Page 59

Chapter 53

August

Jails weren’t new to August.

He had a few scattered memories of coming here when he was young, before his father had shrugged off the last of his criminal leanings. August had landed in here a few times himself. Usually for climbing over a police barrier or being somewhere else he shouldn’t, in pursuit of a story. A bit of bail money, or a bribe, and August was usually on his way in a few hours. Although once he’d let himself be booked overnight in the 3rd circle. It’d been winter, and they hadn’t been able to afford the heating in his mother’s apartment that year. The police station in the 3rd circle had been a warm place to sleep, being in the upper echelons of the city.

Prison, on the other hand…

Being arrested for murder got you upgraded.

He’d told the same story over and over again to the cops. The truth. That he’d found the body. In fairness, if he hadn’t been there, August wouldn’t have believed the story either. The fifth time he told it, they had asked if there was anyone else who could corroborate that he was there looking for a story and not stabbing someone to death.

“How about Honora Holtzfall?”

He was pretty sure that was what got him sent to Wirr Prison. Who said the justice system wasn’t efficient?

As the police van rolled through the city, August became aware of an unsettled feeling with every farther block they went. It was nearly nightfall, and the streets were still busy, even as voxes blasted reminders of the curfew. It felt like the precipice of something dangerous.

The police van rattled to a stop. An officer wrenched the back open, but his eyes were darting around. He looked distracted as he ushered August toward the flat gray face of the prison, which stared down with hundreds of barred window eyes. In no time, he was being pushed into a waiting area as the police officer disappeared again.

And now August sat, waiting to be processed as the sky outside darkened.

They were supposed to let him send a missive. Let someone know he was in here. He ought to let his mother know. Or maybe his editor. He was tempted to send one to Nora. He might need a recommendation for a good lawyer, after all.

August leaned his head against the wall of the waiting cell, turning his mind back to the story. The pull of it drawing him in even here and now.

They’d run into dead ends before, but this one felt especially defunct. And not just because it came in the form of a murdered man. August had a sinking feeling it wasn’t a coincidence that Officer Eugene Knapp had been killed only hours after Oskar Wallen had given up his name.

August was just considering getting some shut-eye when, all at once, the lights went out.

For a second, he thought the bulb above him had just burned out. But it was too dark for that. August could hear faraway shouting. The panic that came with a blackout. He pulled himself to his feet, peering out the solitary barred window in the processing cell.

The whole prison had gone dark.

No, not just the whole prison.

The whole city.

Skyscrapers in the distance stood like pillars of black against a starry sky. On the road outside, cars had stalled. Something had knocked out the power in the whole city.

And that, August realized, moving quickly, would include the magimek locks on the prison doors.

Sure enough, the door pushed open easily under August’s hand. He could go now, be out without there ever being a record of him being arrested for murder.

Or…

August hated the thing in him that made him pause. The thing that couldn’t let a story go. That couldn’t just leave .

He’d told Nora more than once it was impossible to get into Wirr Prison.

But he was here now. In the same prison as Lukas Schuld. The man who had falsely confessed to killing Verity Holtzfall.

The murdered cop had been a dead end. But here was a tiny opening in the brick wall he’d been staring at for hours. One last tiny hope for answers, however unlikely.

Cursing himself, Honora Holtzfall, and everything else in this stupid damned story, August turned on his heel, heading deeper into the prison.