My hand shot toward the phone like a hidden animal might attack its unsuspecting prey, and I thrust the receiver to my ear so hard I heard it connect with my skull. “This is Zoe. Tell me what’s going on.”
“Zoe, it’s Mueller.”
“Yeah, I gathered. Let’s skip the formalities, okay? We’re in crisis here, Mueller.”
Mueller grunted, and I could picture him scowling with his droopy dog face in my mind. “Sure thing. Look, I gotta be honest, the story Heath is telling us isn’t all that convincing, but he swears what happened at the Town Hall wasn’t what it looked like. He’s already gotten himself a lawyer, and he’s refusing to tell us anything beyond his version of events. They’re, well, bizarre, to say the least. He wants to see you.”
My heart skipped. “He does? Why?”
“He says he knows you’ll believe him. For what it’s worth, I see nothing wrong with it, but you’ll have to deal with going down into the cells.”
“I’ve faced worse. I’ll be there in a few minutes. Is it okay if Umrea comes along?”
“A guard isn’t necessary, but sure, if it’ll make you feel safer.”
“Thanks, Mueller,” I said, and hung up before he had the chance to change his mind. A beat later, Holly appeared from her office attached to mine.
“So, what’s the scoop?”
“I’m going to visit Heath in the cells at the MGPD. He wants to talk to me, but I don’t know why.”
“What should I tell the rest of the Council? They haven’t stopped blowing up my phone asking for updates all day.”
“I don’t blame them. Anyway, tell them the truth. I’ll update everyone when I get back.”
Holly grimaced. “That won’t satisfy them.”
“Too bad. It’ll have to,” I said as I gathered my bag and wand off the desk. “Anyone who isn’t can take it up with me later — and trust me, they don’t know wrath until they’ve experienced it coming from a pregnant woman on the edge.”
Holly chuckled. “I know I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of all that.”
“Good, then make that clear to the rest of them.”
“Got it,” Holly said and disappeared back into her office to make calls to the other representatives.
I sighed and waddled toward the door. Outside, Umrea waited. “Come on, Umrea, we’re off on another wild goose chase. We’re going to see Heath at the MGPD.”
Umrea grunted her acknowledgement but said nothing else during our walk to the police station — maybe she remembered the way I’d snapped at her earlier that morning.
Ugh, why couldn’t this have waited just a few more weeks? Why did a major Council scandal like this have to break out while I was in the worst part of pregnancy — and why of all people did it have to involve Heath?
Even if he were innocent, something I wasn’t sure of myself, how in Lilith’s name would I convince the rest of Moon Grove to trust him or, by extension, the rest of the Council again?
Worse, what would happen if whoever prosecuted the case convicted Heath? There would have to be an election for a new Head Warlock, assuming the institution of the Council survived the scandal, and there wasn’t a single warlock in all of Moon Grove I could think of who could adequately replace him.
But I was putting the witch before the broom, because no matter how bad things looked, I couldn’t bring myself to believe Heath would murder anyone, much less his own son — the same man he’d gone out of his way and risked his reputation to spare from prosecution. It just didn’t add up.
Then again, if Heath didn’t kill Adam, who did? It was hard to argue with the evidence: When the lights came back on, Heath stood over Adam’s dead body with his wand drawn. Still, I’d spent enough time in this upside-down magical world to know better than anyone that things weren’t always how they looked.
There were plenty of other people in the room, some of them shadier than others, who might’ve wanted to hurt Adam. After all, Heath wasn’t the only person near Adam with the ability to use magic — Virgil, Wesley, Tate, and Morgan all just as easily could’ve attacked him — but I still didn’t know whether the killer had used magic on Adam in the first place, and that overlooked the fact that the gargoyles had confiscated everyone’s wands except for those on the Council.
By the time we reached the MGPD across the street, my head throbbed from thinking about it all. Mueller met me just inside the door with his arms crossed over his chest and a familiar grumpy hound look on his face. “Zoe,” he grunted and headed toward the back of the station, thankfully skipping the small talk.
Ewan nodded solemnly as we passed. I wanted to stop and ask him if Flora knew anything about this yet — her secret position on the Fairy Bureau of Investigation might come in handy in a situation like this — but I wasn’t sure if Ewan even knew about that part of Flora’s life yet, so I thought better of it.
We stopped at a locked, iron-barred door, and Mueller unhooked a chain of dozens of keys from his belt to search for the right one. “Gimme a second,” he mumbled. Traditional locks and keys seemed shortsighted for a prison that housed magical tenants, but I kept that observation to myself.
Finally, Mueller found the right key and put it in the lock. The door creaked open, and we entered a small landing that led to a steep set of stone stairs and disappeared underground.
“How charmingly primitive,” I said with a smile.
“Sometimes the old school way is the best way to do things,” Mueller said. “Come on, and whatever you do, don’t talk to any of our other guests or get too close to their cells. Some of them have an extended reach.”
A chill scuttled down the back of my neck like a spider. There was a very good chance that one or more of the guests Mueller had referred to were ones I’d put there in the last year — and I highly doubted any of them would be happy to see me again.
As if they’d sensed my fear, the twins shifted in my stomach, making me feel even more nauseous than I already did. I gripped the railing along the stairs to keep myself steady and rubbed my stomach with my free hand to soothe them as Mueller and I descended.
After what seemed an eternity, we reached another narrow landing that seemed to stretch on forever. Mueller, with his otherworldly werewolf’s eyes, could probably see in the inky darkness without a problem. I couldn’t say the same, so I pulled my wand from my robes and held it above my head. “Lumino,” I whispered, and the word echoed off the close walls hundreds of times as my wand’s tip flared to life and brought the thin hallway into soft focus.
Dozens of cells lined either side, each of them sporting different security features — probably designed to attend to the various threats that different paranormal patrons posed.
“Heath is at the end in one of our maximum-security cells,” Mueller said, pointing into the darkness not even my wand’s light could penetrate from where we stood.
“Maximum security? Is that necessary?”
Mueller scowled at me; the look was much more intimidating than usual thanks to the harsh shadows my wand’s tip cast over his face. “He’s the most powerful warlock in Moon Grove and he’s accused of murder, Zoe. So yes, it’s necessary.”