Flicker transported me, still blindfolded, an indiscernible distance through places unknown, stopping outside what I presumed must have been another door laced with the same material that comprised the impenetrable walls. That was the only explanation I could think of for why he didn't simply teleport us directly into the room. I wondered what made this place so different, because the only other doors in the Guildhall made to nullify superpowers that I knew of had been at the entry hall. Why keep a series of Super-proof doors hidden within the Guildhall itself? Who did they think was trying to get in here, when there ought to have only been their allies?

Or, rather, who did they think was trying to get out?

The blindfold boded ill. The mere fact that they saw it as a necessary precaution denoted a degree of suspicion on their part.

Where had I slipped up? Had Atticus talked? Had Ren read his mind?

At risk of sounding over-defensive, I snapped to Flicker, "I'm not under arrest, so you can't just take me places against my will!"

"A doctor will be with you shortly," he grunted with a hint of formality, pushing me into the room and dragging the thick door closed in the same motion.

I ripped away the fabric obscuring my vision and found myself alone.

And angry.

Throwing myself at the chilly, metal lined door, I shouted, "I don't need a doctor! I just - I just want to call my dads. I want to let them know I'm okay!"

But he was already gone.

*~*~*~*~*~*

True to his word, a doctor arrived within minutes. Despite pushing her way through the hurdle of middle age, she was surprisingly handsome, with dark hair, dark skin, and light, ochre eyes, though that wasn't what made her so striking.

I envied her steadiness, her confidence in her own placement within the world, especially at a time where I doubted everything - everything, that is, except my desire to find Atticus and get us both far, far away.

As anticipated, I was physically fine. I wasn't about to run any marathons, but that had never exactly been in the cards for me anyway.

Shortly after her departure, the door opened once more and five Supers poured inside: the Constable, Ren, Tempest, the weird mummified--looking Super who inexplicably hadn't tried to stop me from escaping the Guildhall alongside Atticus last time we'd met, and a female Elder graying at the temples whose name escaped me. They crammed into a space meant to hold half as many. The Constable seated himself across from me, while the others formed a crescent around the table to both his sides.

Eyeing them warily, I said, "This doesn't seem like a casual visit."

A charming grin broke across the Constable's face, and he folded his hands primly on the table between us. "So," he leaned in, almost conspiratorial, "how long have you known that Nightshade has been using you to heal himself?"

To my credit, I barely blinked, and my heart continued its steady beat. For the benefit of Ren's hidden mind reading, I kept my thoughts carefully quiet. Blank. Processing slowly.

The only one seemingly surprised by the news was Tempest. Having been carefully watching me, almost imploring me to spare him a glance, he whipped his head over to stare openmouthed at his superior.

"What?" he uttered. "No. No, if - if Lily had powers, I would know about–"

I put him out of his misery, addressing the Constable. "Not very long. Not before my most recent capture, anyway."

Excluding Tempest, they all looked to Ren, who nodded obligingly. I didn't think I was meant to notice, nor would I have, had I not already deduced his mindreading ability weeks ago and been watching for signs.

"I see..." the Constable mused. "Dear girl, surely you had your suspicions before then? It didn't once cross your mind? I find that hard to believe."

I felt my hackles rising at his tone, and my fingers curled into my palms atop my thighs. "Am I being accused of something? What does any of this matter? I'm a victim here! I want to leave, and I want to talk to my family, but you dragged me into this room without telling me anything! What's the point of talking to me at all when you already caught him? Nightshade, I mean. Please," I turned my entreat on Tempest for the first time since he entered the room, "just let me go home."

But he seemed strangely unswayed, almost... upset?

"I'm afraid we can't do that quite yet," the Constable said.

"And why not?"

His knowledgeable grin, perfectly crafted to make me feel small and so terribly young in the face of his apparent wisdom, didn't waver, and he lifted his hands in surrender, shaking his head. "Peace, dear girl. Peace. We are on the same side. We, too, want you to go home, but not before we get a few answers. It's better this way, to get it out in the air before the finer details start escaping you. Time will do none of us any good here."

I wished he would stop calling me "dear girl," and I also wished I could smack that condescending smile into memory.

