“His association with you and Quentin.”

A scowl pulled at my lips, but I banished it. “Didn’t you hear him say he disliked KCQ all along? Not all mythics are bad, you know.”

“Says the guy with sixty-one pending charges.”

“I don’t even know what half of those charges are for. I was just doing my job.”

“You knew what your guild was doing wasn’t legal.”

“You say that like I was one of the masterminds in Rigel’s boardroom. I was an intern. Need to know basis and all. I was just the guy who did the thing.”

“What thing?”

“With my abilities.” I waved my hand vaguely. “The … whatever it’s called.”

Her attention darted from the road to me and back. “You don’t know the name of your abilities?”

“I have it on good authority that I’m a type of psychic, but that’s it.” I stared through the windshield, not interested in her searching looks. “KCQ was the first time I met other mythics—and learned what a mythic was. They sure as hell weren’t explaining the nuances of MPD law.”

Lienna brought the car to a halt at a red light. I automatically braced as that van stopped close behind us, its grill filling the rearview mirror.

“The charges against you,” she said abruptly. “A lot of them are too flimsy to hold up in front of the Judiciary Council. They hit you with a whole bunch off the top to scare you.”

Was she serious? Her lips were pressed thin with displeasure, but whether over my criminal activity or the bogus stack of charges, I wasn’t sure.

Her eyes turned briefly to me, a flicker of sympathy in their warm brown depths.

“Well, the scare tactic worked,” I admitted quietly. “I’ve got two weeks until my sentencing and no lawyer to help me figure it all out.”

“You don’t need a lawyer.”

A cop telling a suspect they didn’t need a lawyer seemed like awfully shitty counsel. She might claim—or even believe—most of the charges against me would fall through, but that wasn’t a risk I planned to take.

It was late afternoon, which meant rush hour was upon us and the city’s traffic was becoming inevitably cluttered. As we rounded a corner, the smart car nearly rear-ended a jet-black Tesla at the tail of a long line of stationary vehicles, all waiting for a red light somewhere down the block.

Lienna hit the brakes, and the white box van, still close behind, almost turned us into an accordion, stopping a few precious inches short of our car.

“Our criminal system works differently,” she continued, oblivious to our near-smoosh experience. “KCQ’s lawyers were scamming the human courts. In mythic law, your sentencing is entirely up to whoever’s in charge.”

“Like Captain Blythe?”

“In minor cases, she makes all the decisions, but when it comes to more serious cases—”

“—like mine—”

“—you’re at the mercy of the Judiciary Council. Although the captain has a big say in the matter.”

The line of cars inched forward and Lienna hit her left turn signal, sliding toward the lane that would take us onto the Burrard Bridge. The white box van followed us into the lane.

“So what you’re saying is that I need to turn up the charm while around Blythe and desperately hope she puts in a good word for me.”

“I think the captain might be immune to all forms of charm.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” I gave Lienna an exaggerated grin. “I can be extremely charming when necessary.”

She coughed in a way that sounded a lot like a laugh. “Is that your secret psychic ability? You’re a mythical charmer?”

“Is it working?”

A snicker actually escaped her. She cleared her throat and said in a bad attempt at a stern tone, “Don’t forget I’m an abjuration sorcerer. I’m impervious to your powers.”

Stifling another grin, I took a quick look over my shoulder. The big-ass van was still on our tail. I could see two figures inside but couldn’t make out any details.

I turned back around. “Hey, have you noticed—”

“Yeah.” She glanced in the rearview mirror. “Since we left the diviner’s house.”

“Do you think it’s following us?”

“Let’s find out.”

As soon as we reached the far side of the bridge, she cranked the wheel to the right, screaming across two lanes of traffic and turning onto Pacific Street, completely neglecting her turn signal.

Holding on for dear life, I resisted the urge to step on an imaginary brake pedal. “Give me some warning next time you Tokyo Drift around a corner there, hotshot.”

“I’m not Japanese.” She did a speedy shoulder check, then changed lanes to pass a vehicle that was impeding her Formula 1 progress away from the van. “I’m Chinese.”

“I figured that, but you are both fast and furious.”

In my mirror, I saw the white box van cutting off an expensive BMW to keep up with our impromptu route change.

She took a sharp left turn under the Granville Street Bridge. “They’re definitely following us.”

“Who the hell are they?”

“Do any of your enemies drive an ugly white van?”

“What makes you think I have enemies?”

She whipped around another corner so suddenly my head almost bounced off the passenger side window. “You’re a KCQ member.”

“I was,” I corrected.

Skyscrapers rose up around us as the smart car zigzagged toward the center of downtown, the van keeping up with us every tire squeal of the way. It struck me that this was my first genuine car chase, but the thrill was seriously dampened by two unfortunate facts: first, I wasn’t driving, and second, we were in the least cool car possible.

“KCQ had a lot of enemies,” she added.

I was about to retort with something about being guilty by association when she directed our runt rocket onto an off-ramp that dropped underground and into a loading bay for an upper-class hotel.

“Shit,” I muttered as we bounced over a speed bump. “Dead end.”

“Exactly.”

She reefed on the wheel one final time, spinning the smart car a hundred and eighty degrees. We came to a stop facing the way we’d come in, surrounded by the U-shaped concrete risers of the loading bay, with the metal door behind us. Even inside the car, the place smelled like rust and trash.

“You sure about this?” I asked.

“Better here than out in public,” she answered, ever the safety-conscious agent.

The van barreled down the ramp and skidded to a halt at the bottom, blocking any traffic from coming in. Or going out. We were trapped.

“I’m not an expert,” I said, “but isn’t this the part in the MPD manual where you call for backup?”

She pulled her phone out of her satchel and checked the screen. “No reception.”

Oh goody. We were stuck two stories underground inside a concrete and steel chamber with no reception. Hopefully the kind folks inside the van were lost tourists aggressively looking for directions.

Lienna touched her cat’s eye necklace, whispered the incantation, then stepped out of the car.