Jamie walked into the Coven the next morning, his mind still reeling. Quigley had tried to talk him out of transporting Wyatt’s body to the morgue last night. But Jamie insisted; it was the last thing he could do for the man he’d once loved.

The man he’d failed.

Even so, Quigley, Dominic, and Rook accompanied him, obviously not wanting to leave him alone in his grief. Through the haze of disbelief and horror, he’d appreciated the gesture. Before he left, Dominic and Rook gently asked him to come see them at the Coven so he could answer their questions about Wyatt, whenever he was ready.

Jamie hadn’t slept a wink once he’d gotten home, his mind churning. Nothing made sense.

Over a year ago, the army had declared Wyatt dead, along with Eddie. They’d been assigned a special mission after the fall of Santiago. What the mission had been, he’d never learned, only that it had cost their lives. He’d mourned Eddie, alongside the other men he’d known who had died in Cuba.

But Wyatt…Jamie felt as though the familiar’s death had broken something inside him. Over and over and over, he’d wondered if everything would have been different if he’d been with them. If he hadn’t been hit by the artillery shell at El Pozo. If he’d made it to Kettle Hill and San Juan Heights, and through to the other side.

If he’d been with them on that special mission, filling in as their hexman, since the real one had been accidentally left behind in Tampa.

Could he have saved Wyatt? The question haunted his nights, drowning out even the pain of his leg. Except apparently Wyatt hadn’t needed saving after all. At least, not then.

Saint Mary, Holy Familiar of Christ, give him strength.

He made his way slowly up the stairs to the detective’s area, careful to place his wooden leg fully on each step before trusting his weight to it, and using the railing for an extra bit of leverage. Witches and familiars flowed around him, arguing or laughing as they passed. A Sharp-shinned Hawk almost clipped his hat with a wing, and a cat dashed between his legs.

Dominic and Rook shared a desk near the large windows. Dominic had been a hexman before bonding with Rook, and his expertise meant he spent most of the time behind the desk comparing various hexes, rather than working the streets. Though the desk included a perch for Rook, right now he was in human form, huddled close to Dominic as they peered at something together.

Bands tightened around Jamie’s chest, and his stomach rolled over at the prospect of what was to come. He couldn’t avoid answering their questions. But maybe…maybe he could get some answers of his own.

Dominic glanced up as he approached. “MacDougal, isn’t it?”

“Aye, sir.” Most of the detectives didn’t pay him much attention. He was the fellow who drove the wagon, nothing more. “Jamie MacDougal.”

Rook hopped out of his chair and pulled it away from Dominic’s side. “Have a seat.” Before Jamie could object, Rook shifted into crow form and flapped up to the perch on the desk.

Jamie took the seat. Dominic shuffled some papers, then looked at Jamie. “Before we begin, I’m sorry for your loss.”

Jamie swallowed convulsively. “Thank you.”

“We’ve sent for Wyatt’s military records, but they haven’t arrived yet.” Dominic paused. “The Police Board spoke to Governor Roosevelt this morning. He’s extremely insistent that there must have been a mistake. None of his men would have deserted.”

Desertion. Christ, Jamie hadn’t even thought about that. If Wyatt had been declared dead, if he’d never reported back, that made him a deserter, didn’t it?

The Wyatt he’d known would never have done such a thing. Jamie would have bet his life on it.

And yet. “It was him. I swear it.”

“I believe you,” Dominic said. “Someone else has also confirmed Wyatt’s identity.”

Someone else? Wyatt had come to New York, not bothered to let Jamie know he was alive, but had revealed his identity to someone else?

“But, as we don’t want trouble from Governor Roosevelt, Wyatt will officially be an unidentified eagle familiar,” Dominic went on. He opened a notebook and took out a pen. “Now. When did you last see Wyatt alive?”

Jamie swallowed thickly. He felt himself reeling, as he had in the days after losing his leg, certain none of it could be true. “After Las Guasimas.” The ambush Roosevelt had led them straight into. “The First Volunteer Cavalry had three witch and familiar pairs: an eagle, a cougar, and a dog. Wyatt’s witch was a fellow named Eddie Brookes.” Jamie hesitated, uncertain what sort of details Dominic actually wanted. “Their hexman got left behind in Tampa, along with the horses. Ever since I joined the MWP, I’ve been practicing drawing hexes. Simple ones that might come in handy, nothing advanced like yours,” he added hastily. “I’m no hexman, but Eddie had no skill at it at all, so I ended up working with them. Which turned out to be a good thing, since our supply of everything, including hexes, was terrible.”

He could still see Wyatt’s pale yellow eyes, the color of white wine in a clear glass. His smile. Jamie tried to remember the taste of his lips and couldn’t.

