sat back and looked over at Boone. “You know, if I hadn’t come here for my check-up, I don’t know how I would ever have run into him.”
“It was just meant to be,” Boone said.
Helania glanced at Butch again. “What happens to him now?”
“He waits down here while I search his rooms and see what I can find. If there’s any trace of Mai’s blood or scent on anything? Any evidence like meat hooks hanging in his frickin’ closet or a piece of clothing from any victims? Then I take him to Wrath and present everything to the King, along with your testimony—just like if I were up in front of a judge with it. Wrath decides Syn’s fate.”
Helania’s eyes narrowed. “And what is most likely to happen with that?”
The Brother was silent for a moment. “If Syn is the killer? He will not be living at the end of it. That I can promise you—”
“I want to be there. When he dies.” She sat forward and grabbed a hold of the Brother’s sleeve. “Do you understand. Nothing is more important to me than that. I want to see him killed. That’s the only way my sister can rest in peace.”
Butch rubbed his face like he had a headache. “We don’t know for sure that Syn killed your sister.”
Boone spoke up. “But there could be a connection there. A very likely connection.”
“Yeah.” Butch got to his feet. “I have a feeling there might well be.”
“I want to be there,” Helania insisted. “When he’s killed.”
“That will be up to Wrath. If we end up with a death sentence, you’ll have to petition the King to be a witness and see what he says.” The Brother put a hand on her shoulder. “But knowing him the way I do? He will understand completely where you’re coming from.”
* * *
To Helania, the ride back to her apartment in the Brotherhood’s fancy Mercedes seemed to take less than a breath. Okay, fine . . . maybe it was more like two deep inhales and a hiccup. But it was no longer than that.
And there was a further distortion to time as she exited the warm interior thanks to the elderly butler holding her door open: She couldn’t decide whether it had been days or seconds since she and Boone had first sat in the back of the car and driven out to wherever the Brotherhood was hiding all those facilities.
While she was playing around with theories of relativity in her head, Boone got out from the rear seat, too. And just as it had been in the training center’s parking area, the butler became flustered because he hadn’t had time to go around and do his duty with that door.
The two males said some things, and then she was thanking Fritz and the car was driving away on the snowpack.
“I just want to see you to the door,” Boone said. “I don’t have to stay.”
“It’s okay.” She shook herself. “I mean, I’d like you to come in. If you have a minute.”
So much for her bid for independence, she thought, as they walked to the front entrance of her building. And yet she wanted Boone to come down to her place and not just because she didn’t want to be alone. It was because she wanted to be with him—and not necessarily sexually.
She just needed to make sure all of that had actually happened, her seeing that warrior in the corridor . . . them talking to Butch about the losses of sisters and a father—
As she and Boone entered her building’s outer door, they paused by the rows of mailboxes while she got the right key out.
“I never expected the killer to be connected with the Brotherhood.” She put her key in the inside lock and turned. “I mean . . . he’s one of them, right?”
“No, he fights with them.” Boone helped her get the heavy weight open. “It’s a big difference.”
They were silent as they went down to the basement level, and she let them into her apartment.
“Wow,” he said as he closed them in. “This place is so clean.”
“I had to find something to do with myself during the day.” She took off her parka and hung it by her Pyre’s Revyval cloak, her hand lingering on those folds of black cloth. “It kept my mind off of things.”
When she looked over at him, he had taken a seat on her sofa and had one of her needlepoint pillows in