Chapter 28 · Dad Behind the Glass

"You've got one minute to tell me why I shouldn't put you through that wall."

Calder didn't flinch. He was sitting on the floor where I'd shoved him, wings folded tight, claws resting flat on the concrete. The ACCOMPLICE brand was still hot on my wrist, glowing faint red through my sleeve.

"Because you need me," he said.

"Wrong answer."

I grabbed his collar and hauled him up. Stone scraped stone. The cuff was gone but I could still feel the ghost of it, the weight that'd kept us locked together for three days. Finn was halfway to a holding cell by now. Seraphine had the token. And I had a gargoyle who'd lied to me from the start.

"Try again," I said.

He met my eyes. His pupils were narrow slits, the way they got when he was cornered. "Your father's alive."

I let go.

He didn't step back. Just straightened his collar and kept talking, voice low and fast. "He's in the substation under the ward-core. Seraphine's been keeping him there since the night he disappeared. She needed someone who could read the old grid, and he was the only auditor left who knew how."

"You're lying.