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Bellamy took her measure, his big round eyes scanning her face. “We understand it was Alistair who was responsible for the incident at your ceremony. That he is, in fact, among the living.”

Merde. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one who’d spotted him. “That’s right,” she answered, revealing little.

“Your Council Magister believes you were his intended target. That Alistair claims you stole an item of great power from him. It took a while to translate his notes, but from what we gather, it’s something he’d called a soul sword. Are you familiar with this object?”

She eyed the journals on the table. From the look of the two mages, they must have been up all night, poring over the contents. She weighed her options before admitting, “Intimately.”

Tiberius shot her a furious glare while Liam’s irritated exhale feathered the back of her neck. So what if she’d lied and deflected when they’d asked her similar questions? Let them huff and puff. At no point had she been prepared to offer a soul-ripping explanation. Nor was she today. This little meeting was starting to feel an awful lot like an interrogation with her as the accused.

Bellamy continued, “In Alistair’s notes, he claims to have created this sword as a reservoir for dark energy. Energy he collected by stabbing his victims and draining their life force.”

Images flashed in her mind,candles, a stone altar, the screams. Despite the memories threatening to overwhelm her, she maintained an even tone. “Alistair was always hungry for more. With his own inherent energy reserves being unreliable, he was driven to experiment with ways to harness more power.”

“Yes, well, he was never one of the strongest among us,” Faust intoned, flipping through the journal in his hand.

Goddess, grant her patience. The prick had yellow sticky notes attached to the pages.

“After analyzing Alistair’s journals, we’ve concluded that he was successful in this endeavor. Since there are limits to the amount of energy a mage can absorb, Alistair needed a receptacle for the excess. Thus, he created the soul sword. When the scope of the project proved daunting, he found a way to expedite the process. In doing so, he formulated a drug capable of turning creatures of the underworld into their most primal selves. Once he injected his victims with the drug, they’d surrender their humanity, becoming exceedingly powerful. Then he’d sacrifice them, drawing their essence into an enchanted stone that was set into the sword.”

Since Faust had spoken to her as though he educated a simpleton, Vivian responded in kind, saying flippantly, “How tedious that must have been, deciphering his atrocious handwriting. Then again, I could have explained it to you had you asked.” But they hadn’t. Instead, they’d plotted in secrecy, then come to her home at an ungodly hour, hoping to blindside her.

“Do you have any idea the ramifications of what we’ve discovered?” Tiberius interrupted, his sharp tone chaffing her waning patience. It was no surprise the illustrious founder of Legacy Laboratories would be fascinated by this mystical object.

“By all means, relieve me of my ignorance,” she countered, narrowing her eyes to cat-like slits.

Liam coughed behind her, not bothering to cover his amusement.

“Black ice, Vivian,” Tiberius snapped in the face of her disdain. His jaw flexed, frustration creasing his brow. “Turns out, it all leads back to Alistair. He is the origin of the drug. Alistair’s captor, Salvatore, used this exact formula to raise an army of rogue vampires. Then Zion got his hands on the substance and started peddling it on the streets as a recreational narcotic. It’s because of that drug Zion has the means to rally so many to his side.”

Zion was the newest ruffian in town. Worse than Salvatore or Alistair, he had a cult following, all of whom wanted to set the underworld free from its human constraints. They were a coalition of zealots bent on causing a civil war. That coalition was made stronger by the money they generated selling black ice. Their extremist ideals posed a threat to the Council as well as the current magister.

“For months now, we’ve investigated the origins of this drug,” Tiberius went on. “The more we know about it, the greater our chances of reversing its effect. Turns out, you might have had the answer all along. In fact, you had a front-row seat to its creation.”

Vivian stiffened her spine. If he was looking for a scapegoat for his failures, she’d show him just how dangerous that would be. “First of all, until last night, I believed Alistair dead and his research lost.” She turned to Faust and Bellamy. “Second, years ago, I wrote a letter to the Syndicate, warning you about Alistair’s crimes and asking for your help. Those pleas went unanswered.”

She turned back to Tiberius. “I also confided in the Council and was threatened by the former magister. He warned bad things would happen to me if I didn’t return to my lover and keep my mouth shut. All of this could have been stopped if either ofyouragencies had listened to me.”

Faust smoothed the cover of the journal, saying in an imperious tone, “Arguing over past transgressions is a pointless endeavor. For now, it’s more important we focus on the present.”

She pressed her lips together. Of course he was unconcerned with the past now that she’d cast the blame in their direction.

“Despite the Council’s issues with Zion and this drug,” Faust continued, his hawk-like features narrowing ever further, “the Syndicate has much larger concerns. This soul sword Alistair created. It’s an object of great power. Its existence poses a threat to us all. If it were to fall into the wrong hands, the effects could be disastrous on an apocalyptic level.”

Vivian sank her nails into the gauzy fabric over her knee, grating, “And still, you have yet to explain what any of this has to do with me.” She grew weary of this cat-and-mouse routine. Vivian was no whiskered rodent to be batted between their paws.

Bellamy rolled his fingers on the arm of the settee, watching her as though his owl-like gaze could see right through her. “In Alistair’s notes, he claims you interrupted the final sacrifice he needed to complete his project. That you attacked him and stole the sword.”

She forced her lips into a mockery of a smile. “And in his notes, did he mention I was that final sacrifice?”

Liam’s hand tightened on the back of her chair, the cushion groaning beneath her shoulder. Thankfully, he remained silent.

“He did, in fact,” Bellamy said coolly, offering no concern for her well-being.

She glared at him in stony silence. These were the same bastards who refused to lift a finger and put an end to her abuse.

“Ms. Laurent,” Bellamy continued, “if you are in possession of this sword, it’s imperative you give it to us. Given the attack yesterday, it’s only a matter of time before Alistair succeeds in taking it from you.”

Her smile turned to ice on her lips. “I wish I could help you, gentlemen, truly. But as I explained to Magister Steele, I do not have this soul sword. In fact, I’m quite certain it was destroyed in the fire. I haven’t laid eyes on it since Alistair tried to bury it in my heart.”