Page 12 of Mud

“Right there,” Cassie said, her whisper low, her eyes dark. “The cameras were right there. I managed to sneak a copy of the footage of him before he escaped. He was there one moment and then…just gone the next.”

Justgone.

Except that’s not how it worked, was it? Magic or not, you couldn’t justbegonefrom anywhere, let alone a place like the Tomb. With the number of security wards and locks and cameras and lasers and automatic lockdown systems—it just couldn’t be. Itcouldn’t.

“Show me,” I said, surprising myself just as much as I surprised Cassie.

“The footage?” I nodded. She squinted her eyes at me in suspicion. “Are you sure?”

Fuck no, I wasn’t sure. I’d gone so long without seeing his face, and I did not want to see it tonight—but what other choice did I really have?

“Yes, I’m sure. Show me, Cassie. I need to see.” Even my voice shook, and this time I didn’t try to hide it.

Cassie nodded reluctantly. She put her cup down and stood up.

“Follow me.”

Chapter 5

Rosabel La Rouge

Present day

It hadn’t been this hard for me to hide what I was feeling since the night I was chosen by the IDD’s director in Madeline’s office at the mansion for asecret undercover missionout of the blue. I’d been a mess of nerves then, and I was a mess of nerves now, and I barely contained all of it under my skin and behind my face.

There were people in the Monitoring room, a lot of them. Most Iridians, some orcs and elves, and they all turned to look at me walking in with Cassie—but that’s not why I was so nervous that my hands were shaking.

I was nervous because after a year and eight months and eleven days, I was going to see Taland Tivoux’s face again.

“Nothing to see here, peeps. Just working on an investigation with Agent La Rouge. Carry on,” Cassie said to hercolleagues, and they all eventually turned to their screens again.

The Monitoring room was huge, and it was made of two levels. The stairs that led to the upper floor were right in the middle of the oval-shaped space, and they had much bigger screens up there compared to the agents down here. Five rows on wide tables filled up every inch of space, and there were no windows here, no light other than that from the screens, and the smaller lamps mounted on the white walls. The IDD liked to keep it simple. This office was only for monitoring and gathering visual information. We were connected to the human police departments and had access to any camera in the city (including private ones, without their knowledge or consent), and we had our own devices planted all over as well. Iridians were nothing if not thorough. After all, we’d taken on the noble responsibility of protecting the world from magical wrongdoers, so anything went as long as it was labeledFor the Greater Good.

“Please try not to breathe down my neck too hard. It creeps me out,” said Cassie when she sat in front of a computer close to the end of the room opposite the second level.

“Sure thing,” I muttered, leaning away a bit. She typed in the password to unlock the system, then took a nervous look around before she grabbed the monitor and pulled it slightly to the side so it faced the wall. People would have a hard time seeing the screen without coming all the way to her table.

“Confidential,” said Cassie to one of her colleagues on her other side, who continued to stare our way. I didn’t even care to look—I was hyperventilating by then.So, so close…

“Okay, ready? And please don’t make a sound,” Cassie said under her breath, then double-clicked on the only file she’d left on the blue desktop of her screen. The video player filled every inch of it, completely black with only the Play icon in the middle.

Cassie looked up at me for a second, and it was easy to see that she was concerned. Whatever I was about to see in this video, Iwasn’tgoing to like it. Not even a little bit.

“Go ahead,” I said anyway, my voice thick. My mouth was so dry I was surprised my tongue hadn’t cracked yet.

“Here goes nothing,” Cassie muttered, then pressed the space bar on her keyboard.

Colors came to life on the screen. My heart stood still as I watched them paint the picture all at once. It showed a large place, chaotic, full of benches on one side, and chairs and tables in one corner, gym equipment in another, even piles of books scattered around here and there with no rhyme or reason.

“This is the lounge area. Pretty much all there is to the Tomb,” Cassie said under her breath, waving her finger around the screen. “The confinement rooms are underground. The cells are built in levels to better reinforce the wards.”

It was the first time I was seeing the Tomb, though I’d heard plenty about it, and my team and I had put a lot of bad people in there.

Ihad put one person in there, too, before I ever became an agent.

A job well done, Miss La Rouge. A seasoned veteran wouldn’t have pulled it off quite so spectacularly. Bravo.

The reminder of those words brought bile up my throat—or maybe it was the many people who were moving andtalking in what was calledthe lounge areabut was actually just a big cage.

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