A flash of Ren's pearly white teeth out of my periphery, followed by a cough to cover up his snort of amusement reminded me that he was listening in on my every vengeful thought. In what I presumed was an act of great mercy, he neglected to share those less than kind impulses.

I let out a frustrated breath, trying for patience. "I'm sorry I didn't register my powers earlier, okay? It was wrong and illegal, but I don't think it warrants this level of interrogation. It's just a bit of healing. I can't cause any harm with that, can I?"

"You think I care about you not registering your power?" Almost subconsciously, the Constable's brows rose up his forehead and he glanced to Ren for confirmation that my concern was genuine. "Let me put your mind at ease, then. The register is an insult to those who are empowered, and it is not my dishonor or jurisdiction to enforce it in the first place. I know many an unregistered Thaumaturge, and, so long as they aren't ostentatious about it, they don't get caught. So no. I don't care that you can heal yourself. This is about you healing him, and how that came to pass. How much you know. How he found you. What you do for him. Et cetera."

"But," I repeated, "you already caught him. What more can you possibly want from me?"

I managed to make my voice crack, like the situation, in addition to my past circumstances, left me feeling overwhelmed, but failed to make myself cry. I was simply too angry, nearly shaking from it.

"You can imagine he's been less than forthcoming. Atticus, for all his fine breeding, is terribly stubborn. Must run in the family. I don't imagine the Courtens will donate any more money to keep the Guild running when they find out their golden child is rotting in our prison... Oh!" He made a show of remembering something, but he was a better superhero than actor. "That's right. You know the Courtens, don't you? I've heard from Tempest here that you're actually quite close with their daughter. Curious how that worked out. Very coincidental, wouldn't you agree?"

It had indeed been coincidental, though I saw none of them believed that, not even Tempest. Ezra. My friend turned boyfriend turned ex-friend, apparently. If he couldn't hold out faith for my innocence, false as it was, no one would.

"If you think I've been — been cavorting with my kidnapper, just ask him." I jerked my chin towards Ren. "He's been reading my mind from the very beginning, from the first time I met him, right? There's no other reason for him to have been my Guild liaison after my first abduction. Surely he saw that I honestly had no idea about, well," gesticulating wildly, I finished, "anything.'

"Dear girl," Ren said, with the inflection of an inside joke that never quite reached his serious black eyes, or even stretched to the stern lilt of his lips, "I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm normal as they come."

"Are not."

"Keep telling yourself that, kid."

Why are you lying? I thought, narrowing my eyes at him so there could be no mistake that the message was intended as anything except what it was. What's the point?

But he didn't grant any recognition that he heard, merely turning his attention to that clipboard he carried around all the time and offering one of his scribbles to the Super beside him, the man whose identity I still didn't know.

"Enough!" snapped the graying woman, sending her compatriots a withering glance. "You have done everything except to outright accuse her and succeeded in nothing besides dancing around the issue for nearly half an hour of my life, which I will not get back. Since obviously that is not working," she faced me, "I will be clear with you. Do you know who I am?"

Reluctantly, I shook my head. In the span of time it took me to blink through the motion, however, she was gone, replaced by a perfect replica of myself. All my imperfections on full display in her now baggy clothes. The expression wasn't one of mine, though. That was all her own.

I now understood why I didn't recognize her at first. "You're Narcissus. The face in the water. The reflection by the shore. You steal people's identities."

"Correct," she said in an eerie approximation of my own voice. A little higher pitched, perhaps. More feminine, and far more clipped. "And what do you think happened when I walked into Atticus Courten's cell looking like this?"

A brief notion of panic, of having lost a game I thought I'd been succeeding at, clouded my senses, and my breathing hitched somewhere midway up my throat. But that sensation passed quick as it came, and I knew the right answer without her telling me.

"Nothing happened, or you wouldn't be here."

"Also correct," she murmured, her hair shooting several inches back into her scalp, soft skin growing lined and sun-marked. She shrank down to her former height and was her austere self again. "He knew instantly the gambit afoot, that I was not you, which is nearly as telling as if he'd fallen for the deception and told us everything we wanted to know. All these... coincidences, they don't paint you favorably, but you can still salvage that by telling us what we want to know."

