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“What’s your question?” Darien demanded.

“The shadow,” said the other detective. “What is it and where’s it coming from?”

Darien spared the photo another half-glance. Then his eyes flicked up, clashing with Glen’s hostile gaze. “You’re asking me as if I fucking put it there.”

“Our teams have pinned down the blast location to the maintenance tunnels below Caliginous on Silverway,” Glen said. “You and your boys were the last to enter, with no footage showing you—anyof you—coming back out. Care to explain?”

“What about the imperator, it show him?”

“That’s quite the implication, kid,” said the detective at Glen’s side.

“So is the one you’re making about me,” Darien fired back.

“Maybe you can explain…,” Glen began, beckoning over his shoulder. An officer came forward and handed him a tablet. “What this is,” Glen concluded as he clicked the screen on. He balanced the device’s bottom edge on the table, holding it there so Darien could see the screen, and pressed the play button.

The video was less than thirty seconds long, but it showed enough.

Enough to make Darien’s stomach fuckingdrop. But he masked his expression carefully, revealing nothing. These assholes wouldn’t get even a hint of a reaction out of him.

But what he saw, right there on that screen…

The shadows in Yveswich were quarreling with white and rainbow light.Loren’slight. Loren’s magic. Her aura, distributed through the Control Tower and the channels of the anima mundi. It was barely visible, the video footage likely enhanced with expensive technology.

That magic—still coursing through the Control Tower and the last of the buildings that had power—was the only reason Yveswich was still standing. The only reason the last of its citizens could see at all. The only reason Ker’s historic capital had not been wiped right off the map.

“Well?” Glen prompted sharply.“Explain this.”He gestured to the video feeds of the sparkling multicolored shield. That’s what it was—a shield. Like the one Loren had created on Kalendae, shielding Angelthene from a terrible fate.

“Tell me what I’m looking at,” Darien said.

“Why don’tyoutellme?”Glen growled.

Darien snapped.“I can’t, because I’ve never seen this before!”

Glen shot out of his chair and slapped his palm on the table so hard it would’ve startled any sane person.

Darien didn’t even flinch.

Glen dipped his head to his level, the veins in his neck bulging as he bared his teeth. “You’re going to break,” he hissed. “And I’m going to be the one who breaks you.”

“Come a little closer and try saying that again,” Darien threatened.

Glen stayed standing, his palm flat on the table. “How about your little girlfriend? Hmm?” More sweat beaded on Darien’s forehead. “If I drag her little blonde head in here, will you talk then?”

Darien kept his face unreadable. They wanted a reaction, and if he gave them one, Glen might do exactly what he was threatening. Drag Loren in here by her beautiful blonde hair.

If he did, Darien would slaughter all these pricks. He’d have to do it with his bare hands, no magic allowed while the brynstan cuffs were on. They’d likely shoot him. And then Loren would be on her own. Vulnerable.

He couldn’t let that happen.

Glen sat back down. “Your sister knows you’re here. She says her husband’s out of town. He still in Yveswich?”

Darien didn’t answer.

Glen’s frown deepened. “You’re going to talk, you son of a bitch. I don’t care if takes all day, all night, all day tomorrow, and all night again.” A pause. And then: “What about your cousin?”

“Which fucking cousin?”Darien snapped back.

Glen slammed the tips of two fingers onto the middle photograph, the one that showed a clear view of Roman’s side profile.