“No,” Danny said, exasperated. “Back when I was little. Remember? The night before Kate and I moved away?”
I stilled and turned to look at Volos in time to see some emotion pass across his face before he slammed down the walls. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, kid.”
“You do, I can tell,” Danny said. “I’ll never forget it. I was six and something woke me up. There was a lot of shouting coming from Kate’s room. I walked in the hall. It was really dark, but I remember telling myself to be brave.”
Memories of that night came rushing up, like ghosts rising from deep graves. Suddenly, my ribs felt too small to contain my lungs and heart.
Danny, oblivious to my emotions, soldiered on. “You were yelling at Kate, asking why she was leaving you,” he said to Volos. “She said something real quiet, so I couldn’t make it out.”
John glanced at me, as we both remembered the words I’d said to stop the argument: “Because I don’t love you.”
It had been the only lie I ever told him. But I knew if I didn’t break both our hearts, he’d never let me leave.
“Anyway,” Danny said, “a couple minutes later, you burst into the hall. You looked real mad. But then you saw me standing there and knelt down. Do you remember now? What you said?”
Volos’s jaw clenched. With a sigh, he nodded. “I told you if you ever needed anything to come find me.”
Danny nodded eagerly. “You made me repeat it back to you, too, so I wouldn’t forget.”
I closed my eyes and damned myself for being the reason Danny felt the need to go to Volos in the first place.
“That was a long time ago, kid,” Volos said. “Things have changed.”
“So you were lying?” The betrayal in my brother’s voice had me snapping my eyes open again.
“I wasn’t lying,” John said. “I meant it—at the time.”
“You still do magic, don’t you?”
Volos shot me a look. “Occasionally.”
I gritted my teeth. “Look, even if nothing had changed, I’d never allow you to become an apprentice.” Especially not his apprentice, I amended silently.
Danny’s expression became mulish. “That’s why this was supposed to be secret.”
“Please apologize to Mr. Volos for interrupting his day.”
He looked as if he was about to fight me on it, but I put on my best cross-me-and-regret-it look. With a sigh, he finally muttered, “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it, kid. But maybe instead of running away you could have just called me.”
“Whatever.” Clearly the conversation had put a serious dent in Danny’s hero worship of Volos. Good.
“Why don’t you wait on the terrace while your sister and I have a little chat?”
Without a word, Danny stomped toward the sliding door set into the windows. He slammed it so hard, the entire panel of glass shook.
“Well, I see he got the Prospero temper,” Volos said.
“What the hell are you doing home today anyway?” I shot back because I needed to vent my anger somewhere.
He crossed his arms. “Gee, Kate, I don’t know. Maybe because your investigation has required me to shut down my offices for a few days?”
I opened my mouth but found my brain totally incapable of a battle of sarcastic wits. The awkwardness of the situation swooped in to replace my anger and fear. “Look, I’m sorry he came here. It’s been—” I shrugged instead of trying to find the right word.
“Why won’t you let him learn the art, Kate?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“Considering he just asked me to mentor him, it is.”
“I appreciate you calling me, and that you let him down as gently as possible. But that’s as far as this goes.”
Just then the door opened again and Morales came back in, looking wary. When he saw Danny outside and Volos and me squaring off, he relaxed. “What’d I miss?”
“Nothing,” I said. “We’re leaving.”
Volos held up a hand. “Not so fast. We need to talk about this misguided investigation—”
“Oh good, so you’re ready to confess?” Morales cocked his head to the side.
Volos shot him an eat-shit-and-die look. “Confess what, exactly?”
“Cut the crap,” I said. “You know how all this looks.”
“You should understand more than most how dangerous assumptions can be.” He moved in closer, trying to establish intimacy. I stepped back to let him know it wasn’t welcome. He absorbed the rebuff smoothly and continued, “Use your logic. What would I possibly gain by cooking a potion that turns men into monsters?”
“What’s your game here, Volos?” Morales demanded.
“No games,” he said. “I’m just protecting my interests.”
“You mean like having snitches killed?” I asked.
His expression hardened. “You’re grasping and you know it. Do yourself a favor and start looking into Bane.”
“Or we could call the state attorney and get a warrant for your warehouses.”
“An empty threat,” Volos said dismissively.
Morales held up a hand. “Actually, it’s not. We have manifests from the port authority that prove your import company received a shipment of oil of rose quartz just last week.”
Volos smiled. “Let me ask you a question, Agent—”
Drew clenched his jaw. “Special Agent Morales.”
Volos nodded. “If I were importing materials to create an illicit potion, don’t you think I’d have those ingredients smuggled in and kept off the radar?”
“The more important question is, What possible use would you have for twenty barrels of oil of rose quartz?” I shot back.
“If you want the answer to that you will definitely need to charge me with something or get a warrant. If not, I’ll kindly ask you to leave because I have a meeting with the city council about the community center.”
Morales snorted. “Yeah, you’re a real humanitarian, right?”
“Some say so. I just try to do what’s best for the city.”
“Only if it’s in your best interests, though,” Morales challenged.
“That doesn’t negate the benefits to the people of Babylon.” He shrugged.
I’d heard enough. I marched over to the windows and rapped against the glass. Danny turned away from the railing he’d been sulking at and glared. I held up my watch. “Time to go,” I mouthed. His shoulders drooped, but he started for the doors anyway.