“When eight-year-old Adam was caught stealing and burned the face of the store owner’s relative, disfiguring him, I was grounded for a month because I failed to help him make good choices. When twelve-year-old Adam set a girl’s clothes on fire, because she refused to let him grope her, and her entire body blistered, I was put on restriction for three months. My electronic privileges were revoked, my food intake was cut in half, and I couldn’t step a foot out of my room unless I was going to school. I went three months without direct contact with any of my animals. When Adam was sixteen and he burned down a club because they refused to let him in, the dog who had been my friend and protector since I was nine years old was put down as my punishment.”

Oh my God.

“I loathe your family, Tatyana. I’d like nothing more than to ruin House Pierce entirely. Unfortunately, I’m bound by professional ethics. They dictate that my priority is to obtain the information I need. You have a choice to make. You know which path I would relish more.”

Tatyana looked at him. The office fell completely silent.

She uncrossed her arms and rested them on the desk on both sides of her.

“You’re right, Cornelius. My younger brother is a sadistic little shit. I don’t know if God made him like that or he got warped along the way. I do know that my father ignored it and my mother made it infinitely worse. Either way, you’ve suffered, and I am sorry for it.”

Well, knock me over with a feather.

Tatyana leaned forward. “However, your family is just as complicit in your torture as mine. They chose to put you into this situation by deciding to use you to buy my family’s patronage. They chose to inflict the punishments. All of them. And they may not have loved you the way parents should, but at least they ignored you when Adam wasn’t trying to torch everything in sight. You could go home and be safe, Cornelius. I never got to be safe. I had to go back to the hell that was my family every day and try to survive between my father, who ratcheted the pressure because I was never good enough, and my mother, who punished me for the smallest infraction I committed. When Peter’s magic manifested, I cried in my room. These weren’t sad tears. I cried from happiness, because I realized they would now let me be. So yes, we are all fucked up. You are not special. Get over it or don’t. Your choice. I refuse to allow my parents’ shadow to rule my life. They fucked up my childhood, they don’t get to fuck up the rest. I’m an adult, I make my own decisions, and I own my mistakes. Your future is your responsibility, not theirs.”

Okay then.

Cornelius thought about it and nodded. “Fair enough. Let’s talk about your mistakes on July 15th.”

Tatyana sighed. “Fine. MII’s report will say that I spent the day at the office. And I did. But I also left for two hours and saw Felix at the Tower.”

“The Assembly’s visitor log for that day doesn’t show your name,” Cornelius said.

“I met him in the parking lot.”

“Why?” Cornelius asked.

“He wanted to shut down the Pit. He demanded an emergency meeting that Thursday and argued that the Pit wasn’t safe. He thought there was something terrible in there. Something we didn’t understand. We unanimously voted against shutting it down.”

Cornelius nodded. “Why did you vote against it?”

Tatyana sighed again. “Well, there is the money. We’re in deep. More importantly, House Pierce can’t afford a failure. You know how things work. Adam set us on fire. Now everything we touch is smudged with soot. We live under a microscope. If we failed in the Pit, it would be a disaster. There would be speculation and articles in the media about how we are finished as a House and how everything we get involved in turns to crap. We’ve made enemies. We have business rivals. We can’t appear weak, so we have to make the Pit work.”

“What did you and Felix talk about?” Cornelius asked.

“On Thursday there was this look in his eyes. I know the look. It’s when you hunch your shoulders and barrel through no matter what anyone says. I met him because I wanted to talk him out of whatever he wanted to do.”

“Did he agree?” Cornelius asked.

“No. He wouldn’t tell me what he was doing. He just said that it was for the common good and that I would understand. I got frustrated. I raised my voice. I don’t know if there were witnesses.”

She wasn’t lying. I would bet a lot more than a dollar on it.

Cornelius nodded again. “What did you do afterward?”

“I went back to the office. I was angry, and I left early and went home.”

“Can anyone confirm that?” Cornelius asked.

“You can pull the cell phone data. I called Peter on the way and vented. Of course, he is family, so his testimony would be suspect. I got home, made a drink, and then got into a stupid Facebook fight with some moron over politics. That took half an hour. Once I vented, I ended up buying a book and spent the rest of the evening reading it. My brain needed a vacation.”

