One of her guards barged past me and performed a sweep of the area. He reappeared in seconds and all but snapped his heels together. “It’s clear.”

Magistrate Vause wrinkled her nose but crossed the threshold. The second guard closed the door behind her and, I assume, took point guarding the room from the hall.

“This will have to do.” She flicked her wrist toward the pleather sofa. “Fionn?”

The guard swept his fingers through the air and withdrew a packet of moist towelettes from nowhere. Under her watchful eyes, he wiped down the seat, the back and arm. Then he used the same trick to summon a dry cloth to finish the job. Once done he tossed them in the tiny waste bin next to the desk with a wobbly leg. The others were stuffed back into the same invisible seam where he had retrieved them.

“What brings you by so late?” She struck me as the sort to be in her silk pajamas by eight p.m. sharp. I rushed to add, “Not that I mind the visit.”

Fake leather creaked when she sat. “I wanted to make sure you were all right.” She must have read my doubt. “I also have not received your report on the incident in Wink.”

“I’m working on it now.” I scooped up the menu before I could step on it and slip. “The day got away from me. I’m on my dinner break.”

“Were you expecting someone?”

To lie or tell the truth? “I wanted to touch base with Harlow about her findings.”

Vause didn’t call me on the lie, but her glossy façade lost a smidgen of its shine. “You’ve had a very trying day.” She picked a speck of lint from her tan pantsuit. “I thought perhaps if we held a discussion here, tonight, that would suffice.”

I lowered myself into the chair opposite her as the implication hit me. Vause didn’t want a paper trail. Linking me to Wink? Or me to her and her to Wink? Did this have something to do with the Unseelie Magistrate’s absence? “All right.”

She crossed her legs at the ankles. “Did you manage to complete a classification on the victim?”

“Yes.” Remembering the condition of the boy’s remains crushed my appetite, making it easier to tuck the menu into the fold between the arm and seat of my chair. “The cause of death was presumed to be drowning, but that’s where the similarities ended. The victim’s gender and the condition in which the remains were found breaks the pattern.” The implication was clear: there had been no reason for me to visit Wink. None at all. “I did manage to inspect the body prior to the attack, and I can confirm he was not one of ours.”

“Marshal Thackeray’s report mentioned that a man was killed at the scene.”