Jamie cleared his throat, realizing he’d lapsed into silence. “We were busy after the battle—making and charging new sleeping hexes for the wounded who needed surgery, that sort of thing. So we didn’t have much time to talk.” He’d been so relieved to see they’d come through unscathed. “But I was injured on the march after.”

The hell of it was, the shell hadn’t even been aimed at him, but at the artillery guns on the hill above. Maybe if it had happened during a battle, face-to-face with the Spanish, he would have felt more like the hero everyone seemed to think he was. Would have boasted and bragged about how he might have come away with a third of his leg gone, but the other fellow had fared worse. Instead, one moment he’d been fine, and the next lying on the ground, his leg a welter of shattered bone and blood. If there had been any sort of warning, he couldn’t remember it.

“You said Wyatt was supposed to be dead?” Dominic probed.

Jamie nodded. “Aye. I didn’t find out until I was already on the hospital ship, on the way home. Eddie died on some sort of special mission, after the surrender. I don’t know what it was. His body was shipped back to Arizona and buried there. But Wyatt’s body wasn’t recovered. It didn’t really seem odd, though—he was an eagle, flying over the jungle, where snipers would sit in trees. He would never have been found under those conditions. I never imagined, even for a second, that he would desert, and neither did anyone else. I don’t understand what happened. Wyatt wasn’t a coward. He would have rejoined the unit, not run away.”

None of this made any sense.

Dominic took notes in his neat hexman’s hand. “You didn’t know he’d returned to New York?”

“Nay.” Bitterness coated the word, despite his attempt to keep it down. Wyatt had been here, alive, and hadn’t even tried to contact Jamie.

Rook croaked softly. Dominic winced, then glanced at Jamie. “You were…friends, though.”

“I thought so.” But he’d also thought Wyatt would never abandon their fellow Rough Riders. “What happened to him, Detective Kopecky? The hex…”

“We’re trying to figure that out,” Dominic said, closing his notebook. “Did he have any family you know of?”

“Aye. Well, sort of.” Jamie pressed his lips together. “He didn’t like to talk about it, but his mother belonged to one of those churches that believe all familiars are touched by the devil. Wyatt left, though he had a brother who stayed behind. I don’t think he’d talked to either of them in years.”

“I see.” Dominic reached into his desk and took out a slender gold chain, bearing on it a small pendant. “This was the only thing of any value on Wyatt’s body. Since it doesn’t sound as if there’s anyone else to give it to, would you like to have it?”

Jamie nodded dumbly. Dominic dropped the necklace into his hand. Jamie ran his thumb over the familiar shapes inscribed on it: a bow symbolizing Diana, Goddess of the Hunt, set within a tangle of hexwork. The activation phrase was inscribed on the back: Guard and guide me.

“I figure the old gods look more kindly on familiars,” Wyatt had said, when Jamie asked. “As for why Diana, well, I hunt with my talons, and she hunts with her bow.”

“It’s a hex,” Dominic said. “Not charged at the moment, according to Tom Halloran. Any idea what it does?”

Jamie shook his head. “Nay. Wyatt said it was ‘a little something extra, just in case.’ In case of what, I don’t know. You really don’t recognize what kind of hex it is?”

“I’m certain I could figure it out, given the time.” Dominic shrugged. “It looks like some sort of variation on a hexlight. It could be recharged, since the necklace is gold, but it likely isn’t anything with much power. If you want me to dig into it, though…”

“Nay, that’s all right.” Jamie’s hand closed over the necklace. The gold felt cool against his skin. “Have you been able to find his apartment? Or flophouse, or wherever he was staying?”

Dominic shook his head. “No. We’ll likely send one or two of the unbonded familiars around to ask questions, find out if anyone recognizes his description. But given the size of the city, and the fact we’re meant to be focusing on the campaign against illegal hexes, I haven’t much hope.”

Jamie tried not to let his disappointment show. Maybe if he could have seen the space where Wyatt spent his last days, talked to any roommates, this would all somehow make more sense. Or even any sense. “Did you have more questions?”

“Not right now.” Dominic turned back to the pile on his desk. “Please tell me if anything comes to mind, though.”

It was a dismissal. Jamie started to stand, when Rook suddenly jumped to the floor and took human form. “Fur and feathers, just what we didn’t need,” he said to Dominic. “Here comes Nick.”

Nick stood at the foot of the stairs leading up to the Metropolitan Witch Police headquarters. The Coven, they called it.

He’d gone inside a couple of times before, when one of the ferals under his care had been attacked. Strode up the stairs, shouldered his way through the hallways, and found his brother so as to lodge a complaint. Showed the witches he wasn’t afraid to walk among them as a proud feral.

But today he hesitated. His witch was inside.

His witch—what a stupid way to put it. The witch who was most compatible with his magic, that was all it meant. Familiars deluded themselves, thinking everything would be all right if they could just find their witch. Their witch would give them a place to belong, a person to rely on.

