Don’t get me wrong. I knew I’d broken a few rules during my time at KCQ. I just didn’t know which rules.

Flipping to the next page, I discovered an equally dense block of text that filled me in with chilling concision:

9 count(s) of Conspiracy to Commit Fraud

16 count(s) of Inflicting a Mythic Ability on a Non-mythic Entity

3 count(s) of Second-degree Larceny involving a Mythic Ability

23 count(s) of Theft over $10,000

1 count(s) of Petty Theft under $2,000

9 count(s) of Aggravated Assault with a Mythic Ability

A fun note at the end revealed the MPD could add, remove, or alter the charges at their discretion any time prior to sentencing.

So … not community service, then.

At the metallic rasp of a key sliding into a lock, I looked up. The agent swung the cell door open.

“Captain Blythe wants to see you.” He gestured impatiently. “Let’s go.”

I folded the packet and shoved it in my jumpsuit pocket. “You’re a courier and an escort? What a career!”

Scowling, he led me away from the cell block. Though my mind was on other things—namely my impending doom, aka sentencing hearing—I was a bit surprised. Draconian authoritarians or not, these agents sure could clean up an ugly mess real fast. It’d been less than twenty-four hours, and everything looked about the same—minus the scorch marks and broken walls. I couldn’t help but imagine an agent dressed like Mickey Mouse in Fantasia, musically directing dancing mops around the precinct.

Grumpy the Wonder Beard chained me to the table in a new interrogation room—or I assumed it was a different room. I couldn’t see any puddles of hardened lava on the floor.

Less than a minute later, Captain Blythe and Agent Shen walked in, looking as put-together and unfrazzled as they had yesterday.

“Déjà vu,” I remarked. “I feel like we’ve already done this.”

Blythe sat across from me. “Do you know Quentin Bianchi?”

No time for cordiality, I guess. “Yeah.”

No point in evading the question. Quentin had been taken into custody weeks before me and had spilled an unknown number of beans about his guild and acquaintances. I couldn’t imagine why, but the empath always had a reason.

“How would you describe your relationship with Quentin?” the captain asked.

I rolled my eyes thoughtfully toward the ceiling. “We were like Jay and Silent Bob—no, more like Timon and Pumbaa.”

Her face went so stony that it lost all resemblance to living flesh.

“We were guildmates,” I added expansively. “We worked together on a few assignments.”

“What kind of assignments? How often? How closely did you work together?”

I leaned back in my chair as far as my handcuffs would allow. “Can’t find him, can you?”

Blythe and Lienna stiffened, and I had to hold back a smile.

“You arrested him, what, four weeks ago? That’s pretty good. Holding him that long, I mean.” I tried to buff my fingernails on my sleeve, but the rattling chains ruined the effect. “And now you need my help to catch him.”

“We don’t need anything from you,” Lienna retorted coolly. “But if you recall those embezzlement and extortion investigations I mentioned yesterday—and the potential new charges against you—maybe you’ll consider sharing whatever information you have about Quentin.”

“I’ll consider it, but first I want to know what, specifically, I get out of this deal.”

Blythe’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

“Telling the judge how I was a good little convict who helped you catch the bad empath isn’t nearly enough motivation for me to turn snitch. You’re gonna have to do better than that.”

Blythe assessed me with stony calculation, and I let the silence stew. There was a shift in power happening here and I fully intended to take advantage of it.

Lienna stepped away from her spot by the one-way mirror. “What do you want, Kit?”

“Two things. First, I want leniency.”

Blythe raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Meaning?”

“Meaning, in exchange for helping you re-arrest Quentin, I want the assault charges against me dropped, because those are bullshit, and I want leniency in sentencing for the rest of the charges. You’re important enough to make that happen, aren’t you, Almighty Empress of the Precinct?”

A slight twitch dimpled Blythe’s cheek, but I couldn’t tell if she was amused or annoyed. “And your second request?”

“To catch Quentin, I can’t just sit here and psychoanalyze his behavior patterns. Pro-tip: psychoanalyzing empaths is a waste of time.” I braced my elbows on the table. “To do this properly, I need to go out there and find him.”

“Hell will freeze over before I set you loose—”

“Not by myself.” I rolled my eyes. “With the abjuration queen. Agent Shen can handle me, don’t you think? This’ll all go much smoother—and faster—if I accompany her on the manhunt. I know how Quentin operates.”

“Then you can tell Agent Shen exactly that,” Blythe snapped, “and your ass stays right here in the precinct.”

I sighed. “Okay. I’ll give you a freebie so we’re on the same page. Do you know how Quentin’s abilities work?”

“He’s an empath,” Lienna answered swiftly. “He can influence the emotions of the people around him.”

“Yeah, that’s the baby version. Quentin is the Thanos version of an empath.” And I had it on good authority that, unlike most empaths, his gift was of super-villain quality. “His power works in two ways—input and output. The input is intuitive. He can sense the emotions of anyone nearby.”

“We know th—” Blythe began irritably.

“Did you know emotions are contagious?” I interrupted. “When you see someone who’s scared, you get a zing of fear too. When you see happy people, you feel uplifted—unless you’re completely heartless, like a precinct captain or something.”

Blythe’s lips thinned.

“Now imagine how contagious emotions are when you’re a powerful empath.” I tapped my finger on the tabletop. “The output is where things get interesting. If Quentin makes someone feel scared, the input kicks in and he feels their fear. That kicks his fear up, which feeds back into his target, which feeds back into him, and the next thing you know, everyone in the room is terrified out of their mind.”

“Or,” Lienna muttered, “everyone around him is thrown into a murderous rage.”

Pretty much exactly. By my educated guess, jail had really pissed Quentin off. And while he was having a temper tantrum over his imprisonment, the abjuration spells on the holding cells collapsed. His anger had gone off like a nuke, which bumped everyone else’s rage-o-meter into the red, which fed back into his own ire. One thing led to another, and well, we all know what followed.

“And that,” I concluded cheerfully, “makes Quentin extra super dangerous.”

Of course, various factors affected, and limited, Quentin’s ability—things like targeting a specific person or a group, how susceptible someone was to the emotion, the distance of his target, and Quentin’s own mental state. But I didn’t mention any of that.