“Fair isn’t the point, and this isn’t a discussion. Sylvester’s calling him home. He’s going,” I said. Quentin’s expression was one of sheer betrayal. Tough. I wasn’t going to be responsible for getting him killed. “I’ll be here until this is over. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“I don’t think anyone ever has,” Gordan muttered. She’d given up glaring: now she just looked sullen.

“In the meantime,” I said, ignoring her, “we’re going to need all the things I asked for. The information on the victims, access to their work spaces, everything. I don’t want any of you going anywhere alone. Is it possible for you to go somewhere else in the County until this is fixed? Someplace outside the knowe?”

Jan shook her head. “No.”

“Jan—”

“April can’t leave.” The words were simple, quietly said, and utterly without hope. “I don’t have a portable server set up for her. If we went, we’d have to leave her behind. She’d be defenseless. I won’t leave my daughter.”

“And we won’t leave our liege,” said Elliot.

“If everyone dies, you lose the County. Let me call Sylvester. Let him help.”

“Dreamer’s Glass will see it as a threat.”

I eyed Jan. “Is there any way for us to get help without going to war?”

“No,” she said, simply. “There isn’t.”

“Maybe that’s what they want.” Gordan stood, crossing her arms over her chest. “How do we know Sylvester sent them? Maybe they’re here to make sure we don’t figure things out.”

“Gordan—” Jan began, and stopped, glancing toward me. They didn’t know. With the lines down between them and Shadowed Hills, there was no way they could. Much as I was coming to dislike her, I almost had to admire the way Gordan’s mind worked. She wanted us out, and she’d found one of the fastest ways to get what she wanted: calling our credentials into question. She was smirking now, visibly pleased.

“That’s crap,” snapped Quentin.

“He’s right,” I said. “If you want to work yourselves into a paranoid frenzy, go for it. Whatever. Just understand that it’s not my damn problem. The dead are my problem.”

Elliot had the grace to look embarrassed. “I’m sorry. It’s just that politically . . .”

“Politically, it would be a good idea to send saboteurs. We’re not them.”

“I believe you,” said Jan. Behind her, Gordan scowled.