“Then get your sorry little white witch behind out there!” he exclaimed in frustration. “I can’t see squat from here.”

Nick fended off the well-meaning efforts of good Samaritans who thought I’d been hurt in the explosion, but it wasn’t until he scooped up an abandoned FIB hat and set it on my head that everyone left us alone. His arm curved around my waist, supporting me, we haltingly crunched over the broken glass, stepping from the yellow lights of the bus station into the harsher, uncertain come-and-go lights of the FIB’s vehicles.

Outside, the local news was having a field day, sequestered in their little corner with bright lights and excited gestures. My stomach twisted as I realized that their presence had likely been responsible for Francis’s death.

Squinting at the heat coming from the fire, I made my slow way to where Captain Edden stood quietly watching, thirty feet back from the flaming van. Saying nothing, I came to a standstill beside him. He didn’t look at me. The wind gusted, and I coughed at the black taste of burnt rubber. There was nothing to say. Francis had been in there. Francis was dead.

“Clayton had a thirteen-year-old,” Edden said, his eyes on the billowing smoke.

I felt as if I had been punched in the gut, and I willed myself to remain upright. Thirteen was not a good age to lose your father. I knew.

Edden took a deep breath and turned to me. The dead expression on his face chilled me. Flickering shadows from the fire pulled the few lines in his face into sharp relief. “Don’t worry, Morgan,” he said. “The deal was you give me Kalamack, the FIB pays off your contract.” Emotion crossed his face, but I couldn’t tell if it was rage or pain. “You gave him to me. I lost him. Without Percy’s confession, all we have is a dead witch’s word over his. And by the time I get a warrant, Kalamack’s tomato fields will be plowed under. I’m sorry. He’s going to walk. This …” He gestured to the fire. “This wasn’t your fault.”

“Edden—” I started, but he held up his hand.

Pulling away from me, he walked away. “No mistakes,” he said to himself, looking more beaten than I felt. An FIB officer in a yellow ACG coverall rushed up to him, hesitating when Edden didn’t acknowledge him. The crowd swallowed them up.

I turned back to the sudden bursts of gold and black, feeling ill. Francis was in there. Along with my charms. Guess they weren’t so lucky after all.

“This wasn’t your fault,” Nick said, putting his arm around me again as my knees threatened to buckle. “You warned them. You did everything you could.”

I leaned into his support before I fell over. “I know,” I said flatly, believing it.

A fire engine wound between the parked cars, clearing the street and drawing an even larger crowd with its sporadic whoops of siren. “Rachel.” Jenks tugged on my ear again.