“That was the intention.” Toland sounded frustrated. “But what was he sent here to do exactly?”
I groped around for answers, but I came up empty. Despite the soothing siren song, I was starting to panic. If Toland didn’t know how we got here, how the hell was he going to find a way to get us back?
“Stop.” Devra’s voice was sharp. “She’s had enough. She can’t remember.”
“She has to,” the headmaster said, a reflection of my own panic edging his tone. “She’s the only one who heard his monologue, we need to know every word he said!”
My heart was racing, thrumming so hard and fast in my chest it felt like an engine revving. But my body, held in Cassandra’s siren song, refused to react. I floundered in the dark, grasping for stray words as my memories played out in my mind’s eye, moving faster and faster the more I tried to catch up with them.
“Pull back,” Devra insisted. “She’s losing focus. She can’t regain it under this pressure.”
“She’s going to have to.” The hard edge to Toland’s voice made my panic spike even higher.
“I. Can’t!” I gasped. Memories spun around my head, flashes of yellow and red and blue, the bloody battle mixing with sex and fear and academia and Seattle, a cluster fuck of nonsense.
“Cassandra, stop this!” Devra bypassed Toland entirely.
“No, Cassandra. Keep her sedated until we get answers!”
“She’s shaking,” Charles, the tweedy mage, said in his nervous tenor.
My teeth clattered together until I thought they would crack. Cassandra’s spell began to weaken. She was pulling back without Toland’s approval. It felt like a breakup, like a parent dying, like being picked last for dodgeball while simultaneously getting fired. I was desperate for her to keep singing, even if it killed me. I needed her song.
“No,” I whispered through trembling lips.
Cassandra still withdrew, pulling away from my consciousness so slowly I almost couldn’t tell until the heartache grew stronger. My cheeks were wet with tears, and I was sobbing so hard I couldn’t speak.
“All right,” Toland said with a sigh. “Release her.”
“I am.” The siren’s voice had lost just a little of its tune, but I still clung to the sound of her song like a lifeline. “It’s going to take a long time.”
“Why?”
“I made her go too deep. If I break the connection too fast, her mind may not recover.”
I wondered if she’d given the same consideration to Xero, who had very nearly been broken by our first round of interrogations. He looked big and scary and tough, but he was so soft underneath. Loving and warm and vulnerable. The way they’d gone after him though, you’d think he was a wanted criminal on three planes of existence.
My stomach tightened at the memory of his face when he’d emerged from the questioning, but the fact that I could wonder about that at all meant Cassandra’s spell was fading. It was a heart-wrenching relief when she released me completely; as the echoes of her song faded in the chamber, so did my heartache.
Toland had his head cradled in his laced fingers and was looking down at the table. Devra was glaring daggers at him, clearly disapproving of how far he had taken things. Cassandra herself looked exhausted.
“Next.” Toland raised his voice slightly without looking at me. “Bring Xero.”
“No,” Cassandra said.
“Excuse me?” He glanced up, his mustache bunching up as he frowned.
She turned to him. “I need Jayce. He was an actor before he was turned into a hellhound, which means he was trained to open up his heart and mind. I won’t be able to fight another guarded mind until I recharge a little bit. Bring me Jayce, then Kingston, then Kai. Xero will be last.”
My heart sank, and anger tightened my jaw. She was giving herself plenty of time to gear back up before going after Xero. I wanted to shake her and tell her to stop judging him for what she thought she knew about him. To make her see that he was sensitive and earnest and would be so willing to help her if she’d just give him the chance.
But I didn’t. I could barely speak, let alone move.
“Very well.” Toland waved a hand impatiently. “You can choose the lineup, as long as we get through them all today.” He shifted his gaze to Vesper. “Take Piper to isolation.”
“Yes, sir.” His assistant rose and guided me out of the chair by my elbow. She was a short woman with a round face and deep-set eyes.
“I’ve never seen him like this,” I whispered to her as we left the room.