“I would ask you to refrain from using the words pretty and little when speaking about a woman with superior status and a highly advantageous magic, if you would be so kind,” the stately woman said pompously. “It is degrading.”

“Agreed,” Magnus drawled, leaning heavily in his chair now. He was clearly bored. “Not to mention disrespectful when speaking of your colleague’s daughter. Or didn’t you get the memo, Rufus?”

“Ah yes. Now that you mention it, I did hear somewhere that you are getting soft in your old age.” A sneer covered Rufus’s face.

“Men, please, enough.” Zander frowned, keeping his gaze on Dylan. “Rufus, what was your point?”

“I find it interesting that a Thunderstroke essentially came back from the dead and ended up with a Spirit Walker. Didn’t she bring one of yours back from the dead yesterday, Zander? Seems suspect.”

Magnus sighed so loudly that it was clear he meant to be heard. “The incident in question happened fifteen years ago. Alexis was eleven. Even if she’d been in training at the time, she wouldn’t have been able to travel to the other side of the country without being noticed, let alone use the sort of magic necessary to bring a man back from poisoning. I doubt she could do it now. She can only repair the soul—she cannot repair the body. Try again, Rufus. We do so love when you speak out of turn about things you have no knowledge of.”

“Yes, yes, quite right, Magnus, quite right. Hmm.” Zander rubbed his chin, the sound like sandpaper. “And then what happened, Mister…Dylan?”

Dylan relayed the story about how he’d woken up in a morgue all by himself, cold and alone, without a mortician or guard nearby. He filled them in on how he’d snuck out, creeping past sleeping guards, and found an unoccupied van. He’d later ditched the car and gotten a ride from a truck driver, who’d brought him as far as the Chester town.

“So you had no contact with the magical world for fifteen years?” Zander asked, his confusion evident.

“None. I read the news, but that was it,” Dylan responded.

“Then how did Demigod Kieran find you?”

I held my breath, and Magnus’s eyes returned to me. I had a feeling the guy could read me even though I was trying to keep all my emotions bottled up.

They couldn’t know Harding had told me about him.

“They said they noticed the pattern.” Dylan scratched the side of his head. “I wasn’t as subtle as I’d intended to be with my magic. I tried to use it as sparingly as I could, but…”

“The weather has been increasingly strange these last years. Even the last decade. You expect me to believe Demigod Kieran’s people just…happened to notice more lightning than normal?” Zander’s gaze fell on me. “What is it you are hiding, young lady?”

How’d he know I was the one hiding something? Was my face as red as it felt?

“We heard a rumor that Dylan’s grave was empty,” I blurted, trying to play it cool, like Daisy always did when she lied. Thank God they didn’t have an Authenticator here to magically confirm that I was lying. “The plot was there, but nothing was in it, basically. Amber found it on some conspiracy theory chat room or other, I think. Some guy used one of those sonar machines or something, I don’t know. I was only half listening.” I shrugged. “She is great at her job. She and Henry did the research, and the evidence seemed to fit, so we checked it out.”

Zander leaned back in his chair, clearly getting agitated. “A conspiracy theory chat room… Have I heard of this site?”

“There are as many of those as there are souls in the beyond,” Magnus said. “I’m sure Amber could show it to you.”

“I’m still unclear on what it is that we are trying to assess,” the regal woman beside Zander said, her patience clearly thinning. “Are we trying to ascertain if he killed Gianna? The reason for his escape is pretty clear—anyone in his situation would’ve run if they’d had the chance.”

“We are trying to assess how Demigod Kieran was able to find the prized Thunderstroke and Demigod Zander was not,” Magnus said with a little smile playing across his lips.

Anger infused Zander’s expression. “As I see it, there are two issues on the table. The first is who killed Gianna. The fact that Dylan is alive and has been in hiding makes him a suspect. The second is the legitimacy of the blood oath he took with Kieran. I would hate the Thunder—Dylan to be subject to a bad situation a second time.”

“Why didn’t we question Demigod Kieran about this when he was here?” a woman at the end asked.

“Because it is easier to badger the hired help.” Magnus’s smile burned a little brighter. The guy at the end grinned, leaning on his forearms. It was clear only Zander cared about this issue.

Zander’s jaw clenched, and I wondered if maybe he and my father weren’t the best of friends. I needed to mention it to Kieran.

“Look…” Zander paused. “I’m simply trying to assess how he ended up in Demigod Kieran’s employ when he was presumed dead. It is one thing to follow up on a cloak-and-dagger story and quite another to find a living Thunderstroke hiding in a Chester territory. Something isn’t making sense here. Something is missing.”

“As I see it…” the regal woman said slowly, and suddenly all the air dried up in the room. It wasn’t magic, it was her intensity. “Someone who’s trying to escape doesn’t attempt to kill himself in the process. But if you want to open up an inquisition regarding Gianna’s death, fine. I propose you do it on your own time, however. That situation is of little importance to me.”