“I was going to.” She shrugged sheepishly. “Then we saw the demon in her laboratory, and I thought it might be handy to hang on to this.”
“Why? Were you expecting me to break onto campus?”
“Probably not. But you never know.” Daisy sat up, apparently realizing she wasn’t going to get any sleep without an explanation. “Look. Aurelie may have a demon living in her lab, but we don’t know what it was doing there. She attempted to kill anatia, which means she’s not a demon sympathizer.”
“Even being sympathetic to one demon is enough,” Des said. They both knew the law, both knew the consequences. So did Aurelie.
“But what if her knowledge could be helpful?”
Aurelie was a lot of things, but helpful wasn’t one of them. “What do you mean?”
“She has experience with demons, right?”
“She says she doesn’t.”
Daisy rolled her eyes. “A lie, obviously. But how many civilians do you know of who’ve encountered demons and lived to tell about it?”
Des thought for a moment. A few, maybe, but none who hadn’t been severely injured in the attack. “Point taken. She has knowledge of demons that even we may not.” Includingverita, it seemed. “Nonviolent encounters haven’t been studied.”
“Right. Because we didn’t think they werepossible. And Aurelie has been living with a demon! She’s a scientist, Des. She’s smart,and insightful, and we know she’s faced demons before, based on her behavior tonight. Isn’t there a chance that if she’s studying demons, she knows things we don’t? Things that might actually help us make Wisteria safer for everyone?”
Des inhaled deeply, trying to quell a rising sense of doom, and let it out slowly. “Yes, Daisy, it’s possible. But it’s too late. I already turned her in.” He held out the key.
Daisy patted his shoulder and climbed out of the bed, ignoring his outstretched hand. “I’m sure if you went to the university first thing tomorrow, you could catch her. But it’s entirely up to you, Des. Get rid of it, if you don’t think it could be useful. If you don’t think there’s some chance Aurelie Blake isn’t as useless as you claim she is.”
“Daisy—”
“Goodnight, Destroyer.”
“Daisy,” Des hissed, but she had already disappeared in the dark.
Thanks to Daisy, Des got no sleep that night, and by mid-morning, he was on his way out of the city with the Iron Swords, no time to visit Aurelie even if he’d wanted to. They were on horseback, which Des, despite his name, had never been truly comfortable with. Even these destriers—black and gray stallions with the hooves of draft horses and withers higher than Des’s head—shouldn’t have to bear so much weight, though they did it admirably.
He rode next to Aspen, his thoughts returning again and again to Aurelie as he tightened his grip on the iron key tied to a leather thong around his neck, unable to use it but equally unable to leave it behind.
By the time they reached the village, it was dusk, and Des was afraid that they might be too late. If the demon had fed on human flesh already, it could be even larger than when they’d departed that morning. The village, which lay directly between Wisteria City and Hellebore, another large city, didn’t have its own Iron Guard, and the platoon in Hellebore was already stretched thin, covering several other outlying villages.
They went directly to the creator’s house, where his newly widowed wife and their three children waited. There would be no catching this inventor alive; his illegal activity had cost him the ultimate price.
“If it’s all right, I’d like to help question the family,” Des said, earning an odd look from Aspen. “I’ve never collected a witness statement,” he explained. The other Iron Swords agreed to wait outside, not wanting to overwhelm the family.
“Be quick. And take notes.” The order came from Lieutenant Commander Thorne, a man Des bore grudging respect for but had never liked. Thorne was short and stocky, with a neck nearly as thick as his head. He had the most kills of any hunter in the Iron Guard, and the ego to go along with it.
The young widow, a Mrs. Piper, and her children were huddled together on a sofa, looking as afraid of Des as though he were a demon himself. “It’s all right,” Des said as he sat in a chair across from them. “We’re just here to ask a few questions.”
The widow nodded, quietly asking her oldest son to take the other two children upstairs.
“I’ll make some tea,” Aspen offered, heading off toward the kitchen.
“Can you tell me what happened, Mrs. Piper?” Des said, tryingto be as gentle as possible. “Did your husband make something illegal?” Seeing the concern on the woman’s face, he tried for a soft smile. “You’re not in any trouble. We just need to know for our records, to help prevent things like this from happening again.”
“Our well was contaminated,” she said, her voice raspy from crying. “Something must have died in it, or... I don’t know. But we couldn’t dig a new well, and we were desperate for clean water.”
Unease twisted Des’s gut. “So your husband...?”
“He created a filter using sand. I didn’t understand how it worked, just that it did. We finally had clean water again. But he decided to tinker with it, to see if he could make it more effective.” She broke off in sobs. “He didn’t know he’d invented anything. He just wanted to keep us safe!”
“Why didn’t you ask for assistance from your local magistrate?”