I retreat to the nearest window. “I’ll stand. Thanks.” Folding my arms across my chest, I lean my shoulder against the edge of a glass cabinet filled with weird, shiny objects.

Quinton adjusts his suit and perches on the edge of the desk, back straight, one hand molded around the smooth black stone at the top of his. Is that a slight tremor in his fingers? Flanagan steps up beside him, looming like a blond monolith, arms folded across his pecs.

“It is quite all right, Gabriel,” Quinton says. “You can leave now.”

Flanagan pauses, eyes on me. “I’ll stay. I can stand by the door.”

“There really is no need. I will call you when we’re finished.”

Flanagan doesn’t budge. “Even so, I think it best if I stay, Councilor.”

I feel a rush of anger at the man. “I don’t think you need to worry about me harming a bloody witch, Flanagan.”

Quinton’s lips twitch. “You misunderstand the commander, Michael. It is not my welfare that concerns him. It is yours.”

Oh. What the hell does this test involve? I cast the big guy a quizzical frown, but though his attention is all on me, his expression remains unreadable.

Quinton twists to face him. “I promise you the boy is not in any danger from me, Gabriel. I know you worry his mind may be fragile due to memory damage, but it is far safer if I am alone with him.”

Flanagan remains hesitant, but he says to me quietly, “I won’t be far.”

He still doesn’t leave until I answer. “Okay.” Then he walks away without a word to the councilor. He glances back at me once more before leaving the room.

Quinton must notice my perplexity because he says, “The commander takes his responsibility to the Channelers in his care very seriously. He took over from me as head of Blackriver when I was promoted to the High Council because new Channelers are of special interest to him. Beneath that Finnish brawn, there is ever the lion concerned for his cubs.”

“He is Scandinavian, then? I wasn’t sure. His accent has an odd lilt to it, and his name’s Irish.”

Quinton rests his cane against a chair, then takes off his hat and lays it on top of a stack of papers. He runs his hand over dark hair, styled to sit neatly against his head. “His father was Irish, his mother Finnish. He is over three hundred years old. I am quite sure in that time his accent has been influenced by his many travels.”

“Three hundred years old?”

Quinton gives me a wry smile. “Very few people in the supernatural world are the age that they appear.”