

Her glower returned full force, obliterating the remnants of her kind expression. It’d been a decent attempt at building a rapport with me. She wasn’t experienced at the technique, which seemed like an oversight in her training, but I suspected Lienna’s real role in the agency involved far more skill than mere interrogation.