“What kind of a book?” Cornelius asked.

“Tower Inferno. It’s a detective series about a PI who solves crimes committed by Primes.” Tatyana’s face was completely flat. “The killer was a pyrokinetic this time. Supposedly, the writer based it on Adam.”

Cornelius raised his eyebrows. “Did it stand up to scrutiny?”

“No. Adam was never that idealistic. Also, the writer has no idea what it takes to set up a House spell capable of incinerating five city blocks in ten minutes. They never get the magic right.”

Cornelius turned to me. “Anything to add?”

I took a photograph of Felix’s corpse from my purse, unfolded it, and passed it to her. “How long would you have to burn the body with a Helios X4 flamethrower to cause this damage?”

Tatyana took the photograph, studied it, and frowned. “This was done by someone who doesn’t understand how a flamethrower works. Flamethrowers are designed to set structures on fire. They expel a stream of flammable liquid, which sticks to surfaces and can be bounced around, allowing projection of fire into tight spaces like inside a bunker. They are great for flushing out tunnels. they also make effective psychological weapons because everyone fears fire.”

Tatyana held the picture up and pointed to Felix’s charred feet.

“This person tried to use it like a blow torch. They probably wanted a jet of flame to torture Felix. Burn him, stop, burn him again, and so on until he told them what they wanted. Instead they squirted accelerant onto Felix’s legs and, judging by the damage, probably emptied the entire canister. Then they set him on fire. Once he started burning, there was no way to put him out. Even if you dipped him in water, the accelerant wouldn’t wash off. So as far as torture goes, this is a lousy attempt.”

“Thank you.” I got up.

“Is that it?” Tatyana asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Is there something in the Pit?” Tatyana asked.

“Yes.”

“So Felix was right.” Tatyana’s face fell. “We were his partners. He came to us for help, and we shot him down, and now he’s dead.”

It didn’t require a response. “Thank you again. We will keep you informed. We’ll show ourselves out.”

Outside Cornelius squinted at the sunshine. “It pains me to say this, but I don’t believe she did it.”

“I don’t think so either.”

Cornelius’ sister was right. With Tatyana, what you saw was what you got. All things considered, I would take Tatyana’s bluntness over Cheryl’s soft, passive-aggressive chiding any day.

“Thank you for doing the interview,” I told him.

“Thank you for honoring my request. It was cathartic for me.”

“I also have a request,” I said.

“Please tell me.”

“Patricia told me she spoke to you about Arkan.”

He nodded. “She did.”

“These are the kind of people who aim at the most vulnerable spots. They’re trying to cripple us, and nothing is off the table, the innocent, the elderly, children . . .”

He smiled his small smile. “Are you asking me to hide?”

“I have utmost respect for your magic, and I know Matilda is safe with your sister, but if something happened to your daughter or you because of us, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”

“Would it make things easier for you if I joined Diana and Matilda on the ranch?”

I didn’t even try to hide my relief. “Yes.”

“On one condition,” Cornelius said. “You will call me if you need my help.”

“I will.”

He smiled again. “I will hold you to it.”

We walked down the path. I checked my phone. Alessandro hadn’t texted.

Was he hurt? Maybe he was dead. Who knew what kind of nightmare Linus dragged him into?

I texted him. Are you alive?

No answer.

I clenched my teeth and headed to the bench where my sister and cousin waited for us.

Like all water mages, the Jiangs preferred to be as close to a waterway as possible. They would’ve built in the water if the city let them, but Houston had strict regulations concerning its waters, so House Jiang had to settle for a beautiful spot on Riverway Drive a couple hundred yards from the Buffalo Bayou. Inspired by the Aqua Tower of Chicago, their headquarters rose from the landscape to twelve floors crowned with an enormous water reservoir built with blue high-resistance plastic. Wavelike slabs of pale blue concrete stretched from the tower flowing in and out of huge blue windows, giving the building an undulating quality. The overall effect was of spines of pale rock protruding from a blue stream.