16. A SURPRISE BETRAYAL
A SURPRISE BETRAYAL
“THERE YOU ARE! WHY DIDN’T YOU ANSWER ME?!”
Ames wrapped Embry in a hug so tight her back cracked.
Even with the unintended chiropractic adjustment, it felt good to fall into the arms of her best friend, into the familiar scent of rose water.
Into the arms of someone who both (a) cared deeply and (b) knew without a shadow of a doubt that Embry would never, ever hurt anyone, let alone a friend like Oakley.
Once Ames peeled herself off Embry and entered the Woodcross Residence, Fairfax stepped inside and followed suit in his greetings with a much more muted embrace.
“She’s not an idiot, darling, that’s why,” he said while squeezing Embry’s upper arm. “The Table or the headmaster might demand her phone records and correspondence at any time. And you weren’t exactly subtle in your requests for answers.”
Ames wrinkled her nose at her boyfriend’s explanation.
“Well, she could’ve scried me! You can scry through a mirror.
Like, any mirror. I know you, Em, and your skin care routine hasn’t fallen to the wayside despite being in the seventh ring of hell.
Couldn’t you have sent me an all good between your serums and finishing oil? ”
This was so embarrassing. She was a witch. Who could do things. Duh. “If I’d had a coherent thought in the past day-and-a-half, I most certainly would’ve done that. Sorry.”
Embry shut the door and led them to the living room.
Soon the coven would descend for the preplanned meeting, but until moonrise all was quiet.
Daddy had informed her that he and Rye would be working together in the conservatory to prepare.
She hadn’t seen Knighton yet, but she had no reason to believe those plans had changed.
Embry was glad for the meeting, not simply because it was comforting to anticipate a spot of normalcy but also because it meant her closest witch friends had the perfect excuse to receive special permission to leave the school’s mandatory lockdown and have this exact conversation.
“The truth is I have no idea what happened. I went back to the dorm right after Oakley and I talked…” Embry caught both her friends’ eyes, confirming that, yes, they’d seen the video.
Of course they had. “And then in the morning I went to apologize and… then there was the crowd, the body, and Martinelli calling me in for questioning.”
“It’s such horseshit,” Ames groused. “Three years and a lifetime living next to that school and you’d think these people would know you, but apparently, they only see what you are, which again, is just horseshit.
Like the big, juicy kind stallions leave on multiuse hiking trails like the single-minded assholes they are. ”
“I didn’t know you had such opinions about equine defecation, my love,” Fairfax joked.
“I do when it amounts to the metaphorical equivalent of what a bunch of administrative idiots are doing to my best friend,” Ames sniffed, dropping onto the gloriously plush cushions of the living room’s white sectional. Fairfax squeezed in beside her. “This is literally a witch hunt.”
“I don’t disagree with you,” Embry said with a sweep of her hair over her shoulder as she settled into the crook of the sectional’s elbow, her typical spot.
“And I understand why they wanted to question me, but we know I didn’t do it.
And I wish they weren’t barking up the wrong tree.
Oakley deserves justice, and they won’t find it while trying to connect me with what happened to her. ”
A strange silence fell over her friends at the period of the sentence.
Embry glanced up to find Ames and Fairfax fumbling through a wordless conversation of raised brows and worried lips. This was unlike them. “What?” Embry asked slowly.
The couple met the question with twin furrowed brows. Ames wound her arms across her chest. Fairfax rubbed at an invisible spot on his pristine pant leg. Finally, Ames spoke, “We know you didn’t do it. Of course you didn’t. But there’s compelling evidence besides the dumb video.”
Embry’s stomach twisted. “Compelling how?”
Fairfax’s eyes were as warm as ever, a hot-chocolate hug in a glance, but the boy’s characteristic charm had been swapped out for a serious expression Embry was certain she’d only ever seen during Jonesy’s acting class.
Still, the moment he opened his mouth, it was clear the stoicism was a hundred percent real.
“Alistair had a vision—one that he shared with the investigative teams Saturday morning.” Fairfax’s throat bobbed as Embry’s mind whirred.
She blinked at him, her mouth suddenly so parched she couldn’t ask him to continue.
Luckily, he did without prodding. “The vision he divined implicates you, Embry.”
She tried to swallow past the scorching dryness in her throat. “Implicates me?”
Both nodded, though it was Fairfax who continued on, the gentler of the two.
“Alistair was the one who found Oakley’s body yesterday.
He came to the stadium after receiving a vision of you magicking her to death.
When he found her exactly as he’d predicted, he sounded the alarm.
He was the first student questioned. Even before you. ”
Embry felt as if she’d been stabbed straight in the heart. Alistair. Her friend. With the kind eyes and loaded parents and sweet disposition and occasional memory blindness. The one she’d defended constantly from people—like Balthazar, unfortunately—who didn’t understand his divining power.
And now he’d divined something horrible.
Something that implicated her. Something that was false—and was being used against her.
Even worse, visions from diviners were routinely used as hard evidence in Table trials.
It wasn’t video of her at the scene of the crime, but it was as close as possible in the magical world.
Her heart sank as she realized that maybe, just maybe, if she hadn’t rejected Alistair so publicly, he might have come to her first with his vision.
Given her a heads-up and a chance to explain.
Instead, he went straight to the authorities.
