29. MIRROR, MIRROR #2
“Alistair Elton-Bentley. That’s who we’re talking about here? Have you met him?” If anything, Alistair had been overly kind to her after she crushed his romantic hopes. He was the very definition of genteel. “He would never do all the things you just described.”
Rye was undeterred. “What, like he’d never use his magic to toss you under the bus with a vision of you hurting someone and then vanish like a rabbit from a two-bit magician’s hat?”
It had been like that. She just hoped it wasn’t because he was stolen away by a murderer or made to be another victim himself. Though Rye was right—the motivation didn’t fit, if it had to do with available magical essence. Embry sighed. “I just—I can’t believe that.”
“It doesn’t matter that you can’t believe it.
It only matters if Alistair hurt you because you rebuffed him.
Men do stupid shit all the time.” Embry’s own breath was too loud in her ears as Rye caught her eye, sorrow darkening his irises.
“Just because Alistair has been your friend for the past three years doesn’t mean he’s not above that. ”
Embry Woodcross was an excellent witch, but she also felt she had a magical ability to correctly judge character.
Despite everything, she believed that was true.
She thought Oakley was a good person still, even with the fight they’d had and the lies that had been uncovered.
And she thought Alistair was a good person and a friend, even after his betrayal.
If anything, the feelings she had toward them had more to do with her character than theirs.
So Embry was absolutely certain when she told Rye, “He wouldn’t. Alistair wouldn’t do something violent. I can’t explain the divination being so wrong or why he’d tell anyone if it were, but I don’t think he could ever be the type of person to murder someone. Oakley, Balthazar, or anyone else.”
Embry prepared for pushback. For her intuition to be picked apart like carrion to a crow. Rye was as good at that as he was with magic.
Instead, he nodded. “Okay.”
The word dropped free, and she was suddenly relieved but also not at all surprised when he added, “So, we need to look at Balthazar.”
“No.”
If Rye heard her, he didn’t show it—the boy would be pacing if he’d had the real estate between the sectional and the coffee table.
“We don’t know much about Balthazar, other than he spent time in Romania, land of vampires, without much explanation.
What school did he attend before? Why did he transfer here? Where is he now?”
Embry’s head was pounding, a pulsating beat that somehow kept time with the new churning of her stomach. All that delicious curry, naan, and cheesecake on a spin cycle.
“Let’s not forget Balthazar swindled you out of a coven coin.” Well, she didn’t like that verb choice. “One that would’ve given him entry to our last meeting. A meeting he didn’t attend, but you know who did—”
Embry gasped. “You can’t think he let the vampires in…”
“Why can’t I think that?” Rye shot back. “Why aren’t you thinking that? Oakley’s family broke through our wards and attacked us. They nearly killed Lazarus—”
“You don’t have to remind me.”
“I know, I’m sorry.” Rye’s kind expression said it all.
“I just—Look. I inspected the wards after it happened. They weren’t dismantled.
They weren’t frayed. There was nothing wrong with them at all.
Which means those vampires came onto the estate in the middle of a highly protected coven meeting without breaking in. It was as if they were invited.”
Embry’s mouth went dry.
“Okay, I see your point.” Bracing, she admitted, “And… Balthazar was the only nonmember invited to that particular meeting.”
Rye scrubbed a hand through his hair, his despair sending a fresh hint of rosemary her way. “We have to consider what that could mean.”
It meant that she’d made a mistake. Maybe.
Still, that little spark of how Balthazar had made her feel only days ago coupled with his absence made Embry swerve away from the subject. Toward the idea that Rye wasn’t considering—the sorcerer could be—probably was—a victim.
“We do,” Embry began carefully, “but I think perhaps we’re asking the wrong question. What about motive? Balthazar doesn’t have the motive to do these things any more than Alistair. Surely we can find someone with motive for all of it—killing Oakley, framing me, maybe even disappearing Balthazar.”
Rye frowned. “He’s a sorcerer. He was in Romania. They supposedly use that dark magic well. Balthazar could’ve killed Oakley to fill it—he wouldn’t be the first. Trust me. I read the court documents.”
“He’s seventeen,” Embry argued. “That wouldn’t be a kid’s job.”
