Patton nodded and paused for a moment. He brought out a delicate, porcelain tea cup and a saucer from some compartment underneath the table. "Would you like some tea? It's black. Heard it was your favorite."

Vanessa stared at the cup he pushed towards her and bit her tongue. Only one person knew that.

In all her interrogations interrupting her time in the Quiet Box, Warren had never been present. Now, he told Patton things about her to mess with her? Anger rose in her throat like vicious oil. She missed him so sharply, and the knife only deepened with these little perceived betrayals. She wanted to rake her nails down his back and kiss him, and she wanted to yell and scream too. She wanted hugs and held hands and she wanted a boxing match.

Did she deserve any of that? No, and she knew so just as well.

But, that didn't stop the vicious, visceral wanting.

When Vanessa didn't move to take it, Patton sighed. "It isn't what you think. I'm not being malicious. I asked around for anyone who knew you more than just at Fablehaven. Tanu led me to Warren. He only told me a few of your favorites and spare details of your past."

Vanessa nodded jerkily. If Warren would come visit her himself, maybe then they could have it out. He could scream, she could scream, and dislodge all the ill will and desire clogging her throat.

"But, my suspicions are correct, yes?"

Vanessa lifted her head. "What suspicions?"

"You're not just an operative who switched sides for a simple ideological reason. There was more at stake."

Vanessa realized his implications in the raise of his eyebrow. Laughter bubbled out of Vanessa and she clutched her stomach. Her natural aversion to emotion steamrolled over this touchy-feely approach. "I don't know if the Society was different in your era, but Society agents don't see more at stake than the mission."

"But, you're not a Society agent anymore, no?"

Vanessa sobered and pursed her lips. "No."

"In fact, you were an undercover Knight for some time. How was that?"

"Fun until I flew too close to the sun," Vanessa said. She finally took the tea and sipped it. Trace, unique spices melted on her tongue, and a lump grew in her throat. It was perfect. Warren hadn't just told Patton her favorite, he had to have made it.

Patton pulled a notepad out of his breast pocket and squiggled something down. He replaced it and looked back at Vanessa. "Did you know Lena?"

Vanessa straightened without thinking of her reaction. "Did? Has something happened?"

He cast his eyes down.

She blinked and slumped back into her chair. Oh. Lena Burgess was dead. "No. I didn't know her. Not very well."

Patton hummed. "She talks a lot about the morality of light and dark creatures. I like to think I get quite close to thinking how she does. But, blixes have always been an unusual category of creatures for the distinction between light and dark. Most classify blixes as inherently dark creatures. But, I never really thought that was true. There is a very human agency in blixes, I believe." He tilted his head at her in expectation.

"My mother went to church every Sunday." Imperceptibly, Vanessa winced after the admission. If she was going to defend the morality of blixes, her mother was a horrible option to lead with. She cleared her throat. "I think if you scanned the brain of a blix and a human, that it would look mostly the same. I think we're the same."

Patton hummed and fidgeted with his watch. Maybe he had limited time. Vanessa blinked the wetness out of her eyes. She had condescended to give her true thoughts to him for that question out of respect for Lena. While it was true that Vanessa and Lena were not close at all, there was a certain kinship that Vanessa had felt. Lena had been a magical creature and still was even after her fall—to an extent. Moreover, she had fallen in love with a human.

The Sorensons loved Lena—had loved—despite her actions as a naiad which they excused as beyond her control. Vanessa wished she could claim that defense. She wished she could truly say all her bad things were because of some uncontrollable impulse in her nature. But, that wasn't true and she knew it. When blixes did bad things it was for the same reasons that humans did so—pressure, poverty, fear, and overwhelming emotion.

Patton cleared his throat, something suspiciously wet. He blinked and leaned forward on his elbows. The interrogation began again. "Why do you think Fablehaven was your downfall?"

"Probably my reluctance to kill children," she deadpanned.

The empathy vacated Patton's face and he twisted the end of his mustache in thought. "Do you think, if you returned to the Sphinx with a significant accomplishment, say an artifact, he would welcome you back?"

"No. He would pretend to, take the valuable object, and then kill me. Besides my sin of knowing too much, he must suspect that I've leaked his secret as well. The Sphinx hates when his playing field is manipulated by others," Vanessa outlined. "He wants me dead."

"And you're certain?"

"Positive."

A patient man, but not one without a keen desire for revenge. Vanessa knew how much it pained the Sphinx to be outsmarted and undermined. She remembered his whispered comments under the darkness of night about his unspecified job. His complaints of rogue employees and the like. He hated what she had done, no doubt.

"I'm curious. How did the Sphinx find out your knowledge?"

"I made a mistake."

"How?"

"Terror. Learning the secret felt like gaining a ticking time bomb strapped to my chest." Vanessa shook her head. "I knew, no matter how good I was as an operative, if he found out that I knew his secret, I would be dead. That was simply a loose end he could not tolerate. I was never so paranoid in my life, and because of it, I missed a crucial step that must've alerted him to my knowledge."

This tidbit produced a lull in Patton's wit, and Vanessa took the time to sip more of the tea. The sensation of taste was so novel to her after weeks of sense deprivation, but the taste itself was quite familiar. Sugar and honey brought quiet mornings in shitty hotels back to her mind, soft, teasing words, and the gravity of two stars that couldn't stop circling each other. It brought something she could never have again. Vanessa put down the tea—the taste had soured.

"You're a self-described opportunist," Patton said. "If a better opportunity came along, would you ditch the Sorensons?"

"Sure. But, do you see a better opportunity? I sure don't. I'm black-balled from the Society and the Knights of Dawn. I'm a blown agent and a traitor for the other. The people that know me and my knowledge and my abilities want me dead." Vanessa leaned back in her chair. Anger thrummed through her veins. "In contrast, I despise the Sphinx and the Society for discarding me despite my years of loyalty. I want nothing more than to see him fail. I don't care about the stupid demon prison. I never did. This is personal to me now, and my goal is to destroy him. This firmly aligns me with you guys."

Patton twisted the end of his mustache in thought. Vanessa looked around, drinking in the visual stimuli that she had been so deprived of. She felt so tired. Her tongue had rusted and her claws had dulled. She had a dreadful premonition—that nothing she could do or say was ever going to get her out of this cage.

Patton stood and pushed his chair in. "Thank you for this conversation. If you may." He gestured to the Quiet Box.

Just like she thought.

With a sigh and the countenance of a long-suffering martyr, she stepped into her personal coffin.