working so that her mind wasn’t drawn back to the ugly truth. She was dating a warlock. “How about you? Learn anything interesting?”
Shaking my head, I sat on the center cushion of the couch, close to her so that I could easily reach out to touch her, but still with some space between us. “No. The whole fucking thing was a disaster.”
“You . . .” she started, but her voice drifted off as she looked at me funny for a second. “That fire I heard about on the news wasn’t from you guys, was it?”
I flopped back on the sofa and covered my face with my hands. “That wasn’t my freaking fault. We just went in to ask them some questions. They’re the ones who decided to launch an attack on us. There were like fifty of them against the three of us! What the fuck! Things got crazy and the fire started accidentally.”
My hands dropped at the sound of her soft laughter. She smiled at me, a look of sympathy and amusement dancing in her eyes for the first time in too long. “I’m sure you never meant to burn the place down.”
I groaned. “If I had, I’d at least have the balls to admit to it.” I dropped my head back against the couch, staring at the ceiling as the comfortable silence settled into the room at last. “Serah is trying to get information out of her police connections. Bronx is going to talk to Jack. Maybe the pack has heard something. It’s moving slowly, but with any luck we should have a lead on this woman.”
“Woman?” Trixie said with a horrified gasp.
I winced, suddenly remembering that I hadn’t yet told her of the spell I had cast in the basement of Asylum with Serah. As quickly as possible, I ran through the events while reassuring her that I planned to wipe the investigator’s memory as soon as this was all settled.
“Maybe you shouldn’t,” Trixie said, chewing on her lower lip.
“What? Let her keep that knowledge? It’s a big risk.”
“Yes, but if you think you can trust her, maybe her knowing would get Asylum a little more slack from TAPSS. We both know they love to come down on you.” The elf gave a little shrug, her wide green eyes drifting away from me. “But you don’t have to listen to me. It’s your secret.”
Reaching out, I placed my hand against her cheek and gently turned her head so that she was looking at me again. “It’s not just my secret anymore. You’re impacted by those who know about me. It’s a matter of your safety as well.”
Trixie took a deep breath, her expression growing sad. “And exactly how safe am I, with you back at the Towers?”
“You’re safe,” I said firmly. “As a member of the guardians, the witches and warlocks don’t have a reason to hunt me like they once did. I do a job for them every once in a while. Then I come home and forget all about it. They aren’t going to come after me and I won’t let anyone come after you.”
“But doesn’t that mean you’ll be forced to kill people for the Towers? That you’ll have to hand over people for interrogation? How can you live among these people, pretending to be one of them, only to betray them later?” she demanded, her words growing more desperate so that they tumbled over one another in a rush to escape.
I stared at her, watching her chest rise and fall with each heavy breath, as if she had been running a race. Her words hadn’t been tinged with anger or disgust but with fear and worry. She was scared for me, for my safety, and I think even for my soul and sanity. I was living a double life, and the likelihood of failure was high.
“I know there will be times that I can’t avoid doing the will of the Towers, but I think most of the time, I’ll be able to act as a buffer for the people of the world. I can do a better job of protecting them as an insider than I ever could while I was hiding from the Towers.” Trixie started to shake her head, but I grabbed one of her hands in both of mine. “I can. Gideon has done it for years. He was tasked with watching over me, but his real orders were to find an excuse to kill me for breaking the agreement