Haken watched Slate go. “I know he’s an arsehole,” Haken said once Slate was out of earshot, “but you don’t need to pick a fight.”

“He picked the fight. I just fought back.”

“Slate’s . . . he’s got some history with Dark mages. I know how he acts, but he’s got his reasons.”

“And I just nearly got my head hacked off trying to keep Caldera and your witness alive.” I felt bitter, and the fatigue was making it worse. “I can deal with taking shit from Keepers when I deserve it. But taking shit from you guys when I’m risking my life to help you is pretty hard.”

Haken sighed. “World doesn’t always work the way we want it to, Verus.” Haken was maybe in his midthirties, but all of a sudden, in the flashing police lights, he looked much older and very tired. “Just have to live with it.”

“Isn’t that the truth.”

“They’ve run the maker’s marks on that golem,” Haken said. “It’s part of a set of three that were reported stolen a few years ago. We didn’t know White Rose had got them till now.”

“You think they were the ones behind it?”

Haken looked surprised. “Who else would it have been?”

I shrugged.

“That kid was from there, right? And he was meeting Rayfield?”

I remembered that last glimpse I’d had of Leo, shooting a terrified glance back at me before disappearing out into the street. I wondered if any of us were ever going to see him again.

Haken took my silence as agreement. “I know we don’t have enough for a warrant yet, but we’re going to be going for one tomorrow. Could use you, if you can make it. Caldera’ll probably still be out.”

“I’ll check with her. Do you know what happened?”

“About . . . ?”

“Caldera called for backup,” I said. “Before the fight started. More than long enough for other Keepers to gate.”

“Yeah, I heard.” Haken frowned. “That shouldn’t have happened.”

“Her communicator went dead during the fight.” I turned my head to look up at Haken. “Thought those things were supposed to be fail-safe?”

“That’s what they told me too. Best guess, it was a glitch. I know these things are supposed to be good, but they’re still new tech. We’ve had trouble with them before.”

“Pretty crappy reason to get killed.”

“Yeah, I’m not arguing. Look, I’ll see if I can track down whatever the problem was, okay? I’m guessing someone screwed up, but at least we can stop it happening again.”

“Thanks.”

Haken turned to leave. “Oh,” I said. “Haken?”

“Yeah?”

“When Caldera made that call, did she talk to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Caldera told me a couple of weeks ago that you were her primary contact for cross-case work.” I kept my voice casual, but I didn’t take my eyes off Haken. “Aren’t messages like that supposed to go through you?”

“Usually, yeah, but I was out on the Rayfield case. Would have done if it hadn’t been for everything else, but I didn’t get the call.”