“Agent Shen,” Blythe called as Lienna straightened. “I want every inmate who isn’t dying locked in a cell in the next five minutes.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Lienna hesitated as though unsure if she was about to poke a shark in the eye. “How did this happen? The holding spells—”

“—were tampered with,” Blythe cut in. “Might have been an inside job. The security guild is on the way to rebuild them.”

Half listening, I watched a tall, spindly dude with bright red hair down to his shoulders—the precinct’s resident healer?—pour a potion on a woman’s gouged arm. He had a backpack full of vials and plastic baggies, which he administered to the worst-off combatants with frazzled expediency.

Blythe slapped a hand between my shoulder blades and shoved me at Lienna. “Keep an eye on this one. I caught him halfway up the south stairwell.”

Lienna glared at me. “Of course you did.”

I wasn’t sure what a shit-list looked like—aside from the expected scatological characteristics—but I had the distinct feeling I was officially on one.

“At least the containment floor didn’t fail,” Blythe grumbled as she surveyed the damage. “The moment you’re done here, Agent Shen, I want you on the hunt for the empath.”

On the hunt? So, Quentin had escaped. I wasn’t surprised.

Quentin was many things: the most powerful empath alive, according to basically everyone; a cunning bastard who didn’t hesitate to use his ample power; my former guildmate and coworker; and the nearest thing I had to a best friend. Going out for beers to shoot the shit and complain about work once or twice a week was something friends did, right?

I wasn’t one hundred percent sure on that. Friendship wasn’t really a thing I did.

“Containment floor?” I asked, homing in on Blythe’s offhand comment. “What’s that?”

The captain headed back down the hallway.

“You’re going to leave me hanging like this?” I called after her.

Lienna grabbed my sleeve and hauled me to the end of the corridor, where a sorry-looking bunch of inmates in cuffs were sitting on the floor.

She plunked me down against the wall. “If you try to escape again, I will send your testicles into another dimension.”

Well, that was horrifying. And intriguing. “Can you actually do that?”

“Test me and find out.” With a stern stare, she hurried off to arrange my and my fellow detainees’ immediate return to our cells—or so I assumed.

“Hey Kit,” an unpleasantly familiar voice said. “What’s up?”

Slouched against the wall across from me was the equally unpleasant face of my cellmate, Duncan. A pair of handcuffs like mine enclosed his wrists, which was a damn relief to see.

“Not much,” I replied. “Just trying to survive the Mystical Melee at MagiPol.”

“It got a little wild, didn’t it?” he agreed casually, as though we were discussing the weather forecast. Overcast skies and a chance of prison riot.

Duncan was … well, let’s just say he was a real piece of work. I’ve watched a lot of crime shows in my day, and I even endured a stint in juvie, but no episode of Criminal Minds could’ve prepared me for Duncan. He might have been a middle-aged white dude with a potbelly and a Jason Alexander hairline, but he scared the shit out of me.

Our first conversation, after I’d been unceremoniously tossed into a cell with him, had gone something like this.

Him: “What’re you in for?”

Me: “Fraud, I guess. You?”

“Murder.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Just the one?”

“No.”

There I’d hesitated. What was the protocol in that situation? Should I inquire further or let it go? Drunks, pickpockets, and street-corner drug dealers I could handle. Murderers, though? Then again, if I was sharing cramped quarters with a serial killer, I wanted to know how many eyes I should keep open while sleeping on the cot above his.

So I’d asked, as nonchalant as him, “How many?”

“Seventeen,” he’d replied with a yawn.

Our subsequent conversations—which I’d participated in so as not to offend the nice serial killer—had revealed he was a hydromage. I’d assumed drowning would be his modus operandi, since he was a magical murderer who could control water, but he’d explained how he preferred to slowly suck all the moisture from his victims’ bodies.

Delightful.

I resumed my observation of the demolished post-riot hallway, and a few minutes later, an MPD agent with a shaved head, lumberjack beard, and shoulders like a linebacker arrived to escort me and Duncan to our holding cell. The solid concrete walls, with a cage-style front facing a wide corridor, had sadly survived the riot with only a few scorch marks.

The agent pulled open the cell door. “Get in there.”

We complied. The man swung the door shut, locked it, and marched back the way we’d come.

“Hey!” I yelled after him. “What about the cuffs?”

Duncan and I were still sporting our incarceration bracelets, which weren’t particularly comfortable.

My cellmate, already perched on his cot and staring unblinkingly at the sink, seemed unbothered. A minuscule bead of water clung to the faucet for several long seconds, then lost its hold. It plinked against the drain, and a nearly imperceptible smirk slipped onto Duncan’s lips.

I shuddered. If only Quentin’s emotional storm had worked out as well for me as it had for him.

Handcuffs suck.

A loud clang jolted me from an uncomfortable doze. As alertness returned, so did the dull ache in my arm and shoulder joints, and the much sharper ache in my wrists where the metal bands dug into my flesh. Leaving a prisoner in handcuffs overnight should be illegal.

Stifling a groan, I sat up, almost knocking my thin blanket off my bunk.

“Kit Morris.” The Paul Bunyan agent stood at the cell door. He rapped his knuckles against the metal bars. “Get over here.”

I didn’t move. “What’s up, Lumberjack Stan?”

Seeing I would require further encouragement to get off my ass, he held up a plain manila envelope. “This is for you.”

“What is it?”

He waved the envelope and waited.

I swung my legs off my bed and dropped to the floor. Duncan was sitting on the lower bunk, staring fixedly at the toilet, and we ignored each other as I ambled to the bars.

“So, what is it?” I asked again. “A love letter?”

He pushed it between the bars. “It’s your summons. For sentencing. For your crimes,” he added at my blank expression.

Oh. Crimes. Right.

I took the envelope and tore it open with my teeth—damn handcuffs. Inside was a multi-page form titled C-1001A-34: Summons for Sentencing – Judiciary Council. A lot of jargon that fell somewhere between legalese and bureaucratic bullshit filled the page, but the important bits explained that a panel of MPD judges would sentence me on Thursday, June 14 at 8:30 a.m.

Sentence me to what, though? Community service? Jail time? A Braveheart-style draw and quarter? I frowned at the page. What were they even charging me with?