"You presume I know anything at all, but I don't. He was my captor," I said, sounding incredulous for their ears. "He didn't detail his plans to me."

I didn't look at Ren. If anything I said or thought was going to activate a trapdoor beneath my feet reserved solely for liars, it would be that.

And still, he said nothing. Maybe he missed it? Maybe my thoughts were as confusing as he once claimed. Either way, Narcissus sighed, "It seems you are not yet ready to be helpful. We will return when you are."

Even the Constable, who appeared bothered by her hijacking his interrogation, rose up and started to the door.

"Wait!" I protested. "I haven't committed any crimes!" That they could prove... "You can't just keep me here indefinitely! That's-" I grappled for an appropriately sophisticated sounding phrase, "that's wrongful imprisonment! I demand a lawyer, representation of some kind. You can't do this!"

"Oh, dear child." The look the Constable sent me, framed in the doorway, chilled me to the bone. "No one knows you're here. We can keep you as long as we like." To Tempest, he said, "Come along, dear boy."

"I'd actually like a private word with her," Tempest replied.

"Very well. I'll leave Fate behind to let you out, but don't be too long. He has things to do," the Constable said.

"Thank you, sir."

"Ezra," I begged after the rest of them had filed out of the room, using his given name to try to appeal to the part of him that had once felt any connection to me whatsoever. "You have to tell my dad where I am - that I'm okay. Please, that's all I ask."

Towering over me from the other side of the table, he placed his palms flat on the smooth linoleum surface, letting them carry his weight. "Why didn't you tell me you had powers?"

"Why should I have?"

A vein throbbed in his neck, letting me know he did not approve of that response. "Because I told you about mine. Do you not trust me?"

"I had an inkling of my powers for only a few days by the time you told me about yours! You'd been hiding your power from me for almost two years at that point, so you finding mine out now is still way ahead of schedule, as far as I'm concerned."

"Were you planning to tell me at all?"

I hesitated, and apparently that was answer enough, because he pushed roughly away from the table and spun towards the door. That pushed me over the edge.

"Why can't you sympathize with my instinct to conceal a secret that you, of all people, should understand the importance of keeping? Why are you so quick to accept the idea that such a petty crime warrants my being falsely imprisoned when you have yet to prove I've done anything wrong!" I shouted at his back. "You are being petty and it's frankly beneath you."

He stopped with his hand crushing the doorknob. "Just because we can't prove it doesn't mean you're innocent, Lily."

I reeled back in my seat, as though struck. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Even though he was right, it didn't make the charge sting any less. After all, he didn't know anything for sure. He was presuming what he wanted to believe in that pained, retaliatory moment.

"I think you know what I mean," he said, speaking to me over his shoulder. "Everyone is thinking it. What are the odds that you were by his side day and night for months of time and still didn't see his face? The only other person he supposedly abducted was himself, so he doesn't exactly have a history of kidnapping."

"He pushed me off a building!" I retorted. "I could have died! I certainly wasn't in on that."

Tempest, in his infuriating nonchalance, shrugged. "You didn't die. You couldn't. You healed - and you lied about how. Don't think anyone is going to overlook your step-father's hand in perpetuating that lie, either. He obviously lied to our faces."

Oh, hell no. He was not about to bring my family into this.

"Lie about what, exactly?" I sneered. "He was my doctor, and I his patient. He had his Hippocratic Oath to uphold. Nothing he withheld had anything to do with the Guild, as far as he was concerned. He couldn't have known my healing was why Shade wanted me."

Expression remote, he said, "We'll see."

Although I never considered myself a violent person, I could have thrown something at him in that moment: My chair, maybe - or my fist, not that either would have made it very close, when faced with his wind.

And despite knowing it was stupid to make an enemy of potentially my only ally amongst a group seeking out my every fault, I lowered my voice to a hiss, "This is exactly why I refused to get back together. I knew I would never come first, and you would always be a Guild dog first before anything else. Now, get out. And forget what I said about telling my dads I'm okay. Stay the hell away from my family. Stay the hell away from me."