“It’s the artifact from the vault. The silver wand.”

I stared at the sculpture. “This can’t be the wand.”

“It is. I found it behind the sofa where Quentin threw it after you … after you turned it into a snake.”

“I didn’t turn it into a snake. I made Quentin hallucinate that it had become a snake. It was a warp.”

She shook her head, still watching me carefully. “It’s a snake now. It’s not even an artifact anymore. Its magic is gone.”

I didn’t know what to say. An uncomfortable sensation built in my chest—an unsettling blend of disbelieving excitement and bone-deep terror.

I hastily set the sculpture on my blanket-covered lap like it might burn me. “So you’re saying … with nothing but the power of my brain … I transformed a wand into a snake? A real snake?”

“A metal snake. But yes.”

We stared at each other.

“But Lienna …” I rubbed my face. “My powers are visions and projections—unless this is something all psycho warpers can do?”

“Not in any of the documentation I’ve uncovered about psycho warping. You didn’t warp someone’s psyche. You warped—”

“—reality,” I whispered, my gaze returning to the silver snake. “I warped reality.”

And while those were the three coolest words I’d ever uttered in my life, they were also terrifying. All magic had rules. What were the rules of reality warping? Because that seemed like a really freakin’ important thing to know before I started turning wands into snakes. Assuming I could do it again.

Lienna plucked the silver snake off my lap and stuffed it in her satchel. “My report on the incident … it doesn’t include that you turned the artifact into something else. The artifact is officially missing from the crime scene.”

My mouth fell open. Strait-laced, by-the-books, all-criminals-are-bad-people Agent Shen had lied in her report?

“Why?” I asked quietly.

She tucked her satchel against her side. “I don’t think anyone should know about this power, Kit. Changing reality … that’s the kind of thing that draws attention.”

I read between the lines: the attention I’d draw would not be the good kind.

“Got it.” I managed a weak smile. “I’ll just keep that tidbit to myself.”

Her smile was much warmer and more confident than mine. “In the meantime, I’ll do some discreet research on reality warping.”

“Okay.” As she stepped back from the bed, I caught her wrist. “Lienna … thanks. For everything.”

Her smile widened and softened simultaneously, and in a half-decent Bogart impression, she quoted, “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.”

Laughing, I watched her walk to the door. The latch snicked shut, and my amusement faded as I slumped into my pillow.

My gaze drifted to the cuffs around my wrist. As much as I wanted to know more about this newfound ability, depending on how my hearing went, I might never get the chance to test it again.

Chapter Twenty-Five

June fourteenth.

Eight thirty a.m.

My sentencing hearing had arrived.

I sat on a rock-hard plastic chair in a waiting area on the precinct’s third floor, several levels above the holding-cell accommodations I’d previously enjoyed. Shiny handcuffs chained my wrists together in front of me, and I twisted and untwisted my fingers with fidgety apprehension.

Lienna sat beside me, hands resting in her lap and ankles primly crossed. She was ostensibly my magic-wielding, will-crush-your-bones-if-you-try-to-run escort, but she was also my moral support on one of the scariest days of my life.

She didn’t know how much it meant to me that I wasn’t sitting here alone, waiting for the literal gavel to fall.

According to the pleasantly bland old man running the desk at the head of the room, the Judiciary Council was already running behind because two of the six members hadn’t shown up. They must have had tee times they couldn’t reschedule.

I glanced around at the bizarre collection of mythic criminals. Their unfamiliar faces ranged from fear to anger to disinterest—except for one.

Maggie’s blue hair drooped around her face as she stared at her lap, handcuffs shining against her gray jumpsuit. Her face was pale, her eyes puffy and red from crying. She sat alone. I’d tried several times to catch her eye, but she’d only looked at me once before fixing her stare on her lap again.

That one look had been full of shame and hurt and fear. Quentin had wrecked her, the bastard. Already paranoid Maggie would never trust again.

I forced my gaze away from her. It skidded across the room and back to the intake desk and the innocuous door beside it—the door behind which the Council would pass judgment on us.

Aside from Maggie, I’d spotted one other familiar face. My good ol’ pal Duncan, the water-obsessed serial killer, had been walking through that door right as I’d arrived. He’d been in there for over twenty minutes now.

“What do you think will happen to him?” I whispered to Lienna. “Life in prison?”

“No, they’ll definitely execute him.”

“Right there in the room?”

She scoffed impatiently. “No. There’s a short grace period—mainly for the paperwork. But there’s no way he’ll get anything less than the harshest sentence after all the people he killed.”

“That doesn’t make me feel a whole lot better about my—”

“Kit Morris!”

I jumped like Zorro had just stabbed me in the ass. Maggie glanced up, her dull gaze flicking to me.

The bland man behind the desk scanned the room, then called again, “Kit Morris!”

“That’s you,” Lienna whispered, nudging my arm. “Go, Kit.”

I stood on numb legs. She gave me another encouraging nudge, but when I looked back, she wasn’t quick enough to hide the tight anxiety in her face.

Shit. Lienna was scared for me too—and now I was really freaking out.

“I’ll see you when it’s over?” I mumbled, needing a light at the end of my sentencing tunnel, however weak it might be.

She managed a smile, and goddamn was it a beautiful one—wavering, lower lip trembling slightly, but with a determined set to her jaw. “I’ll be waiting.”

“Even if they’re taking me back to the holding cells?”

“Especially then.” She arched an eyebrow. “That’s where I work. You won’t be able to escape me.”

“Aren’t you heading back to LA now that Quentin is … not a problem?”

“Kit Morris!” the desk agent called impatiently.

“Captain Blythe offered me a promotion if I stayed,” Lienna replied in a rush. “A big promotion.”

“Are you taking it?”

“Maybe. Now get in there before you annoy them by being late!”

Oh crap. Not a good start. I sped across the room and answered a few simple questions to confirm my identity, then the agent directed me through the terrifying door beside his desk.

I stepped through, prepared for almost anything—except for the empty vestibule on the other side, its white walls broken by a second door directly ahead. The one I’d just walked through banged shut behind me, and when I glanced over my shoulder, I saw the door didn’t have an interior handle. No going back.