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“The Night Market. I want to follow up on the information you passed through Dautre. Is there a reason you didn’t bring it to me yourself?”

“Vic needed me at home.”

“Ah, domestic trouble, and people wonder why I don’t care for romance.” They hit the highway and she let the engine do what it was made for. If there had been any other cars on the sleek, black road, they would have easily smoked them.

“Nice car,” Adam said, trying to change the subject.

“Obviously.”

In most cases, Argent didn’t need to drive. She had more than enough magic to shift planes at will, but she loved automobiles. They were her chosen tool to teleport, much like Rogue Community College relied on doorways.

“We’re going to question Wendy and Joey?”

“Precisely, though interrogate might be more apt.”

“You want to do good cop, bad cop?”

“I was thinking something more along the lines of bad cop, bad cop.” Her smile did not bode well for the imps. “Are you interested?”

“Oh yes.”

“By the way, Carl sends his regards. Did you have to break his nose? He’s rather cross about it.”

“He told me to make it real.” Adam shrugged, though he did feel sort of bad about it. “Did you heal it?”

“I cannot. It would bring questions from the Lost Ones and blow his cover.”

“Tell him I’m sorry about the nose. I really didn’t mean to hurt him.”

“I will.”

Remembering his frustration with her and Silver, he squirmed in his seat while the twisted, funhouse version of downtown passed by. The landscape was filled with extinct creatures and urban sprawl. A herd of woolly mammoths had paused to drink at the river, the Platte, which looked like liquid gold today. It bubbled, molten and steaming, as they passed over it via a bridge.

“You could have told me that he was there.”

“No,” she said flatly. “There are things that I must keep from you.”

“Did you have to lie to me?” He knew he was being naive and more than a little hypocritical.

“The lie was not for you, specifically, but anyone else who might have been listening in.”

“You and Silver worry about that a lot lately. Anything I should know?”

“My brother has enemies, our court, more so. Perhaps, when your title is returned to you, I can tell you more. In the meantime, I am handling it. That is all I can say.”

Argent took the exit for Broadway. The sign opened its mouth and licked its teeth as they sped fast.

He wanted to ask her about North, if she and Silver understood why the knight had done what she’d done, but if he did, and they didn’t know about the boy, then he’d be breaching the knight’s trust. The kid was a secret and a liability to her.

He hoped that at least the one secret, North, distracted from the other.

Not telling them what he was up to, investigating the elven religion and the Between, might be putting people at risk. Their reluctance to believe him had been useful in that regard.

But the time was coming when Adam would likely have to come clean about it all: his work with Jack, what the banshee in the graveyard had said, and worst of all, about Ian.

Argent brought them to an abrupt but graceful stop.

“We’re here,” she said with a bit of dark joy.