“You’re seventeen and that hasn’t stopped the Table from putting you at the top of their suspect list despite the fact that the motive they’ve cooked up for you is basically mean-girl shit gone wrong.
” Anger seared the edges of Rye’s argument, yet when he turned to her, softness flooded his expression.
“I mean, I know you like him, Embry, or did, but still.”
A glob of something sour plunked in her stomach. Was her heart the problem here? Or her head? Balthazar as a mastermind? That didn’t feel right, even if Rye had a point about the rest. But he’d never liked Balthazar—that had to count for something, too.
“What about our list?” Embry asked, feeling a tad desperate.
“The original one? With the clique leaders? Maybe we should be looking at who wanted Oakley’s company and were spurned.
Maybe the drained magic is the work of another, unrelated party—like how vultures prey on something that’s already dead.
Maybe it happened after she was killed but before it was discovered, which means magical people unable to steal the magic could still be viable suspects. ”
Skye the Bitch and Cass the Stitch were both prefects, with access to the dorm wards and reasons to want Oakley for their cliques.
Skye had the relationship to get close enough to Oakley to poison her without suspicion.
But perhaps Cass did, too—they were undead as well, after all, and probably knew a thing or two about the special anatomy of vampires.
And then there was Ariel the Glitch, who could siren Oakley into submission before poisoning her.
All three had the means and connections to gain magical poison—but so did most of the students at Raven’s Head.
Few students were on scholarship, which meant the student body was disproportionately well-to-do.
Money meant means in the magical world, just as in every other community on earth.
“Em,” Rye started, and she knew simply because he was using that nickname instead of Woodcross that he was not in agreement. “Unless any of those people are actual psychopaths who’ve been obsessed with you in an unhealthy way for a very long time, I doubt it.”
“Then who do we list?” Embry stabbed Rye in the chest. Unfortunately, she missed his sternum and wound up poking the brick wall of a pectoral muscle. “And don’t say Balthazar.”
Rye paused. “I suppose it’s possible the sorcerer is as much a pawn here as you.”
Embry threw up her hands. “Thank you! Finally.”
“Don’t thank me much. Because if it’s not Balthazar, and it’s not Alistair—”
“It’s not Alistair,” Embry cut in.
“And it’s not any of the other clique leaders,” Rye continued, not missing a beat, “then it’s a very dangerous and unknown assailant.”
Embry gulped. “Could it be someone trying to get at Daddy? He’s much more powerful than me, and everyone knows one way to take down a man is to take down his child.”
Rye considered this. “He was the first one attacked by the vampire coven.”
“Exactly.”
“But…” Rye continued, the wheels of his mind spinning as he raked a hand again through his hair.
“Actually, returning to you for a moment—considering what would hurt Lazarus… for all the trouble this person is going through to ruin your life, I’m shocked that someone this twisted didn’t just try to, well…
” Rye’s words trailed off, all his usual bluntness dulled as he watched her with eyes shaded by furrowed brows and a dark moment on the TV screen.
“Are you trying to suggest this person wanted to off me?” Embry asked, her voice more of a shriek than she would’ve preferred.
“And then decided to take the hard and painful way around for funsies, and, what, like, kill two birds with one stone by taking out a vampire and making me look like a murderer so my life would be so ruined I’d want to be dead. ”
“Yes.”
Anger flared within Embry. Woodcrosses from Hiram on down the line had planted a flag on Ravenwood Island and built their lives. And even if Embry’s life wasn’t great right now, she would never consider abandoning it.
No, she’d fight harder.
Suddenly, even though she was currently suspended and not able to rule the Raven’s Head quad with her usual aplomb—or with her usual cast of characters—Embry lifted her chin as if she were going to stomp across the brick in her highest of Louboutins.
“Well, I guess we can cross you off the suspect list because anyone who knows me well would know that will absolutely never work with me—or Daddy. This person is definitely an unknown assailant and they’re an idiot.
” Embry pawed at Rye’s phone. “Where are the autopsy photos? Let’s nab this magical dud. ”
The tiniest of smiles twisted Rye’s mouth as he unlocked the phone yet again. “There you are, Embry Woodcross.”