But witches didn’t give. They took and they took, nothing more. They dangled a promise of food and safety, of money…in exchange for everything a familiar had to give. Body, soul, and magic. The chance to live a life they wanted, instead of trailing behind their witch.

He’d never bond, no matter how many laws the politicians passed. Better to rot in the Menagerie. Witches had already stolen enough from him: his father, his mother, even his brother. Every dream he’d ever had. But they’d never take his soul.

The moment he’d seen his witch—the witch—had been a shock, visceral as hunger or desire. He’d not expected it to feel that way, and ended up spooking like a colt, stammering an answer to Rook’s question about Wyatt’s identity, then shifting into horse form and galloping back to Caballus as quick as he could.

In a way, though, it was a relief. He’d spent more than half his life wondering when the day would come. When he’d turn a corner, or board a train, or look across a crowded thoroughfare and spot the witch his magic recognized as best able to channel it. A part of him had feared that day. Not that he wouldn’t want to bond, but that, if it were the right person, he might be tempted to give in and bond after all.

He snorted aloud. That was one fear taken away. The witch was a copper, and thank God for it, because it meant Nick wouldn’t have to worry about any temptation to bond with him. Now he could stop looking over his shoulder and concentrate on far more important things.

Like the ferals in his cellar.

Had Wyatt been killed because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time? If he’d come to the park to leave a note for Nick, the murderer might simply have attacked him at random.

But if the killer had chosen Wyatt because he worked to get ferals out of the city before the coppers caught up with them…that was bad. Nick could handle himself, but everyone else might be in danger, from the ferals in his cellar to whoever captained the ferry Wyatt would have guided them to.

He couldn’t risk attracting attention to any of Wyatt’s contacts, unless he knew for certain he wasn’t putting them in danger. The only way to be sure was to come here and talk to his brother.

Nick squared his shoulders and made his way up the stairs, pushing through the throng of reporters who normally gathered there, hoping for any scrap of news to print ahead of their competition. “I’m here to see Rook,” he told the witch at the desk inside—and kept going, without waiting for the woman to respond.

His nerves drew tight, surrounded by so many witches. If they knew one of their own was his witch, at least some of them would think Nick ought to be forced to bond. He put his shoulders back, straightened his spine, and fixed a scowl on his face. Between his size and expression, a path cleared before him as if by magic.

Thankfully, Rook was at his desk, along with Dominic. But a third person sat there, and when he turned to watch Nick’s approach, Nick cursed under his breath. Because of course it was his damned witch.

The fellow looked even better in the daylight. His dark hair was mussed, as though he hadn’t slept well, and the flesh around his green eyes had gone puffy with exhaustion. But he was still devilishly handsome, if one liked the slender, pretty types. Which Nick most assuredly did.

Now was not the time to be thinking with his cock. Nick glared at the witch, then turned his attention on Rook. “Who killed Wyatt?”

Rook folded his arms over his chest and stared defiantly up at Nick. At one time, it had been the two of them against the world. People had remarked on how much Rook looked like a smaller version of Nick—a comment Rook had enjoyed when they were boys, when he’d still admired his older brother. When he’d still trusted Nick would keep him safe.

Before he’d sided with the damned witches.

“Sorry,” Rook said. “You’re going to have to read the newspapers like anyone else.”

Nick glowered, but Rook was immune to intimidation. “You must have an idea. What about that hex?” The memory of Wyatt’s body flashed behind Nick’s eyes. The initial cut had been deep, right through the trachea, carotids, and jugulars. Then the abdomen opened beneath the ribs, perhaps in search of the great veins in the torso. “It was drawn in his blood, wasn’t it?”

“I can’t share details with civilians, Nick.” Rook cocked dark eyes at him. “If you want to know, join the MWP.”

“Did you know Wyatt?” his witch asked.

No, the witch. Not his.

Nick glanced at him. So close, he saw that the man’s right eye had a patch of brown amidst the green, covering about a third of the iris. Heterochromia; the word floated up from the depths of his brain, where he’d consigned the knowledge his father had passed on. It added interest to a face that might have been forgettably pretty otherwise.

The man blinked, and Nick realized he’d been staring. And forgetting to scowl while he was at it. “None of your business, witch,” he said, his tone extra rude to make up for the momentary lapse.

The witch frowned. “Wyatt and I served in the army together. If you knew him, I’d like to talk.”

“If you knew him, we’d all like to hear about it,” Dominic put in.

Rook nodded. “If you have any information that would help the investigation, now would be a good time to mention it.”

Even if Wyatt hadn’t been killed for smuggling ferals out of the city, one question would lead to another, and the coppers would come back to Caballus with a warrant this time.

The ferals hiding in his cellar were his responsibility. As were those living in the colony under his protection. He couldn’t bring the police down on any of them.

“No.” Without saying goodbye, he turned and left.

He would just have to look into Wyatt’s death himself.