Page 24 of Blackwicket (Dark Hall #1)

I tried to twist free, but the arm around my waist tightened, and with minimal effort, he lifted me enough for my heels to leave the ground, forcing me to keep pace or be dragged. I stumbled the rest of the way to the passenger door, which he opened for me.

“Get in, Eleanora, or I’ll get handsy. How many people do you think would stop me? They didn’t blink an eye when a woman was being threatened with a knife. At least it’s not a police car. Look, I’m letting you sit in the front.”

He was annoyed, and the disruption in his smooth tone was gratifying.

“I thought the Authority at least pretended to be decent.”

“And despite my other uncharitable beliefs about you,” he replied, scanning our surroundings for any other trouble as he spoke. “I didn’t think you were the type to spend your period of mourning, drinking and flirting in a Brom lounge. Sometimes we’re wrong about people.”

He was crowding me with his body, herding me into the car, and I jerked my elbow back, striking him in the ribcage. He absorbed the impact with hardly an exhale, which became a patronizing chuckle.

“Feel better?”

Knowing my other options were likely even more unpleasant, I climbed in, slamming the door shut.

As he approached the driver’s side, I exhaled shakily, my stomach knotting, limbs quivering, as the reality of what had almost happened took hold.

I sniffed, briefly covering my mouth to hinder the tears threatening to overflow, turning my face to the window as Harrow settled in the driver’s seat, his dominating presence filling the small space.

He swerved from the curb into traffic with an aggressive turn that nearly sent me careening into his lap.

My hand landed on his knee, and the flower William had tucked in my hair was jarred from its place, disappearing into the floorboard by the Inspector’s feet.

I cringed away as if burned, wound so tight that a snowflake’s weight more of panic would snap me in half.

“I didn’t survive a knife attack so you could kill me in a car wreck, Victor .” Scowling, I used his given name, echoing the thug who’d been familiar enough with him to do the same .

“What were you doing at The Vapors with William Nightglass and Thea James?” he asked, ignoring me.

“Why are you stalking me?”

“There was no stalking involved,” he replied. “You just don’t pay any goddamn attention. I was there the moment you walked in on William Nightglass’ arm.”

“I wasn’t on William’s arm, for godsake. And I have every reason to believe you’re stalking me. You did it in Devin!”

“Person of interest,” he said, tired of saying the same line.

“Exonerated!”

“It would do you a world of good to drop the act, Ms. Blackwicket. It’s tiresome. We both know you killed that man, let’s establish that and move on so we can focus on more pressing matters.”

I glared at him. “Like who hurt my sister?”

He glanced at me, the bare turn of his head.

“Curse Eaters die by accident all the time.”

I couldn’t decipher the strange edge in his tone.

“No,” I corrected. “They don’t. Regular, inexperienced, people who are forced to eat curses die by accident. A trained curse eater who’s been doing it since she was five years old doesn’t die by curse rot, accident or not.”

I stopped short of my full tirade.

“You already know that,” I accused.

He didn’t look at me, but a wry grin momentarily crossed his lips, unsettling me in a way I despised.

We reached the end of the main strip, moving from the lights and onto the shadowy side street.

The inside cab descended into a murky gloom, lit by the sporadic glow of the half-moon peeking behind snow-filled clouds.

“Why were you at The Vapors, Eleanora?” he said, doing what he did best, wresting control of the conversation.

“Why were you there if you weren’t following me? Thea James recognized you, and, by the way, there’s no love lost there.”

“Thea’s got her own problems. I’m not one of them.”

“Lucky woman.”

The silence following was heavy with the billowing of my own emotions.

The Inspector remained impassive, unimpressed with my sass.

I wondered what good this was all doing, what I was achieving in my struggle towards gaining the upper hand.

Tonight, for a short, dizzying minute, I’d been ready to forfeit my life.

If I were so depraved, what did it matter to me if the Inspector had a piece of the truth?

The car pulled up the drive, gravel crunching beneath the tires. When he shifted it to park, I didn’t immediately get out. He’d expected me to, his hand lifting as if to catch me. He rested it on the wheel and waited.

“William and I have known each other since we were children. I didn’t know he would be there, that he was involved in…

I went to…” I spoke softly, pausing, wary to offer honesty when it had never protected me.

I retrieved the two photos I’d discovered in Fiona’s drawer and offered them over.

He took them with the barest of curiosity.

“I went to see Thea James,” I said. “She was friends with my sister. I expected she’d know who the child in the photograph with Fiona is. I just wanted answers.”

“Did you get them?” The words were a soft thrum in the darkness. It was the gentlest tone he’d ever used with me, and I risked a glance at him, observing his stark, angular profile and the proud, crooked curve of his nose.

