Caldera looked back at him, then turned her head just slightly towards me, not taking her eyes off Will. “Verus?” she said, and there was a slight edge to her voice. “Anything you want to tell me?”

I let out a breath. The futures were shifting too much to make any useful predictions now. It was all going to depend on Caldera, and I couldn’t tell which way she would jump. “When I was Richard’s apprentice, I was part of a team that captured Will’s sister,” I said. I kept my voice level. “Will thinks she was killed. I don’t know if it’s true.”

“Liar!” Will snarled, his eyes flaring. “You knew what was happening to her!”

I looked away, unwilling to meet Will’s eyes. “You think I didn’t know?” Will said, and I could hear the hate in his voice. “A year she was held in here. So you sick fucks could use her for fun!”

“And that was why I tried to break her out!” I snapped back. “Yes, I screwed it up, but at least I tried!”

“Right,” Will said scornfully. “You were trying to save her.”

“Whether you believe it or not, it’s the truth. And how are you so damn sure she’s dead? Even I don’t know what happened to her!”

“She died here in this mansion,” Will said. “And I’m going to make sure the same happens to you.”

“We just did this! You were in a train crash twelve hours ago! How are you even here?”

“Enough!” Caldera shouted.

Will and I both stopped. “You,” Caldera said, pointing at Lee. “How did you get in here?”

“Uh . . .”

“Through the door, or through the archway in the wall?”

“None of your business,” Will said, just as Lee said, “The archway.”

Will glared at Lee and Lee dropped his eyes. “At least you’ve got some sense,” Caldera said. “Now let’s see if I’ve got this straight. Are you telling me the reason you’ve come here is to murder the mage behind me?”

“He’s the murderer!” Will said.

“And I’m Keeper Caldera of the Order of the Star,” Caldera said calmly. “That means I police crimes involving mages. Are you about to commit one?”

“The only crimes you Keepers care about are the ones where it’s mages that are the victims,” Will said. He was focused on Caldera now, eyes narrowed, and he wasn’t backing down. “Murdering an adept doesn’t even count in your book, does it? We’re nothing to you.”

“The law is the law,” Caldera said. “And it applies to adepts as well as mages. You might want to think about that.”

The rest of Will’s group had been silent until now, but at this point gold-hair girl spoke up. “So what are we supposed to do when some mage decides to enslave us?” She looked angry. “Just take it?”