I unfolded my arms, exchanging a glance with Zayne. He let go of the hand, and all the Senator did was curl farther into himself. I shifted, uncomfortable with the visible raw pain. This man had conspired with a demon and witches, getting innocent humans and Wardens killed. He was connected to the Harbinger, who wanted to bring on the end times, so he sucked—big time—but unless he was an accomplished actor, he was collapsing under a kind of pain far greater than broken fingers.

“What does she have to do with Bael, Josh?” Zayne asked, using his first name and in a voice so gentle it was easy to forget that he’d just broken the man’s fingers.

Fisher didn’t answer for several minutes, only sobbed, until, finally, he rasped, “The Harbinger heard my prayers and came to me.”

I jolted as Cayman swung his legs off the chair and tipped forward.

“He looked like an angel.” The man’s eyes opened then, wide and unseeing. “He sounded like an angel.”

I totally understood how he could mistake Sulien for an angel, but to think he and his twang sounded like one? Then again, Fisher was from Tennessee. Maybe he thought all of Heaven sounded like Matthew McConaughey in a car commercial.

“What did he say?” Zayne’s voice was so soft.

The man trembled. “That he... That I could earn the one thing I wanted most. Natashya.”

Oh God.

I had a sinking suspicion where this was heading.

“He told me a man would come to me and I was to help him with what he needed, and this man was a sheep in wolf’s clothing,” he whispered now. “I thought it was a dream, but then that man showed up. The sheep in wolf’s clothing.”

Did he mean a demon pretending to be bad?

“Bael?” Zayne prodded. “A man who wasn’t a man at all?” When Fisher nodded, Zayne folded his hands under his chin. “Did you know what he is?”

“Not at first, but eventually...yes.”

I wanted to ask if he’d thought that was, I don’t know, a bright freaking red flag, but I remained silent.

“What did he want of you?” Zayne asked.

“Access to the school. I don’t know why. He never told me, and I didn’t ask. I... I didn’t want to know.” The man still trembled. “I just wanted my Natashya.”

Anger crowded out whatever sympathy I’d felt. “And it didn’t occur to you that it could be bad that a demon wanted access to a school?”

Zayne shot me a look of warning before refocusing on the senator, who didn’t answer, only cried harder. “Did you ever go into the school?”

“No. Never. I just set up the company, made a few calls and was able to purchase it. A new school was already being built to replace it. That’s all.”