He hadn’t taken a breath since he stopped talking. The balls of his feet were pressed to the floor. His calves were tense. Almost, I thought, moving my fingers to the opening of my bag. He was almost ready. What was he waiting for?

“You are your father’s daughter,” he said, the skin around his eyes tightening. “Trent is his father’s son. Apart you are annoying. Together …you have the potential to be a problem.”

My gaze went distant then sharpened as I met his eyes, knowing my face had taken on a horrified expression. The picture of my father and Trent’s outside a yellow camp bus. Piscary had killed them. It had been Piscary.

Hard and strong, my blood pounded in my temples. My body demanded I do something, but I sat, knowing if I moved, he would move.

He shrugged, a calculated motion that pulled my eyes to a flash of amber skin beneath his robe. “They were getting too close to solving the elven riddle,” he said, watching my reaction.

I kept my face impassive as he said Trent’s most precious secret, telling him I, too, knew. Apparently it was the right thing to do.

“I’m not going to let you two pick up where they left off,” he added, prodding.

I said nothing, stomach roiling. Piscary had killed them. Trent’s father and my dad had been friends. They had been working together. They had been working together against Piscary.

Piscary went very still. “Has he sent you into the everafter yet?”

My gaze shot to his, fear in my gut. There it was. The question he wanted answered, the one he hid among others so I wouldn’t know. As soon as I answered it, I’d be dead.

“I’m not in the habit of breaking my client confidentiality,” I said, my mouth dry.

His cool dispassion cracked as he took a breath. It was subtle, but there it was. “He has. Did you find one?” he asked, catching himself before he could lean forward over the table. “Was it sound enough to read?”

One? Read what? I said nothing, desperately wanting to hide my pulse pounding in my neck, but though his eyes were black, he wasn’t interested in my blood. That was almost too frightening to believe. I didn’t know how to answer. Would yes save my life or damn it?

Frowning, he studied me a long moment while I listened to my heart pound and sweat broke out on my arms. “I can’t interpret your silence,” he said, seeming irritated.

I took a breath.

Piscary moved.

The adrenaline hurt. I pushed myself from the table in a blind panic. My chair tipped over backward, with me still in it.

Piscary flung the table out of the way. It crashed aside, my untouched coffee making a fantastic pattern on the white carpet.