Conjager angled the light so that it pointed directly in my face. “If it helps you become more talkative,” he said, “I do plan to assist you. I have no love for Drakon and I know how quickly information spreads when it is permitted to. But I do not like to walk into a dangerous situation sight unseen, and anyone who knows anything is cagier than a goddamn zoo.” He took the chair on the other side of the table, and waved at me to do the same. “Sit down. You’re not going anywhere until I allow you to.”

I sat. The handcuffs were awkward and didn’t let me kick my feet up on the table like I wanted to. “So what’s it going to be? You gonna drag someone in and run the good-cop bad-cop routine?”

“No,” he said. “I can do it all myself.” He reached forward and pressed his fingers into the back of my palm. The pain started as a locus, seeping up my fingers and down into my wrist. He tightened his grip as I tried to pull away, the sharp metal edge of the cuffs nothing compared to the burning sensation flooding my nerves, turning my vision white around the edges. Then he let go and I gasped. “That’s when I choose to be mean, Hexel,” he said. “I don’t like it. I don’t like the tactics of my comrades—but both you and I are experienced in it, and we know how far it will go.”

“And it doesn’t leave a mark,” I said. “Convenient.”

“It’s the law,” he said. “Now tell me, and tell me honestly or I’ll have to do it again-”

“You don’t have to do jack. I thought you were better than your friends here. I thought you stood for some higher principle.”

He shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t like threatening me—although it wasn’t reassuring that it didn’t stop him. “I am as honorable as the city allows me to be. You are forced to act as a nightmare sometimes because it’s what is demanded of you.” He sighed. “Who killed Kit Chesnes?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “And the only witness doesn’t remember. But I don’t think it matters.”

“Why not?”

“I think Kit Chesnes was a playing piece. A pawn in the chess game we can’t all see yet. Drakon and his Dragon isn’t the only power player in the city anymore—there’s someone new, someone dangerous enough to kill Drakon’s enforcer and get away with it. And I’m guessing,” I said, massaging the back of my hand, “that he didn’t come to the city first and beg for your protection. He didn’t offer to pay you anything or cut you in on the shares of Jabberwock.”

Conjager shook his head. He reached into one of his back pockets and took out a gridded sheet of paper, a line of numbers down its left side. “This is how much each of the officers on the force is paid by Drakon. Some take it in talents; some in packets of Dragon. Each is a connection that we could leverage if we had any reason to—and we have nothing for Jabberwock.”

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“You know about it?”

“Bits and pieces. Usher didn’t know what to call the substance in Chesnes’ blood, but he was certainly excited about it, and there are records of shipments that are unaccounted for anywhere else in the city.” He smiled. “But it is good to have confirmation, Hexel. Both that I am correct about the implications—and that you are not lying to me any longer. It is only when we know we are dreaming that we can escape the nightmare.”

I scoffed. “I’ve known I was dreaming for years. There’s barely been a time when Robin didn’t know it. We’re both still here. And-” I yanked the handcuff against the bar so that it rattled, loud and sudden. “I think you’re in no position to be making moral lectures.”

“Focus, Hexel. You think they killed him?”

“Of course. I think he was lured somewhere with the promise of Jabberwock—no, not the promise. The reality, if it was in his system. And then they killed him to send a message to Drakon.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“There is a lot you don’t seem to know, for an investigator. Is Drakon paying you?”

“Nobody’s paying me at the moment—and I’m burning through my money. If I’m going to work with you, I might need a retainer for services rendered, past and present. I know you can afford it.”

He drummed his fingers on the table. “And here I’d thought you came to me begging for help. The answer to that is ‘no’, by the way. What aren’t you telling me? How did you find Robin when so many others were looking for her? You are not the smartest nor the best-resourced out there—why you? What happened last night that I don’t yet know?”

“Well, if I’m not smart and I’m not rich, I must have found Robin cause of my pretty face.”

He shifted his hand forward, still tapping his fingers. Up and down, up and down, beginning to brush against my wrist when they hit the table, brief flickers of hurt that presaged what more he could be doing. “Come on, Hexel.”

I kept my face as impassive as I could manage. “Two-faced rat.”

“With my name, ‘vulture’ might be more accurate.” He shrugged. “I could ask Robin. She has no reason to hide anything from me.”

“You could,” I said. “But you won’t. You haven’t. And if you started asking her questions, how long would it be until you tried this little routine with her? How long would it be before you’d be no different than Drakon, dragging whatever you wanted to hear out of a child because of what she knew. Pretend all you want, Conjager, dress it up in fancy words and high philosophy, but you know it as well as I do. That’s why you didn’t bring here in the first place, isn’t it? Why you didn’t ask the questions together? You needed Robin to keep that picture-perfect image of you.”

“Now who’s guessing at high principles?”

“Let me go,” I said. “We’re done here.”

He was silent for a moment. Then he reached towards me—and I flinched away, just a little bit—and unlocked the handcuffs with a rusty key. “Isn’t it nice that we’re on the same page now?” he said. “I’ll keep your secrets, now I know what most of them are. But in return, you’re going to help me. We’re going to go on a little trip tonight—to the Jabberwock warehouses, where their shipping’s coming in. See what we can learn."