I shook my head at her. “Even if you hadn’t planned to murder me multiple times, the fact remains that you were hunting the kids. I know you paid someone to set that magical bomb, which means you could’ve killed my sister too.” I let her see how I felt about that, and she flinched. Now she was getting it. There would be no mercy from anyone in this room.

Gloria began humming in a way that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I had the strongest urge to burrow into Samael’s chest, to wrap one of his wings around me and close my eyes, shutting out the world like a child.

I took a careful step away from him so I wouldn’t do anything stupid.

And then Gloria stopped humming. Cassie’s eyes were blank, as if she was a puppet, a shell of herself.

“Tell me the name of the witch you used for your spells.”

Cassie’s face slowly drained of color. Her breath became a death rattle. This would kill her.

I’d gotten everything I needed from Bob, and we still had the other members of Cassie’s little play group to interrogate. Steve hadn’t yet been able to crack Cassie’s laptop, and I was guessing she was much too smart to keep anything that would connect them.

The witch was the biggest threat right now. I forced myself to lean against the wall.

“L-l-l-lydia Miller.”

Cassie’s eyes rolled back in her head and she slumped in the chair.

Gloria sucked up the death magic, her eyes glowing for a single second. “Mmm,” she said. “Delicious.”

I attempted to ignore Gloria, but my face must’ve told her what I thought of that, because she didn’t stick around. I peered up at Samael. “Lydia Miller is one of the McCormick descendants.”

“Yes.”

I closed my eyes. I’d known Samael hadn’t killed them all after they’d attempted to harness his power. I’d watched some of them flee, and Samael’s people had been tracking them down one by one so far.

“We will find her,” Samael said. He took my hand in his and brought my knuckles to his lips. We stood there, staring at each other in the cell for a long moment. Then I sighed.

“We need to talk to the kids.”

“I know.”

“Let’s go.”

We were both silent as Samael flew me back to the tower. He’d arranged for everyone else involved to be interrogated, and then custody of them would be handed over to Albert.

Cil and Zip were still awake when we got up to their floor. The nanny made herself scarce.