“No, but you’re investigating disappearances. It has something to do with the Brom, and if my sister’s death is related, then it’s your job to find out how.”

The paleness of his scar shone in the dim light. A beat of quiet passed before he looked up again, giving the photos back to me.

“Fiona Blackwicket was an illegal Curse Eater. As far as the Authority is concerned, her end was a logical result of her profession. The Brom had no reason to eliminate her. She was an ace in their hand.”

I couldn’t accept this, not after I’d debased myself with such vulnerable honesty.

“And what about as far as you’re concerned? You can’t sit there and say you don’t care at all what happens to people. She didn’t deserve this. She was trying to survive!”

As my desperation grew, Inspector Harrow’s tone became increasingly detached.

“A lot of people are trying to survive, Ms. Blackwicket. Not many of them resort to black-market magic.”

I was too exhausted to resist the tears collecting on my lashes from this rebuke. I recalled the face of one of the young men who’d accosted me, the softness of childhood still visible.

“The Brom wouldn’t be such a thorn in your side if that were true, Inspector,” I replied, raw.

“Speaking of aces,” he said, my pain failing to move him. “The Brom just lost their leading lady, so you must look pretty enticing. Does that explain why you were at the Principes’ private table tonight?”

“Grigori is Principe,” I corrected harshly, the Inspector’s lack of interest in the photos, in my sister’s life and death, incensing me.

“Grigori Nightglass is dead.”

This news stole in my breath. Why hadn’t William mentioned that?

I did the bribing , he’d said.

I snorted with all the derisive loathing I could muster. “Past time he was in the ground. Grigori was a devil and a madman. ”

“He enjoyed a decorated military history, worked closely with the Authority to weed out Brom factions in several cities, Devin included, and was a much-lauded Principe, even after surviving such tragedy,” Inspector Harrow remarked, as though he were reading a eulogy.

My heart kicked behind my ribs.

Thomas. Thomas. Thomas.

“It didn’t make him good.”

“From what I know, he kept your family out of trouble and legally employed for many years.”

I rotated in my seat, the energy of my rage renewed.

“He blackmailed my mother!”

Harrow held my gaze.

“Is that why she murdered his son?”

Overcome by a jolt of fury, I aimed a slap at Inspector Harrow’s face, but he captured my wrist, my fingers mere inches from the scar on his cheek.

“Thomas Nightglass’s death was a terrible accident.

” The words were jagged and bitter, filling the car with my grief.

A vibrant current of energy coursed between us.

In my turmoil, I’d dropped my guard, giving the Inspector access, and magic moved toward him as naturally as a brook flowing downstream.

The sensation lacked the greasy violations of Coppe’s magic and the sterile precision of William’s, but still sent a shiver down my spine.

I tried to heave free, but Inspector Harrow’s grip was a vice.

“Tell me what happened,” the Inspector coaxed, low. “All I have are the rumors. A young boy makes friends with a Blackwicket girl, ends up filled to the throat with curses. Grigori takes him to your house, where people supposedly go to be healed, and the boy comes out dead.”

“Thomas was dead before he came through that door,” I whispered. “No child could survive curses like that. ”

His fingers tightened.

“You’re lying to me again.”

“I’m only returning the favor,” I snarled, struggling like a trapped animal, “My mother never killed anyone!”

“How did she die, Eleanora?” He asked, calm as the eye of a storm even as he pulled me violently forward. I slid across the seat toward him. “Where is her body? It’s not in the cemetery, the coroner confessed the casket was empty.”

I was vaguely aware he was provoking me, pushing my boundaries, hoping I would reveal my power, but the panic was too overwhelming for me to resist.

“Let me go.” I intended it as a command, but emerged as a plea.

Gaze set on the tear streaks making tracks to my chin, the Inspector murmured, “I’m going to peel back every rotting, soft layer of your life, Miss Blackwicket, and I’ll uncover the truth.”

In response, I finally did what he’d been goading me to do, releasing my magic as if pulling the trigger on a pistol.

The bolt of it should have ricocheted through him, singeing his senses.

This type of magic didn’t kill but could be agonizing in large, unexpected doses.

Yet instead of causing harm, it struck as if hitting warm tar.

In reaction, his own power began to envelop mine, consuming my energy as effortlessly as a ravenous sea swallows a stone.

His eyelids drooped, a deep rumble escaping him, reverberating through the charged air of the cab, and his grip slackened.

I threw myself against the door, clambering to open it and escape. He didn’t attempt to stop me.

“If you’re so interested in the truth,” I grated, standing in the driveway, chest heaving, cheeks hot as coals. “Find out what happened to my sister.”

I turned my back on the Inspector’s callousness, and the unwanted, terrible ache in me, branching from the place where our magic crossed, where his touch still stung my skin.