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Adam moved to look at Mi-ja—who continued to talk on the subject as she made her way to them. “Do you have any idea who could’ve done it? It had to be an out-of-towner, surely? I mean, why would one of us attack Jacques?”

Eleri watched Adam’s expression shift to one of quiet patience. “We don’t know much right now,” he told the older woman. “What I do know is that you have your finger on the pulse of the town. If you hear anything, you’ll tell me?”

“Oh, of course!” Her small face scrunched up into a scowl. “I’d like to string up whoever it was that hurt him. That boy was always nice to my Dae when other kids used to bully him. Jacques put a stop to it straightaway.”

Adam frowned. “I forgot about that. They were in the same manufacturing class that one semester, weren’t they? The one that took students across grades?”

“Yes, and how they got on—Dae would tell me all the stories of their adventures.” Her smile was shaky. “He’s so shy that he’s always had trouble making friends—it made me happy that he’d linked up with Jacques. I think the two of them still have a beer together sometimes.”

“They meet up lately?”

“No, Dae’s been so busy with work.” Her lips turned down. “Were you thinking Jacques might’ve mentioned something? Well, if he had, Dae would’ve told me last night, when we first got word of the shooting.”

“You’ll ask him to pass on anything he hears, too?”

“I’ll message him straightaway.” She took her phone out of her pocket as she spoke.

“He wanted to eat breakfast at the diner today.” A roll of her eyes.

“Says my waffles are terrible, but doesn’t he scarf them up when I make them?

” Message sent and phone back in her pocket, she threw up her hands.

“Kids!” Then she turned and headed back to her office.

“Toodle-oo! Have a businessman coming in today—have to get his room sorted.”

Adam spoke after the other woman was out of earshot.

“Watch Dae. I don’t know what he’s up to, but he gives me a bad feeling.

I know for certain that he and Jacques weren’t friends at school.

Maybe he just made up a story to placate his mother when she worried about him making friends, but the fact he’s kept up the lie this long worries me. ”

Eleri nodded. “Hero worship turned deadly when Jacques didn’t act as he needed him to act?

” It wouldn’t be the first case of love turned destructive that Eleri had seen in her career; one of the first cases she’d studied during her training had involved a man who’d stabbed his lover—another man—to death in a frenzy of jealousy after discovering intimate photos of a third man on his comm.

“It’s possible. I’m going to put a watch on him.” Adam locked those strange, wild eyes on her again, the yellow inhuman and beautiful. “You can’t rely on Mi-ja to protect you if anything goes wrong with Dae—she’d do anything for her son, even bury a body.”

Eleri had long ago stopped being shocked by what people would do for those they considered their own. She’d lied with her silence for Reagan, hadn’t she?

Where’s the honor and justice in that?

Words she’d thrown at Reagan when she’d finally realized the duplicity that was part and parcel of being a J under the reign of the Council.

He’d given her a pensive look. “You’re a strong one, Eleri, to still have the will to ask such questions. Most of us forget them by the time we get to where you are in your training. It’s easier to forget, easier to just walk on without looking too carefully into the shadows.”

“Is that what you did?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” had been his answer.

Today, she just said, “I understand.”

Adam’s only response was, “Don’t forget your gloves,” before he turned and headed back down the stairs.

Eleri didn’t know why she’d stepped outside after he vanished from sight until several minutes later, when a large falcon winged overhead.

It circled over her once before heading to the Canyon.

To a place she’d never go, never experience, his home as far out of her reach as the sky that was in his every breath.

Her heart, that long-ossified organ, ached at that.

“Now,” she told herself, “it’s time for you to do the only thing you’re good at—and that might be useful.”

Don’t forget your gloves.

It meant nothing. He just didn’t want her disabled should the attack on his clanmate be related to her serial killer case. It was a sensible precaution.

And still, she tucked it away with all her hoarded memories of him.

Do you work at the court?

Not really. I’m an intern—I get paid a small stipend but my job is to learn, here and during our lectures. Are you a student, too?

Yes. Business with a minor in—don’t laugh—ancient epics like Beowulf . My mom…she loved old stories.

Eleri hadn’t known anything about Beowulf then, but she’d read the epic poem obsessively over the months that followed.

Searching futilely for a way back to the boy whose eyes had gone so sad when he’d mentioned his mother, but who’d also looked at Eleri in a way that said she was special, that she made him happy.

Until she’d shattered his heart, destroyed his trust…and any hope of a future in the warmth of those beautiful wild eyes.