visitors, even for my walkthrough. Fuck.”
“You know, Korey mentioned Tarak knew about this guy. Do you think he was in on it and got caught in the blast by accident?” Raphael leaned on Monica’s desk.
“It’s a good thought, and there might be one person in the building with the answer.” I knew Kartane was waiting downstairs. “Let’s go. The witches have Eliphas’ second in command here. That’s what Monica showed me before I came up. We might as well get to talking to him.”
Raphael nodded and followed me out. Monica met us outside the door and led us. I didn’t think she had heard us, but she was leading us to Kartane.
“You weren’t eavesdropping, right?” I asked casually. “Because we were hoping to speak to Kartane.”
“I don’t need to read minds to know what your next stop was going to be. I wasn’t going to let you leave before you listened to him, and with what we saw in Nakul’s memory, I’m pretty sure we all know who is behind all of this.”
“Yup, just need to fill in some gaps at this point and call the big guys. Leave that to me.”
“I was planning to. I like the witches on the Tribunal, but I try not to speak to them often. Being under the radar is better than getting a reputation, even if it’s a good one.” She went into the basement first. I went down before Raphael, who was a little hesitant. I couldn’t blame him. We were going into a witch’s basement. Who the fuck knew exactly what went on down there?
She led us to a dark back corner, then opened the door, closing us in with Kartane, separated only by the bars.
“Tell me your story,” I ordered as I grabbed a chair from one side of the room. “What exactly are you doing here and not supporting the prison during a massive breakout that’s going to send ripples across supernatural society for decades to come?”
“I knew it was him,” Kartane whispered, looking up. “I caught him and Tarak sneaking in that healer and his crew. I knew something was fishy because Korey had no idea what was going on. Neither did Dian, and nothing is done in the prison without all three Wardens knowing. Tarak was all about helping Wesley, but Eliphas acted differently. He started letting that guy talk to other inmates for ‘therapy’ sessions…” Kartane sighed. “I’ll start from the beginning. There’s a backstory.”
“Please.” He had started at the bad part, but I wanted to know how it got bad.
“Eliphas had been doing therapy for the southern cell block inmates for years. It was something many of us did. Group therapy, individual therapy, work therapy, you name it, and we tried it in hopes it would lower the re-offender rate. He started working on the northern cell block inmates, which we all thought was useless, but then it really started helping at least one person…um…” Kartane seemed like a teenage boy about to talk about someone he knew I didn’t like.
“Nakul,” I filled in.
“Yeah. Nakul was showing a lot of improvement. He was a good inmate after starting those. Less solitary confinement, though fights will always happen, you know? Well, when Tarak and Eliphas brought in that healer for Wesley, everything seemed fine. It was fishy, but I was the only person who noticed, so I didn’t know who to ask for help. Maybe they had Tribunal permission, and I just didn’t know. I had no idea what to do. Then the guy started seeing people Eliphas was doing therapy with. I don’t know what was happening in that, but I didn’t like it.”
“How long was it going on?” I asked softly.
“At least a decade if not more,” Kartane whispered. “I should have raised the alarm sooner…”
“You should have,” I snapped. “I’ve reviewed the prison three times in the last decade. Any one of those times, you could have approached me and let me know the prison had unauthorized visitors. Neither of them mentioned it to me.”
“I know. I was scared Eliphas would know I ratted him out, and I…wasn’t keen on dying.”
“Moving on. Was there any suspicious activity recently?” I waved a hand for him to continue the story.
“I always made sure to check on people after they had therapy with that healer. They didn’t like him, but they never wanted to talk about it either. They probably just assumed it was allowed, and they didn’t have a choice in the matter, so they