He considered the four-hundred-year-old sorceress on the screen. He’d heard the rumors: that Jesiba answered to the Under-King, that she could transform people into common animals if they provoked her, that she’d once been a witch who’d left her clan for reasons still unknown. Most likely bad ones, if she’d wound up a member of the House of Flame and Shadow.

Bryce breathed, “I don’t know anything about this. Or who wanted to kill Tertian.”

Jesiba sharpened her gaze. “Regardless, you are my assistant. You don’t work for the 33rd.”

Micah’s mouth tightened. Hunt braced himself. “I invited you to this meeting, Jesiba, as a courtesy.” His brown eyes narrowed with distaste. “It does indeed appear that Philip Briggs was wrongly convicted. But the fact remains that Danika Fendyr and the Pack of Devils apprehended him in his laboratory, with undeniable evidence regarding his intention to bomb innocents at the White Raven nightclub. And though he was initially released due to a loophole, in the past two years, enough evidence has been found for his earlier crimes that he has been convicted of them, too. As such, he will remain behind bars and serve out the sentence for those earlier crimes as leader of the now-inactive Keres sect, and his participation in the larger human rebellion.”

Quinlan seemed to sag with relief.

But then Micah went on, “However, this means a dangerous murderer remains loose in this city, able to summon a lethal demon—for sport or revenge, we do not know. I will admit that my 33rd and the Auxiliary have exhausted their resources. But the Summit is in just over a month. There are individuals attending who will see these murders as proof that I am not in control of my city, let alone this territory, and seek to use it against me.”

Of course it wasn’t about catching a deadly killer. No, this was pure PR.

Even with the Summit so far off, Hunt and the other triarii had been prepping for weeks now, getting the units in the 33rd ready for the pomp and bullshit that surrounded the gathering of Valbaran powers every ten years. Leaders from across the territory would attend, airing their grievances, with maybe a few guest appearances from the ruling assholes across the Haldren.

Hunt hadn’t yet attended one in Valbara, but he’d been through plenty of other Summits in Pangera, with rulers who all pretended they had some semblance of free will. The Summit meetings usually amounted to a week of powerful Vanir arguing until the overseeing Archangel laid down the law. He had little doubt Micah would be any different. Isaiah had experienced one already, and had warned him that the Archangel liked to flex his military might at the Summits—liked to have the 33rd in marching and flying formation, decked out in imperial regalia.