“No. It’s okay, though. This morning I let Jess make me feel better.” He couldn’t help it—he quirked an eyebrow. The big gargoyle laughed.
Tristan had awoken Austin shortly after three in the morning to tell him the prisoner’s breathing was dangerously shallow. Austin had witnessed the man’s death—his deathly pale skin, his glassed-over eyes, his muttered words. Where he should be in the morning, why, people he would talk to, things he had witnessed.
Austin had scrambled for something to write on, only to have Tristan stop him, saying, “I’ve got it all.” He’d hesitated, like he hadn’t wanted to divulge anything else, before saying, “I tell you this out of respect for our working relationship and my pledge of loyalty to Jess and your convocation with her. Being this transparent doesn’t come easily to me.” He took a deep breath. “I orchestrated this moment. They had spells on him, I think, to hamper the types of things he could share, but my magic broke those barriers. I have all the information he had to offer.”
He’d explained his worry that Kingsley wouldn’t agree to the means necessary to extract information from the mage. A worry Austin had shared. Given they sorely needed the information, Tristan had known something needed to be done.
That something had presented itself in the midnight hours, it seemed, when the mage had awoken in a sort of fever dream. Since his pulse had beaten strongly, and he hadn’t seemed in any danger of
dying, Tristan had leaned on him with his nightmare magic. All the information about Momar had come tumbling out, including the reports he’d sent in to his boss. Mutterings, mostly, but coherent enough to be incredibly useful.
In the end, however, Tristan’s magic had proven too powerful—he’d pushed too hard, and it had pulled the mage under.
This was all told to Austin with infallible confidence. Tristan’s body language corroborated his story perfectly, relaying the facts and omitting nothing.
Kingsley would have believed it easily.
Austin wasn’t Kingsley.
Austin had lived a rougher life than his brother. He’d learned not to take things at face value, an education he’d paid for dearly many times over.
Tristan’s story had been wrapped up just a little too perfectly. Taking the blame was the nice bow on top. Jess would be absolved of any guilt, Nessa and Sebastian wouldn’t have to take matters into their own hands to protect Sebastian’s slip-up, and Austin didn’t have to go against Kingsley’s wishes or admit he’d lost control of his people. All while they gained incredibly necessary information and rid themselves of the source. A perfect end to a flawlessly executed subterfuge.
He hadn’t pushed, because the result had been necessary, but he wouldn’t forget the little inconsistencies. Like the mage’s voice, raw and rough at the end, an effect that usually resulted from intense and consistent screaming. Or the strange smell, like some sort of chemical, that had hovered around the mage’s face. Or the fact that Tristan had seemed a little too knowledgeable about how Momar would react to learning Elliot Graves was working with Jess.
Austin also couldn’t shake the feeling that something had been omitted regarding Tristan’s magic.
He struggled to believe so much information had been extracted with nothing but his swirling nightmare power, especially if the mage had been screaming （and, if so, why had no one heard that?）。
There had to be more to the story.
That gargoyle had secrets, and he wasn’t keen on sharing.
Austin wasn’t the type of leader to turn a blind eye.
For now, though, they had the information they needed about that mage’s dealings with Momar.
Austin trusted Tristan enough to believe in that. Anything else was peripheral at the moment. When the time came, he felt sure Niamh would love to help sort it all out.
“A reminder,” he told Tristan, “to keep your expression neutral through this meeting. It’s what they expect. Otherwise they might think you’re taunting them. We don’t need any more tension.”
“Yes, sir.”
“When the unexpected happens—not if, when—roll with it. There’s no telling how Kingsley’s people are going to react to Jess’s people, but I assume it won’t be rationally.”
“No problem, sir,” Tristan said, watching Kingsley’s people walk toward them in two orderly rows with Kingsley at the pinnacle. “Having been on the other end of that, it’ll be nice to watch the fireworks this time.”