Like he suddenly believed her to be capable of what he’d seen.
Embry was frozen in her spot but felt as if she’d suffered the highest grade of whiplash. This had to be the information Daddy’s lawyers had been attempting to pry out of Inspector Brown and his team.
“I didn’t… How did he… Why would he?” Embry couldn’t get words out. Her heart throbbed; her throat constricted. Again, she felt sweat pricking at her hairline while the rest of her ran icy cold. “I just can’t believe it.”
“I’m sorry, Em” was what Ames said.
“We need to tell Daddy.” Both nodded in agreement. “Should I talk to Alistair? Find out what exactly he saw? I mean, if his vision is wrong, something else is going on here.”
“I mean this in the best way possible, but the last thing you should do is talk with him,” Ames said. “The Table and Martinelli are already asking questions about if you influenced us to say certain positive things about your relationship with Oakley. If you talk to him…”
“It’ll look like witness tampering,” Embry finished. It was as Martinelli had said. What she thought was simply asking clarifying questions could and would look like coercing someone to turn her way. Even Alistair.
Fairfax cleared his throat. “Elton-Bentley isn’t talking to anyone. His room’s been shut up since he gave his statement. Won’t answer to a knock, a text, a note under the door—heck, I sent him an email out of desperation. Silence.”
Guilt climbed in Embry’s chest now, as icy hot as the rest of her, burning like a molten peppermint stick.
Alistair wasn’t daft; he’d likely noticed her moon eyes over Balthazar, probably deduced if not divined the fact that she’d instigated their own little dance card.
Anyone with decent observation skills could’ve noticed the day-early orchid corsage.
And he definitely would have, given the feelings he’d apparently harbored for her over the past few years.
Embry shook herself loose. She couldn’t dwell on the feeling of betrayal. Alistair had done what he’d thought was right. Even if what he’d told the authorities was so, so wrong.
She cleared her throat and shifted in her seat, hugging her knees to her chest. Embry hadn’t had the strength to dress up for tonight’s coven festivities.
Yoga pants, fuzzy socks, and a University of Maine hoodie Daddy gave her two Samhains ago was all she could manage.
Not ideal to mope in the fetal position in a dress and stilettos anyway.
“Did Balthazar get permission from Martinelli to come to the meeting?” Her priorities were basically a game of fifty-two-card pickup at this point, but she had to ask.
Again, the couple exchanged a glance. “The coven meeting?” Ames clarified. “Tonight?”
Embry nodded. “I gave him a coin.”
“You… did?” Ames asked in a way that surprised Embry. She was sure she’d told her about the whole thing. “But he’s a sorcerer.”
“I know he is.” Embry was feeling a little defensive. “Rye thought I was being an idiot, but Balthazar said he was missing community and, well, I couldn’t say no when he asked.”
Unlike Rye, Ames didn’t push further. Instead, she just shrugged and sank back into the cushions again. “If he planned on coming, he didn’t mention it to me.”
“Or me,” Fairfax seconded. “Not that I’ve seen him.”
“You haven’t seen him?”
They both shook their heads. “He’s gone radio silent,” Ames explained. “Asked him twice if he wanted anything from the refectory when it was my turn to pick up food. No answer.”
Beside her, Fairfax shrugged. “Lockdown has been strange.”
“Huh. He texted me.” Embry slipped her phone out of her pocket and showed them the thread of messages. “Think I should ask him if he’s coming to the meeting?”
“If you don’t think Inspector Brown can use it against you, go for it,” Fairfax replied. “Balthazar’s clearly not answering either of us.”
Embry gamed this in her head. It might look like she was hoping to have a private conversation with him.
Or, well, it might look like nothing. And it wasn’t witness tampering or anything.
If she’d texted Alistair? Sure, that would look bad to Inspector Brown.
But Balthazar? This was just a question about plans that could be proven were previously made.
Ignoring the iron will that had kept her silent the past twenty-four hours, Embry blasted off a message to the sorcerer.
Thanks. Are you coming to the meeting tonight? Miss you.
“Miss you?” Ames scoffed, leaning over to read. “I don’t get one lousy text or lazy-ass mirror scry, but the drama king with the leather jacket and enviable hair gets a Miss you just for flashing those dimples your way?”
Despite literally everything, Embry’s stomach cartwheeled, and a flush crept up her neck beneath her fall of shiny blond hair as she shuffled away her phone.
“Never mind that. Tell me what else you’ve heard on campus.
Anything? Am I the only suspect? Do they have any other suspects? Has Alistair seen anything else?”
“Girl, we haven’t learned shit,” Ames groused with zero hesitation.
“We only knew about Alistair’s vision because Martinelli referenced it during Fairfax’s questioning, and then Inspector Brown gave her a face-melting look and they never mentioned it again.
” Her boyfriend mimed his cheeks sagging like hot wax to confirm this before Ames continued.
“Place is on lockdown; info is on lockdown. At least until classes resume tomorrow.”
“That is not ideal,” Embry sighed.
“Not ideal,” Fairfax agreed, before a grin crossed his face and he arched one impeccable eyebrow. “But also not sustainable. You need boots on the ground? That’s us.”
Ames purposefully propped her feet up on the coffee table and wiggled both adorable faux calfskin ankle boots. “Literally and figuratively.”